Let’s be clear: It seems that as long as a candidate identifies as a Democrat, his past as an alleged rape fantasist, accused abuser, and self-proclaimed Nazi, evidenced by a tattoo, might be overlooked.
Enter Graham Platner, a 41-year-old novice in politics who has become a polarizing figure in his bid for a US Senate seat representing Maine.
The latest allegations against him were detailed in a startling New York Times report published Thursday, titled ‘Several Women Who Dated Graham Platner Recall “Unsettling” Behavior.’
The article draws from over 24 sources, including six women, who describe Platner’s erratic behavior, excessive drinking, and alleged Nazi affiliations, which Platner himself denies.
Yet, it’s the narrative shared by Lyndsey Fifield that should raise concerns among Democrats.
Fifield, a 40-year-old conservative with a long history in GOP campaigns, revealed that she and Platner were involved from 2013 to 2015. Upon encountering his resurfaced online posts, she recalled being struck by ‘just how much he hated women.’
In a 2013 Reddit post, Platner argued that rape victims are responsible for their own sexual assault if they ‘get blacked out f****ed up around people you aren’t comfortable with.’
Platner, Fifield also said, referred to women as ‘hatchet wounds’ — his preferred term for female genitalia.
Platner, an oyster farmer and Marine veteran from Maine, is the Democratic candidate for Senate
In a statement to the Times, Platner seems to say it’s all true: ‘I take responsibility for all of that and wish I had been better.’
For women especially, this should matter. It’s vile. No man who actually loves and likes women, in my opinion, would ever say such a thing.
Could Fifield be motivated, as Platner’s camp suggests, by political animus? It’s absolutely possible, given that other women who dated Platner told the Times that he was a great boyfriend who never made them feel unsafe.
Yet two other ex-girlfriends, who do not identify as conservatives, told the Times he was difficult — not violent, not abusive, just difficult.
Jenny Racicot, 41, a Democrat from Maine, says that she, too, had a visceral reaction to Platner’s resurfaced online posts. ‘I recognized a version of him that I had experiences with,’ she told the Times.
Fifield’s account, however, deserves further examination. She told the Times that Platner once twisted her arm, forced it behind her back and confined her to a bedroom, with Platner holding the door shut from outside, until she was ‘calm’.
She also claimed he grabbed her shoulders hard enough to leave marks, more than once.
If Dems are truly the party of women — after all, they made Stormy Daniels and the criminally convicted Michael Avenatti modern-day feminists — they should be asking their candidate serious questions.
Platner told the Times that he ‘strongly disputes’ Fifield’s claims. But if there were truly nothing to them, wouldn’t he outright deny them?
At least Democratic Senator John Fetterman wants some answers. He’d like to know what Platner was doing on a private messaging app called Kik, which the DOJ has flagged for enabling sexual predators.
‘What kind of a creeper has been on… a platform like Kik and sent a dozen explicit kinds of messages and who knows what else?’ Fetterman asked last week.
It gets even more alarming: Fifield also told the Times that Platner would openly fantasize about rape.
‘He said this a lot: If anybody ever broke in here, I would rape them,’ she recalled, saying that he added that it would not be in ‘a sexual way, not in a gay way.’
‘He was like, I would rape them to show them that I’m dominant,’ she said.
When asked about this by the Times, Platner’s campaign did not deny it or dispute it.
As for that tattoo, the one Platner denies knowing the meaning of, Fifield says he called it ‘my Totenkopf’ — a skull and crossbones design that was adopted and adapted by the Nazis to signify unconditional devotion to Hitler.
Again, Platner’s campaign ‘strongly refutes’ this claim. But Fifield says she has corroborating evidence.
‘It’s a Totenkopf. An actual one,’ she told friends on August 20, in a screenshot she shared with the Times. This was well before Platner publicly claimed that he had just become aware of the tattoo’s meaning.
Another problem with Platner’s defense: Genevieve McDonald, Platner’s former campaign director, told Bangor Daily News that as far back as last August, he warned her he had a tattoo that could possibly, maybe, be ‘problematic.’
If he knew it was a problem, why’d he get it in the first place? As McDonald has pointed out, it strains credulity to believe someone with such extensive military service wouldn’t know the meaning of that symbol.
