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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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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.
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.
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"