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It’s not me, it’s them: Platner goes down snarling with graceless exit video
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2026
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politics
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Who told you that?
And more importantly why did you believe them?
Like a totenkopf is much better?
We don't need to relitigate this. That tattoo along with everything else should have made it clear he wasn't a good candidate. If we had heeded those warning signs, we wouldn't be in this mess.
Okay there are two problems here:
First the idea that Nazis get to monopolize skulls and crossbones is utterly ridiculous. The same kind of ridiculous as picking fights with Buddhists for using swastikas—and just in case, the idea that Nazi swastikas are oriented differently from religious ones is false; religious swastikas come in all orientations. Second the (very believable) story is that he didn't know it was a Nazi symbol. At that point the burden of proof is on the accuser.
Yeah, it's far more likely that he wanted a cool tattoo, went to a tattoo place, saw a cool skull, and said "yeah, that one" without knowing that there was lore behind it. And he had it removed. People are allowed to not know everything, people are allowed to make mistakes, and I applaud people who admit their mistakes and seek to correct them.
Platner had a ton of baggage, some more warranted than others. This one was a nothing burger. But he's dropped out for a maybe credible real problem, so we let that play out while looking for somebody else to run for Senate. It can't be that hard to find somebody with a similar message and less baggage. Just somebody who will fight this class war for us, who can reach conservatives with that message, and who hasn't done any raping. Is that such a high bar?
Any tattoo place displaying a totenkopf is displaying ss runes and swastikas right next to it. Because only Nazi tattoo shops give Nazi tattoos. Anyone that knows anything about tattoo culture knows this. Nobody accidentally gets a Nazi tattoo.
You're forgetting "who can beat the establishment at the media game." That's the real bottleneck here, and either way grassroots campaigns take time to get going. Save for a major upset occurring, this is now a tossup between the libs and the fascists.
I think that people are getting sick of fake bullshit artists like Jeffries. I'm optimistic that given a choice between a squeaky clean, media-trained establishment dem and a blue collar, bearded, confident guy preaching the blunt truth about how we're all getting fucked by the oligarchs, most people pick the latter.
As the boomers die, the only people left will be the people who have seen only the failures of capitalism and none of the successes. In just the past 20 years, what wins can we point to? Because I can point out the 08 housing crisis recession, minimum wage stagnation, Citizens United in 2010, market monopolization, the European sovereign debt crisis, refusal to lockdown during COVID because of how it would affect the economy, the inflation and supply chain results of mishandling COVID (not to mention the absurd death toll), the current and future results of attacking Iran, and the imminent crash when the AI bubble pops while so much of the market "diversity" is attached to tech companies accruing insane debt for something yet to be proven profitable.
This shit just ain't working, and I think that all it takes is a charismatic person pointing that out and then saying "here's my solution for that..." and they win. Stop smiling. Be pissed. "They're fucking us. Let me fight them for you. I'm tired of writing to Senators who autogenerate bullshit responses, I'm ready to be the Senator that fixes this shit. Let me represent how pissed off you are at this system that's fucking the people of our state."
I'm not sure why you are catching strays for this. I think your comment brings up good points.
It wasn’t a believable story when Platner was obsessed with the military throughout most of his life.
Supporters wanted plausible deniability and it blew up in everyone’s face.
And why should interest in the military directly lead to Nazi symbols?
Have you read into Platner at all?
He absolutely had an interest in both of the world wars.
I’m not going to debate you whether a man who has voluntarily signed up for military tours multiple times knows about war history and Nazis. I’m just not. No one is stupid enough to believe that Platner at no point in his life knew that tattoo wasn’t just a skull and crossbones.
Most of lemmy is absolutely that stupid.
Yeah. As an ACTUAL history buff (albeit, with enough stupid boy in me to also love military history), saying you are "a history buff" is a borderline dog whistle for "I like WW2 movies". Saying you are a "military history buff" even moreso. And platner is of the age where that would basically mean "Watched the History Channel" at the peak of "The Hitler Channel".
Folk will tell themselves whatever lies it takes to never have to admit they were wrong about a candidate they knew nothing about other than "white guy" and "said 'medicare for all' once"
There are plenty of interesting things about the world wars—hell about the Nazis themselves, but the symbolism just isn't one of them. If anything it's so utterly uninteresting that short of being shoved into one's face (the way the swastika is) there's no reason for anyone who doesn't study Nazism for a living to know about SS-style skull and crossbones.
The nazis were huge into symbolism, especially runes and symbols of the supposed aryan people. That particular deaths head is so iconic as a symbol of the SS its display is banned in multiple countries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bans_on_Nazi_symbols
It's worth knowing also that the Death's Head was no more of an original Nazi design than the swastika. The skull and crossbones design has been used for millenia, but even the modern design began in the mid-19th century. The British used it in WW1. The reason for this is that skulls are pretty cool and the exact type of thing a drunk Marine on his first tour would get tattooed on himself.
Also worth knowing that the symbol was pretty well neutralized in the US by 2007. It was the equivalent of wearing a Hugo Boss suit, nowhere close to being a swastika. It was a Call of Duty emblem. The ADL didnt even consider it a hate symbol until 2020.