Platner is an alleged rape fantasist, an accused abuser of women and a seemingly avowed Nazi for 20 years — who had the tattoo to prove it. His candidacy is cool with Democrats as long as he’s a Democrat
Platner served in the US Marines from 2003-2007, where he completed three combat tours in Iraq, then served in the US Army National Guard from 2009-2011, completing a fourth combat tour in Afghanistan.
His admitted heavy drinking, his womanizing, his volatility, the rage he expressed in nearly a decade of Reddit posts are all explained, his campaign says, by the PTSD he’s suffered since combat.
A further sampling of these posts, since deleted by Platner but recovered by The Maine Monitor and published last month:
‘Dumb motherf***er didn’t deserve to live.’ This was in response to a viral video of Pfc. Ted Daniels getting shot four times during a firefight with the Taliban.
‘At least his stupidity and fat ass wheezing are available for all future infantrymen to witness and hold in contempt. Poor marksmanship on the Taliban’s part is the only reason this mouth breather made it home.’
Daniels survived and was awarded a Purple Heart. He later said that he knew his decision wasn’t wise ‘tactically,’ but that ‘I put my ass on the line for other guys.’
How can Dems defend this?
Platner also wondered, on Reddit, ‘why Black people don’t tip.’
You’d think that, at least, would outrage Democrats. But no.
‘Indefensible,’ ‘hurtful’ and ‘offensive’ said DNC chair Ken Martin of Platner’s posts. But!
‘I don’t think they’re disqualifying,’ he said.
The View’s Sunny Hostin, who has yet to meet an issue she can’t racialize (my opinion): ‘So he’s a liar, a racist, an antisemite. He’s a homophobe. So he has all the things and character does matter. But we have someone that has almost unbridled power in the White House at this point.’
Wait — what? Hostin, like so many Dems, seems to be saying that everything they’ve accused Trump of — racism, lying, treating women terribly, rape, of being Hitler — all these things that make Trump unfit for office are okay if it’s their guy?
That they need their version of Trump to get rid of… Trump?
It literally makes no sense. It’s thoroughly illogical. But that’s Trump Derangement Syndrome for you.
James Carville’s all in for this candidate too, and why not? It must feel like home. After all, Carville, along with ABC News star George Stephanopoulos, spearheaded the ‘nuts and sluts’ strategy used against any woman who accused Bill Clinton of sexual harassment — or, in the case of Juanita Broaddrick, rape.
‘I just saw all this tut tutting,’ Carville said in a recent video posted online. ‘”You know, James, if a Republican did what Graham Platner did you would be outraged.” Yeah, I would. But… what I have to consider first is, this country is about to lose it… so I ask all of you to consider the candidacy of Graham Platner.’
Now: The central conceit of Platner’s candidacy is that he’s a changed man. But is he?
Platner’s wife Amy Gertner reportedly told a senior campaign aide last summer that her new husband (they married in November 2023) had been secretly exchanging explicit messages with as many as six women.
Gertner says the couple addressed the betrayal in counseling and the marriage is ‘stronger than ever before.’
You know, the boilerplate political wife response.
Hostin, like so many Dems, seems to be saying that everything they’ve accused Trump of — racism, lying, treating women terribly, rape, of being Hitler — all these things that make Trump unfit for office are okay if it’s their guy?
Platner’s wife Amy Gertner reportedly told a senior campaign aide last summer that her husband had been secretly exchanging explicit messages with as many as six women
Gertner says the couple addressed the betrayal in counseling and the marriage is ‘stronger than ever before’
But is Platner actually a changed man in this regard? Does it even matter? After all, Trump cheated on his first wife, has been married three times, and has five children — three with the late Ivana Trump, one with Marla Maples, and one with Melania.
What’s fundamental here is the lying — and if Platner and his wife are lying about the current state of their marriage, this won’t bode well.
At least Jim Margolis, the adman who advised Barack Obama on both his campaigns, is honest. As he told Time magazine for their recent cover story, Platner’s got a real shot at winning this seat for the Dems because he’s so unlike their standard-bearers: Wonky, over-educated, elitist technocrats who cannot talk to the working-class.
What an insult to the working class to think Platner is their answer.
‘Democrats may be willing to bet on someone who may have a few warts’ — warts that on Trump are malignant tumors — ‘but feels fresh, unscripted, and tuned-in.’
Again: just like the guy they hate, the one in the White House. Guess Hitler is a situational evil.
