• Jollyllama@lemmy.world
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    13 hours ago

    Bad reasons, he’s addressed all of his controversies and the vast majority of Maine Dems accept him. Same reason they refuse to back most progressives, they exist to maintain (or return us to) the status quo. Progressives want to change and as long as establishment Dems hold a majority in the party nothing will change

    • BeardededSquidward@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      9 hours ago

      That was my thing, if he has talked and disavowed himself of those views. Given the shit show the Dems are now, give him a shot, worst case, throw him out later if he turns into a shit heel.

    • prenatal_confusion@feddit.org
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      13 hours ago

      Addressing a controversy doesn’t make it go away necessarily. I get that he is the only alternative right now but he is in no way “the solution”.

      And going “at least he is anti establishmrnt” Is the most populist stance ever. Nothing good comes from being against something. Be for something and fight for that.

      • Jollyllama@lemmy.world
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        13 hours ago

        Have you watched any of his campaign events? He talks about making change not about being anti Trump or establishment. The does talk about his stances and what he wants to fight for. Beating Collins is obviously a huge part of his campaign because he’s got to beat her but he’s definitely “for something”.

        It’s easy to fall into reporting that paints certain candidates a certain way, it’s worth going out to a campaign event (if you’re local) or watching one to form your own opinion. The Internet is a biased place, some places aren’t outright smearing him but they try to discredit him by saying repeating stuff like you are. Everything I’ve seen and heard from him is that he is more than just an “anti establishment” guy and wants to build a progressive populist movement for the people.

        • prenatal_confusion@feddit.org
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          9 hours ago

          i havent seen him or payed much attention to him. still i trust certain sources (and i know that i will be getting a lot of hate for that opinion, but i like wikipedia) about stuff unless other evidence presents. you are saying he is more than that / different than that. good! i will have to pay more attention to him in the future. i am not local or even from the US but i am still interested.

          regarding populism: the core component of it is that you need to be in the victim role as in “us small people against them” which is by definition anti establishment.

          dont get me wrong, i agree that the democratic party is bad as in established and lazy and too close to the corporations. i am just very careful when it comes to populism because it can allow a person to change course very quickly based on that stance.

          • Jollyllama@lemmy.world
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            5 hours ago

            We’ve had the opposite of populism for a very long time. It’s time to start balancing it out and fighting back against the ultra wealthy and corps that own our country through lobbying and cronyism.

      • CultLeader4Hire@lemmy.world
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        11 hours ago

        What fucking controversy?

        A single colleague said he yelled fuck off during an argument, a single person in a decades long career. He told Tucker Carlson that his show was “hurting America” and was “pro wrestling” rather than news, this is very literally not a controversy. Epstein file mention? Also not a controversy, his name was in an email suggesting he could be a host for a Woody Allen standup special which never happened. He made jokes about masking, he’s a comedian. People don’t like that he is a comedian that does serious political interviews and lastly, recently, he said it was a good thing the Trump administration was fast tracking psychedelic research, which it is.

        There are no actual controversies here, your comments are made up nonsense comments about made up nonsense.

        • FinnFooted@lemmy.world
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          9 hours ago

          People are taking about graham and not Stewart.

          For graham, I’m going to choose to answer this like you’re actually not aware, but he has a history of having had a Nazi totenkopf tattoo that he said he covered up as soon as he realized it was a Nazi tattoo. Except his Reddit history and two acquaintances indicate that he knew for quite a while, for years even, that he had a Nazi tattoobefore covering it up. which also means he has probably lied about it.

          Additionally, he willingly, after being a part of the military and being part of an invasion in the Middle East, chose to join Constellis (formerly blackwater). He was not in combat but still supporting a military mercenary group like this is super sketch.

          Additionally, he has on his Reddit handle had comments in which he is very dismissive of rape and victim blamed quite heavily.

          This is all quite a few years ago and he claims that he’s changed a lot as a person, but he has a lot of controversy and a lot of red flags in his past.

          • Lasherz@lemmy.worldM
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            8 hours ago

            I’ve seen no evidence of his reddit comments either acknowledging his tattoo as a hate symbol or victim blaming rape survivors. I have however seen people bring up a comment he made to a rape survivor which was in no way blaming her for what happened to her, instead he was trying to dispel any internal negative thoughts she might be having about her value as a person being diminished now… Seemed like a heartfelt genuine message, albeit risky. Almost like he was a dude who never expected to run for office.

            I feel like we’re just taking the Blackwater bit and extrapolating that he has to be a bad person for life now and reading between all the other lines to secure that conclusion. I don’t buy it.

            • FinnFooted@lemmy.world
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              7 hours ago

              The interpretations of his reddit threads feel… Very generous.

              Here is this thread as p-hustle about the totenkopf. He responds directly to a thread discussing the totenkopf as a Nazi symbol, but he does not mention it directly but instead talks about the punisher skull. But also he has an acquaintance who said he used to jokingly call the tatoo “my Totenkopf” over a decade ago and who had text receipts of talking about platners Nazi tattoo. plus planters political director, Genevieve McDonald, resigned and said that the campaign had been aware of the tattoo since she joined, and that Platner himself acknowledged it “could be problematic.”

              Then the rape threads. How does this sound like someone trying to “dispel any negative internal thoughts?”

              And since were doing reddit threads, here’s a bonus where he talks about urinating on dead bodies as only bad due to the current state of media??

              Look, if I lived in Maine, which I don’t so it doesn’t really matter, I’d vote platner (even if what’s her face democrat was still running in the primaries) because fuck the establishment dems and fuck Susan Collins. But I’m sick of pretending he has no red flags. Let’s vote for him, but let’s watch him like a hawk after.

              • Lasherz@lemmy.worldM
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                6 hours ago

                Gotcha, I haven’t seen the rape one you mentioned yet. That’s a pretty dogshit take from him obviously. The one I saw was less than 13 years old and was as I described it. The other examples don’t seem that smoking gun to me, but clearly 13 years ago he was a very different person.

                • FinnFooted@lemmy.world
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                  2 hours ago

                  I think that what I dont like about the situation currently is it feels quite obvious he lied about not knowing about the meaning behind his tattoo. I understand getting a stupid tatoo as a kid. I even understand putting off covering it cos you’re lazy. But its pretty obvious he’s lied about it when he’s really pushing thats he’s more honest than the establishment politicians he’s running against.

        • prenatal_confusion@feddit.org
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          9 hours ago

          The tattoo is a no go for me. He said he didn’t know the meaning but he referred to it in the German word for skull. He is lying about that and I don’t think its acceptable.