Bullshit. The totenkopf is not a generalized skull and crossbones. It's very distinctive and was used exclusively by Nazis. It was a Nazi tattoo.
According to lemmy absolutely nobody could every recognize a totenkopf as an exclusively Nazi symbol worn by the SS. Same motherfuckers will post a GIF from inglorious basterds. The death's head is a well known recognizable Nazi symbol everywhere but lemmy apparently.
I had never heard the term totenkopf before this guy.
Ive seen thousands of skulls in various ways. I still don't know what makes something a totenkopf and what makes it not one, definatively
I'm aware it was used by nazis, but wouldn't have ever questioned in without the SS tag or swastika.
Good for you. It's still an incredibly recognizable exclusively Nazi with a capital N symbol.
It's not at all exclusive to nazis. Hundreds of people/organizations have used a skull and crossbones
But only Nazis used the totenkopf, which isn't an ambiguous skull and crossbones despite your ignorance.
What defines it as a totenkopf or a skull and cross bones. Can you explain the difference?
Countries have banned the particular one tattooed on platner's chest.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bans_on_Nazi_symbols
Are you fuckin serious? The fact that it's literally the fuckin badge the fuckin SS had on their caps. The fact it looks nothing like any other skull and crossbones, the texture of the skull, it being in sight profile, literally the whole fuckin thing. Why are you justifying a Nazi tattoo? It's fuckin irrelevant if a bunch of dumbfuck Americans don't recognize Nazi imagery, it's an unambiguous totenkopf, an exclusively Nazi symbol. It's not similar to a totenkopf; it's clearly a totenkopf. Your ignorance doesn't change what it is. It does mean you're a fuckin Nazi apologist though.
I'm not justifying a god damned thing, im saying I don't know what makes it one thing and not the other. And apparently you can't either since you won't just answer the fucking question.
Given that I very much agree with punching nazis a d have since I learned of them, knowing someone who literally ate nazis in the form of sausages, and I had never heard the word before platner, it's not as well recognized as you are claiming it to be.
That's it that's it's not that easily identified regardless of how you feel about it.
For fucks sake man stop being an asshole about this
Wait, what's going on with the nazi sausage?
Guy I knew, older fellow, grew up under Nazi Germany.
Local butcher and his wife were killing nazis and grinding them up into sausages to get rid of them. The whole town ate nazis sausage without knowing it for months
Can't fuckin read can ya.
Does it look like a fucking jolly roger to you? How many other skull and crossbones have you seen that look just like that? Y'all fucking arguing that it isn't a totenkopf just because y'all dumbasses don't know what the fuck it is, but your knowledge on the matter don't fuckin change that it was clearly specifically a totenkopf, and he knew what the fuck it was and his friends knew. It's a Nazi capital N fuckin Nazi symbol, exclusively, as in not used anywhere else, and you don't accidentally get it tattooed on you. And I'll stop being an ass when motherfuckers stop making excuses for literal goddamn Nazi tattoos. Y'all acting like it's a fucking punisher skull, it's the fucking emblem of the SS for fucks sake. Christ this fucking place.
Yes yes it did look like many versions of what I would answer to as a jolly roger
Then you don't know what a jolly roger looks like either. And all this proves is that you don't know what a totenkopf is. The tattoo was still a totenkopf, as recognizable by literally anyone that knows what it looks like, which is why he covered the fucking thing up, it's not a fucking debate whether or not it was a totenkopf because it was. Fucking Nazi apologist ass.
I've already admitted I don't know... The accusation that Lemmy doesn't know what a totenkopf is is the entire reason I responded in the first place.
"I don't know what makes this skull and bones different from any other Jolly Roger I've ever seen" expecting us to think that's a reasonable statement is unreasonable.
You know what a totenkompf is, it's been shown to you. You've seen it, and like a swastika or a blue Israeli 6 pointed star, you can recognize immediately if it's just a similar design or actually the fucking Nazi symbol.
You'll never be watching pirates of the Caribbean and think "is that a totenkompf?" and you'll never look at Platner's totenkompf and think "that's a Jolly Roger"
And the fact that you're trying so hard to convince us that you would is apologizing for Nazis.
The left has a real problem with intersectionality and excusing American imperialism. Platner should have never had the support he did to begin with and it's incredibly disheartening to see others on the left argue that he was going to be our Leftist Saviour when this is his past:
He talks about ignoring US orders to stop firing explosive devices at Iraqi civilians. He brags about how his unit came up with a way to rig up their equipment so they could shoot grenades at them. I want to be clear the US military ordered them to stop shooting mortars in densely populated civilian areas because they were killing so many people.
He brags about fighting to defend Abu ghraib against Iraqi freedom fighters that were trying to liberate the torture and rape facility
He jokes about urinating on dead bodies in Afghanistan.
We can also examine some of his claims and opinions on social media.
He talks about how he’s regretful he did not participate in the American Indian wars (the US conducted genocide against the indigenous population of the area nowadays referred to as the mainland United States) and the Haitian intervention.
He talks about how to defeat Isis American needs to kill millions of people in the Middle East and that America should do it, even if it takes decades of killing.
I don't believe for a second that this man had no idea what a totenkopf was. MAYBE when he first got it, but the years after? No way.