Maine Democrat running to unseat Susan Collins to stay in race after discovery of Reddit postings
https://apnews.com/article/us-senate-platner-reddit-collins-primary-election-579c70a9e829cb2b5b92cd3fc7b33987
Maine Democrat running to unseat Susan Collins to stay in race after discovery of Reddit postings
https://apnews.com/article/us-senate-platner-reddit-collins-primary-election-579c70a9e829cb2b5b92cd3fc7b33987
31 comments
Remember that time when the president of the United Stated posted an ai slop video of himself flying a fighter jet and dumping feces in citizens exercising their first amendment rights? Remember when that happened?
what kind of journalist writes an article about ‘offensive’ comments someone made and does not quote the comments that were made? How do we know this dude isnt getting the Jimmy Kimmel treatment?
Republicans private messages tell about loving Nazis, who gives a damn if this man said some “mean” things online years ago.
Republican operatives can text each other about how their opponents should be killed in gas chambers, Trump appointees can text other Republicans about how all holidays celebrating Black people should be “eviscerated,” but it’s disqualifying if a Democrat posted objectionable comments on Reddit threads 15 years ago?
This is very obviously an oppo dump in reporters’ emails from Janet Mills’ team, who wants a 77 year old who won’t change anything substantial to win. Platner has rightfully not defended those statements, apologized, and said he’s evolved since then. Let’s move on.
The bar has been set as low as loving Hitler, so….
Democrats with old posts: “I’m sorry, I’ve grown as a person in the last ten years, heres what I believe now”
JD Vance: “those 40 year old kids need forgiveness”
Vocal Republicans: *Bellamy salute*
With zero actual mention of the comments.
DNC paid someone to dig deep to trash him. They found some regrettable shit. He owned what he said and apologized.
Still better than an octogenarian.
How the fuck is this news? We have literal Nazi republican skating by HARD because the media got bored. The president of the United States posted a fucking AI video of him as a KING dropping literal human shit on protestors.
Platner is exactly the type of guy we need in office, he deserves to win the damn thing.
Democrat.
Maine.
Wants to unseat Collins.
That’s all you need to know.
Platner had a great response to this too on IG. Basically he was in a dark place after leaving the Marines (a great reason to actually provide the support veterans need). He said unfortunate things he no longer believes in that angry and confused time, but has grown as a person since finding a community and building a life against the odds.
We should give grace to those willing to admit their mistakes, and grow as a people.
It was my understanding that progressives believed in forgiveness and second chances. Or am I mistaken about that?
The comments were bad but none of us should be judged by the kind of shitposters we were more than a decade ago.
There is a rapist and pedophile in the White House who attempted a coup. Please don’t lecture us about mean words.
He is a candidate for a race. The idea the media wouldn’t dig through his online foot print and this is a hit job is insane.
One one hand, his Reddit comments are basically nothing compared to what Republicans unabashedly say in public on a daily basis.
On the other hand, who runs for an elected office with having a 12+ year-old Reddit account that isn’t anonymous?
I’m not voting for a saint anymore. I’m voting to take power away from Republicans. Voting for saints is why we’re in this mess.
> Platner has apologized for the comments in a video he posted Friday on social media. He said the posts were made after leaving the Army in 2012, adding he “still had the crude humor, the dark, dark feelings, the offensive language that really was a hallmark of the infantry when I was in it.” He also said that he was struggling then with post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.
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> “I’m sorry for this. Just know that it’s not reflective at all of who I am. I don’t want you to judge me on the dumbest thing I ever wrote on the internet. I would prefer if people could judge me on the person I am today,” Platner said.
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> In the days since his apology, Platner has posted more of his old Reddit posts, highlighting that he spent a lot of time online encouraging other veterans to get help. He also released additional Reddit posts showing him criticizing homophobia and misogyny in the military. One post he shared Monday stated that he was disillusioned by “rampant misogyny and weirdness” in the Marines, which he also served in.
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So he’s sorry, changed his views and was dealing with heavy shit after coming out of the military. I’m all for calling people out for their behavior, but when someone apologizes and is showing change, I have a real struggle holding it against them. It’s so fucked how dems are held to this weird moral high standard, like he’s not a human and can’t make mistakes, but if a republican says the same shit, never apologizes, and dives deeper they get a job in the whitehouse.
> The Collins campaign said in a statement Friday that Platner’s old posts “disparaged everyone from people living in rural areas, to the police” and the disabled. The campaign also said in the statement that the controversy over the posts illustrated rifts between the Democratic Party’s different factions.
I’m sorry Susan Collins has done more harm to these groups by bowing to a Tyrant than any online comment can.
I still like him. He tells it like it is.
Hey, he apologized. In this day and age, it means something.
Look at all the excuses being made up for the “I love Hitler and gas chambers” messages in the Young Republicans signal chat. JD Vance said he thought it was funny.
If we keep turning away everyone who’s ever made a mistake, even after they’ve apologized sincerely, there won’t be anyone left to fight.
Didn’t a bunch of Republicans just get outed as literally calling themselves Nazis, praising Hitler, and saying they wanted Gas chambers ontop of bunch of racist slurs and it immediately got defended by Vice President Vance… let’s not forget the Swastika/american flags other Republicans had on prominent display in thier office….
Here’s a an archive link from WaPo for anyone who wants to read the actual quotes. I do find the second quote about “getting f*cked up” offensive, but I think an unfortunate number of men do think this way—and hopefully, he has changed his views since 12 years ago.
[https://archive.is/hC19i](https://archive.is/hC19i)
We have a president posting gifs of him dumping shit in Americans and the media goes after this?
Political decorum is dead because of Trump.
Post what you want and don’t apologize for shit.
Susan Collins has said more than several times now that she’s willing to hold obvious abuses by the Trump GOP to account and then has turned around and enabled them instead. I don’t care what this guy has said on social media where everything is pretend and hypothetical. I care that he’s going to actually help stop the massive fucking over of the every day American that is currently in progress in real life.
“I hope that either all of us, or none of us, are judged by the actions of our weakest moments, but rather by the strength we show when, and if, we’re ever given a second chance”
T. Lasso
Having seen the posts… good.
I was worried it would be hateful nazi shit, but it’s actually just “spicier” left-wing takes for the most part. If the right can get away with far worse, then we can let this guy slide; he wasn’t born into politics, and he didn’t say any of this stuff while he was running or even considering running.
Reddit posts from a dozen years ago, self-reflection and change…
discord/telegram/whatever from that same day, “i’m sorry if anyone got upset”
not the same
The only difference between this candidate and other, older candidates for office is that he’s from a generation that has been posting on the social media for most of their lives. We’re at a time when most of the people who are or will be running for office have had social media since childhood, and not everyone is smart about what they post, especially when they’re teenagers. Soon everyone will have such “skeletons”. If we want candidates with no stupid social media comments, we’ll have to go on electing 80 year olds, who most likely made such comments as well, but didn’t write them.
While I do think its a valid concern, republicans and MAGA and pretty much anyone on the right has completely lost any valid argument they may have had against him over the last 10 years
You reap what you sow
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