In one thread from 2019, Platner weighed in on a conversation about the “Totenkopf” — the skull-and-crossbones emblem worn by Nazi SS units that his own tattoo would later draw scrutiny for resembling — to note that many US service members had adopted similar imagery, such as the Punisher skull used by some Navy SEALs.
Using his longtime Reddit handle P-Hustle, the former Marine infantryman and future Democratic Senate hopeful also argued in a 2020 online discussion that “SS” lightning-bolt tattoos were a "culture” marker within Marine Scout Sniper units, not an expression of White supremacist ideology.
When commenters in the 2020 thread described the lightning bolts as a Nazi or racist symbol, Platner dismissed the criticism, writing that outsiders “have no idea what they’re talking abou” and added, “I will be sure to inform the Black guys I know with bolts that they’re Nazis now.”
Copies of the threads were archived through the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine and on a separate Reddit archiving website.
CNN also spoke with an acquaintance of Platner from more than a decade ago who said Platner spoke about his tattoo resembling a Nazi symbol. A second person told CNN that they learned of the tattoo years ago from the acquaintance, who told them that Platner had described it as a Nazi-style design.
CNN also reviewed a text chain between the acquaintance and another person discussing Platner’s Nazi-like tattoo several months ago, before the story became public.
I find the position he implicitly expressed in his Reddit comments, that Nazi symbols are a cultural tradition in the military with no particular ideological meaning, to be much more believable than his public claims. Because Nazism is the most taboo ideology in western society, Nazi symbols are likewise taboo, which means they are cool and edgy and costly ingroup signaling, which means they become cultural traditions among certain groups like criminals and soldiers that some people get regardless of ideology. The appeal is especially strong when combined with the Nazis being a militaristic group associated with the most famous historical war. As he alludes to in the second comment, the Nazi SS symbol was particularly heavily used by the Marine Corps Scout Snipers, with Wikipedia claiming its usage dates back to the 1980s and continued to some degree after being banned in 2012, but similar dynamics cause people to get other Nazi symbols as tattoos on a less organized scale. Sure. However I don't think this is an argument that most of his political allies would normally be sympathetic to.
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CNN: Graham Platner’s claims that he didn’t know tattoo was Nazi-linked undercut by new evidence
I find the position he implicitly expressed in his Reddit comments, that Nazi symbols are a cultural tradition in the military with no particular ideological meaning, to be much more believable than his public claims. Because Nazism is the most taboo ideology in western society, Nazi symbols are likewise taboo, which means they are cool and edgy and costly ingroup signaling, which means they become cultural traditions among certain groups like criminals and soldiers that some people get regardless of ideology. The appeal is especially strong when combined with the Nazis being a militaristic group associated with the most famous historical war. As he alludes to in the second comment, the Nazi SS symbol was particularly heavily used by the Marine Corps Scout Snipers, with Wikipedia claiming its usage dates back to the 1980s and continued to some degree after being banned in 2012, but similar dynamics cause people to get other Nazi symbols as tattoos on a less organized scale. Sure. However I don't think this is an argument that most of his political allies would normally be sympathetic to.
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