...he had an objectionable tattoo! Clearly, it's better to select a candidate that will lose to Collins.

Several times, Platner, as a former service member who had completed four tours in two countries, used Reddit to give his much younger compatriots advice. “If sh*t is getting rough, talk to somebody,” he told one Marine posting about his struggles. “Military OneSource, a civvie therapist, whatever. But don’t bottle that sh*t up.”

He advised them on how to successfully navigate their VA entitlements, urging them to file claims and compile evidence before their health took a catastrophic turn, and how to claim for injuries that had developed after their military service.

“It doesn’t make you a leech or a pussy,” Platner told users of a subreddit for US Marines. “This country pumped billions of dollars into the bank accounts of defense contractors, all on the backs of your suffering and sacrifice.”

I’m an Alaskan, opposite side of the nation, and I really had no inkling what this was all about.

This kind of spelled it out.

The posts and positions you point to here - would never have gotten a nickel's worth of opprobrium from Democratic leaning voters in the first place. Everything listed here gets graded an A or A+. So ... Kinda' obvious that these things were not what were causing the "Oh no .. !" reactions arising in some quarters.

Other hand ... If the large preponderance of the man's online presence was .. unexceptional, and in fact fairly conventional .. that is also something that deserves airing and exposure.

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suspicious of the guy who is now running a a Dem and talking about progressive things s if he is a secret something pretending to be something else. But for more than 10 years of posts it is obvious that’s not true. And THAT person is much more than the shameful few posts that get played over and over again that he has addressed. It is a much more interesting story and that man is the one that is connecting with Mainers.

that the man was being 'used' as a stalking horse, Manchurian candidate, political mole, what-have-you.
(We live in such a wacky conspiracy inclined milieu that I shouldn't be the slightest bit surprised - but my own thoughts have just never taken me there in regards to Platner. More on the order of, "what you see .. what you get ." )

desired narrative. It’s another thing altogether when there is a volume of work that accompanies it. Thanks for sharing.

In April 2021, he fretted about the presence of American neo-Nazi group NSC-131 in the northeastern United States and rebuked other users for claiming its members were simply disingenuous trolls. “The energy these subreddits are putting into glossing over the fact we have organized Nazis in New England is pretty godd*mn concerning,” he wrote.

Months earlier, he chastised a user of a subreddit devoted to military gear for posting a picture of a tactical vest branded with the letters “AKP,” which Platner took as a reference to the Islamist party of Turkey’s authoritarian ruler, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. “Is this a f*cking joke? AKP patches just fly around here?” he wrote. “I’ll make sure to post kit with swastikas and then say ‘hey bro, it’s just gear’.”

Thanks for the thread Nanjeanne

Early on I worried he was another Fetterman. No longer. Nanjeanne, thanks for affirming my decision.

Nice post.