Social Bernie Sanders backed Maine Senate candidate said they were communist insulted white and black people and mocked rape victims

[White Whale]

https://www.axios.com/2025/10/18/graham-platner-reddit-maine-senate

Maine oyster farmer Graham Platner's Senate campaign is in crisis after reports of offensive online messages over many years.

Why it matters: Many national Democrats seized on Platner as a solution to the party's problems with young men and working-class voters in the wake of their embarrassing losses in 2024.

Driving the news: Platner, a 41-year-old military veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, made crude comments about Black diners, rural white people, police officers and sexual assault victims in years-old comments on Reddit.

CNN first reported Thursday on comments from "around 2021" where Platner called "all" cops bastards and described himself as a communist on Reddit. Platner also said rural white people were "actually" racist and stupid.
Other media reports followed detailing posts from 2013, in which he asked, "Why don't black people tip?" and said in a thread on underwear created to stop sexual assaults that people should "take some responsibility for themselves and not get so f–ked up they wind up having sex with someone they don't mean to?"
In another post from 2018, he wrote that if people "expect to fight fascism without a good semi-automatic rifle, they ought to do some reading of history."

This guy Democrats were hoping would help their party in the future and he wants assassinations an hates rural people. Bernie Sanders certainly knows how to pick the crazies.

 

[azerty]

i would vote for him

 

[nostradumbass]

Advocating for political violence and murder isn't disqualifying for democrats, it's a requirement, as is this guy's literal diagnosed mental illness.

 

[Fluffernutter]

...and he was employed by Blackwater

 

[UberHere]

None of this is even shocking. Democrats jumped the shark 5 years ago

 

[Scerpi]

https://www.axios.com/2025/10/18/graham-platner-reddit-maine-senate

Maine oyster farmer Graham Platner's Senate campaign is in crisis after reports of offensive online messages over many years.

Why it matters: Many national Democrats seized on Platner as a solution to the party's problems with young men and working-class voters in the wake of their embarrassing losses in 2024.

Driving the news: Platner, a 41-year-old military veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, made crude comments about Black diners, rural white people, police officers and sexual assault victims in years-old comments on Reddit.

CNN first reported Thursday on comments from "around 2021" where Platner called "all" cops bastards and described himself as a communist on Reddit. Platner also said rural white people were "actually" racist and stupid.
Other media reports followed detailing posts from 2013, in which he asked, "Why don't black people tip?" and said in a thread on underwear created to stop sexual assaults that people should "take some responsibility for themselves and not get so f–ked up they wind up having sex with someone they don't mean to?"
In another post from 2018, he wrote that if people "expect to fight fascism without a good semi-automatic rifle, they ought to do some reading of history."

This guy Democrats were hoping would help their party in the future and he wants assassinations an hates rural people. Bernie Sanders certainly knows how to pick the crazies.

He's 41 year old Reddit Kiddie Edge Lord?

lol...

 

[GreatSaintGuillotine]

Why is it so hard for people to just not be shit bags? Fuck this guy

 

[Sinister]

He was obviously just kidding.

He's just a kid.

Locker room talk.

Why so offended? Freeze peach.

 

[Sweater of AV]

Dude sounds like a Sherdogger.

"Why don't black people tip?"

Lmao. Guaranteed he complains about tipping culture in the Mayberry.

 

[sverre054]

Wow, a candidate trying to fight billionaires and big corporations, being smeared for reddit posts from a decade ago. And this is how he responds, like a man and an actual human. Admits when he's wrong, which is very rare to see in politics. He has my support.

 

[GreatSaintGuillotine]

Wow, a candidate trying to fight billionaires and big corporations, being smeared for reddit posts from a decade ago. And this is how he responds, like a man and an actual human. Admits when he's wrong, which is very rare to see in politics. He has my support.

He owned his shit. Shocking given modern resistance to accountability.

 

[The_Renaissance]

He owned his shit. Shocking given modern resistance to accountability.

Yeah you can't argue with that, no ignoring it and hoping it goes away, no trying to worm your way out of it, just own it and say you want to be a better person than the one who said that years ago.