Dems should dump Platner

It’s time to act fast.

Democrats have a problem with Graham Platner.

At first, the Maine native seemed like a dream candidate for Democrats, but he quickly became a nightmare. The blue-collar oyster farmer and Marine Corps veteran with combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan may have had broad appeal on the surface, but things quickly went awry when it was learned that the surface of his body was decorated with a Totenkopf (death’s head) tattoo associated with the Nazi SS.

Graham Platner (in orange) with Maine Senate president, Troy Jackson, at a Portland Hearts of Pine match on September 27, 2025. (Wikimedia Commons)

The Nazi tattoo has apparently been covered with a Celtic knot, but Platner got worse from there. The candidate, who has become known online as “NTG” for “Nazi Tattoo Guy,” seems to have a talent for finding controversy. This past January, he was interviewed by an anti-semitic podcaster and said he was “a longtime fan” of the show. More recently, he has become embroiled in a sexting scandal that stemmed from his wife allegedly telling a campaign aide that he had sent sexually explicit messages to multiple women early in their marriage. They married in 2023.

All that is only the tip of the iceberg. There are a lot more bad decisions in Platner’s past that we know about and probably a lot that we don’t… yet.

Having said all that, if I were in Maine, I’m not sure how I’d vote. Normally, a candidate of Platner’s obviously poor quality would not get my vote. Normally, I wouldn’t vote for someone with Platner’s progressive policy positions or who had described himself as a “communist,” which is just as troubling as his dalliance with the Nazis. (Platner and Nick Fuentes may be the only people to pick both sides in the Nazi-Soviet debate. The proper answer is “neither.”)

These aren’t normal times.

I’ve written before that I believe that most Republicans need to lose in the next few elections. I am far from certain that Donald Trump intends to peacefully exit the White House in 2029, and I think we need a Congress that is prepared to resist his lawlessness both until and after the next presidential election. I’m not sure that Susan Collins can be trusted to do that.

To be fair, Collins is one of the least trumpy Republicans left in the Senate. She has opposed him at times, such as voting to convict in his second impeachment, and sided with him at other times, such as voting to acquit him in his first impeachment. Collins has opposed Trump’s actions in Iran and his ballroom funding, as well as being “disappointed” in the president’s endorsement of Ken Paxton, but how she’ll vote if and when these issues come up in the Senate, especially after the election, is anyone’s guess.

Susan Collins is like a box of chocolates: You never know what you’re going to get. She might stand strong on principles that other Republicans have long since abandoned, or she might fret, express her disappointment and frustration, and vote the party line anyway.

As a Never Trump guy, I’m concerned about decency in politics. But as a Never Trump guy, I’m also concerned about authoritarianism and lawlessness in our government. For people like me, the Maine Senate race is another Fezzik’s choice: We obviously can’t vote for the candidate who is deeply morally flawed, but we also obviously cannot support the candidate who has enabled the president in his lawlessness all too often.

Some would choose not to vote or vote third party. I also reject those choices. I’ve voted third party in the past, but the reality is that one of the major party candidates is almost always going to win. It’s better to choose from the duopoly candidates and try to get the lesser evil, which after all is also the greater good if you’re a glass-half-full person.

The best solution seems to be a Kobayashi Maru scenario. Maine Democrats should change the facts of the situation.

Janet Mills, the governor of Maine and Platner’s former primary opponent, recently hinted that she never formally dropped out of the race. She only suspended her campaign.

“People have the impression that I ‘withdrew’ or ‘dropped out,’ but I simply suspended active campaigning,”Mills said in a recent interview. “I am still on the ballot.”

At this point, a lot of Maine voters would like to see Mills unsuspend her campaign.

A restarted Mills campaign should be paired with a Democratic push to encourage Platner to drop out. So far most Democrats seem to be standing by Platner, but that could change. They stood by Biden up to a point, and then the dam broke.

Unlike with Biden in the presidential primary, Maine has not held it’s primary yet. Election Day is next Tuesday on June 9, but early voting has been going on for several weeks. (Scenarios like this are the best argument against long periods of early voting.)

To add to the tension, Maine has a ranked-choice primary. Voters could rank Mills above both Platner and David Costello, the third Democratic candidate. If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote, the lowest scoring candidate is eliminated and the totals are refigured until someone gets a majority.

There is still a chance for Democrats to avoid a disaster in Maine, but time is running out. Given the gravity of the situation, hopefully they can manage to dump Platner for the good of their party and their country.

I’ll add that Platner, along with Trump, Paxton, and many others, is a good argument for scrapping the failed primary election experiment that has yielded candidates of inferior quality time and again. The parties should start looking at alternatives to the current system (although giving Trump more control over the Republican Party would not be good in the short term).

Primaries in the internet age give us candidates that deeply politicized internet junkies want rather than candidates who are good for the country or even competent at basic governance. That’s an indictment of both sides, and the Maine race is the choice between a bad candidate or a better candidate who will back a bad and possibly fascist president.

Maine voters have a tough choice. I’m glad I don’t have to make it. I hope their choice in November will be better than it looks like it will be at the moment.

Never trust a guy with a Nazi tattoo. That’s especially true if he’s a politician.

SHAMELESS PLUG The Racket News has a new online friend. Stan Mitchell, a military and Christian podcaster, recently made our acquaintance and mentioned one of my online observations on an episode of his podcast (that segment begins at about 25:30). Check out Stan on the platform formerly known as Twitter or Blue Sky.

PERSONAL NOTE I haven’t been around much for the past few weeks. My daughter graduated high school, and we had a lot of family and friends come to help us celebrate. That included my son, who came home on leave from the Air Force. I stepped away for a while to take some much-needed family time.

Steve and I haven’t met face-to-face many times, but our families did recently get together for barbecue before the Thornton bunch attended a Weird Al Yankovic concert. It was great to visit with the Bermans, and Mrs. Yankovic’s boy still puts on a great show.

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