He had it on his chest for like 2 decades before getting it covered up. The only reason he got it covered up is because when he ran for office people called him out on it, but based on his comments on Reddit about totenkopfs and Nazi tattoos in the US military he clearly knew what it was long before the public outcry and did nothing (and in my opinion he probably knew what it was when he got it).
“Integrity is doing the right thing when nobody is watching”
Here you go. Scroll down and you will see a comment from his confirmed reddit account “P-Hustle”.
Somebody asks how do you know the person in the photo is SS, to which someone replies “The totenkopf on the dude first on the left is a good clue.” Then someone says that having a skull on your uniform doesn’t make you a bad guy, using the Punisher skull as an example, and then P-Hustle jumps in and says “When I was in Ramadi in ‘06 as a Marine grunt, the SEAL platoon we worked closely with for the deployment all had the Punisher skull spray painted on their armor carriers. There’s no question it’s far more prevalent on all the dumbass Grunt Style and Nine Line shirts these days, but the teams definitely adopted it for a while.”
So he 100% knew about totenkopfs, I don’t see any way around that. I don’t read too much into his comment specifically but the fact that he was chiming in on a comment about the use of skulls in the US military, on a thread about totenkopfs, is pretty damning.
Here’s the full article without a paywall. He also has other comments about Nazi-adjacent symbols in the US military, and how he thinks its fine.
Now, if you want to say, “knowingly having a totenkopf tattoo doesn’t make you a Nazi” I agree, I don’t think he’s a Nazi. But the lack of transparency (read: lying) he has demonstrated around this makes me question his character. Is it possible he really has made the crazy character arc of being a jarhead Iraq war mercenary misogynist to clean, woman-respecting leftist? Sure, but i’m gonna need a little more accountability than what he’s showing.
That’s not nearly as good of evidence as promised.
The thread doesn’t actually provide any reference to what the totenkopf was besides being a skull. So unless he took the time to research it we’re still at square 1. Really his comment only reinforces the idea that he just believed it was a skull.
You framed it convincingly, but the source is not a blatant as you made it out to be.
The second article was a bit better though.
Honestly reflects a guy I knew that was in the Marines. They got confederate flag tattoos as a unit, because that’s what the unit did. Years later he regrets it and is honestly a great guy. Just made a dumb move at 20.
Franky many of the leftist I know IRL radicalized after their military service. Lot of young kids signed up after 9/11 and saw the shit first hand. They grew to hate it, but it was a process. So overall yeah I can believe a progressive dem went through a similar cycle.
If your main hang up is accountability wait until you hear about the competition
Also “the totenkopf on the dude on the left” shows up as a white blob in that picture. There is no way to make a connection from that shot to anything in real life.
Yeah that was a crazy read by that commentor, but the real point i was trying to make was that people have been saying “totenkopf is an obscure symbol, only WW2 buffs know about it” and then there’s platner active on WW2 history threads about the SS, talking about skulls and Nazi symbolism in the US military. He’s clearly more active in those circles than 99% of the population, which is why I dont give him the benefit of the doubt he didn’t know what it was. It’s not THAT obscure.
Whatever you say man. I just feel like leftists are giving this guy with massive red flags a ton of benefit of the doubt just because they like his (current) politics, and I think there’s a very good chance they’ll regret it.
Lol, at least get the facts right. He didn’t say oh well, he learned and got a cover up tattoo
He had it on his chest for like 2 decades before getting it covered up. The only reason he got it covered up is because when he ran for office people called him out on it, but based on his comments on Reddit about totenkopfs and Nazi tattoos in the US military he clearly knew what it was long before the public outcry and did nothing (and in my opinion he probably knew what it was when he got it).
“Integrity is doing the right thing when nobody is watching”
Legitimately do you have any source for the claim he talked about the totenkopf on reddit before running.
In all the discourse I’ve heard on this, this is the first time I’ve seen that brought up
https://web.archive.org/web/20190226141422/https:/www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/auy0bi/battleweary_ss/
Here you go. Scroll down and you will see a comment from his confirmed reddit account “P-Hustle”.
Somebody asks how do you know the person in the photo is SS, to which someone replies “The totenkopf on the dude first on the left is a good clue.” Then someone says that having a skull on your uniform doesn’t make you a bad guy, using the Punisher skull as an example, and then P-Hustle jumps in and says “When I was in Ramadi in ‘06 as a Marine grunt, the SEAL platoon we worked closely with for the deployment all had the Punisher skull spray painted on their armor carriers. There’s no question it’s far more prevalent on all the dumbass Grunt Style and Nine Line shirts these days, but the teams definitely adopted it for a while.”
So he 100% knew about totenkopfs, I don’t see any way around that. I don’t read too much into his comment specifically but the fact that he was chiming in on a comment about the use of skulls in the US military, on a thread about totenkopfs, is pretty damning.
https://archive.is/20251026233121/https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/24/politics/graham-platner-nazi-tattoo-evidence-kfile-invs
Here’s the full article without a paywall. He also has other comments about Nazi-adjacent symbols in the US military, and how he thinks its fine.
Now, if you want to say, “knowingly having a totenkopf tattoo doesn’t make you a Nazi” I agree, I don’t think he’s a Nazi. But the lack of transparency (read: lying) he has demonstrated around this makes me question his character. Is it possible he really has made the crazy character arc of being a jarhead Iraq war mercenary misogynist to clean, woman-respecting leftist? Sure, but i’m gonna need a little more accountability than what he’s showing.
That’s not nearly as good of evidence as promised.
The thread doesn’t actually provide any reference to what the totenkopf was besides being a skull. So unless he took the time to research it we’re still at square 1. Really his comment only reinforces the idea that he just believed it was a skull.
You framed it convincingly, but the source is not a blatant as you made it out to be.
The second article was a bit better though.
Honestly reflects a guy I knew that was in the Marines. They got confederate flag tattoos as a unit, because that’s what the unit did. Years later he regrets it and is honestly a great guy. Just made a dumb move at 20.
Franky many of the leftist I know IRL radicalized after their military service. Lot of young kids signed up after 9/11 and saw the shit first hand. They grew to hate it, but it was a process. So overall yeah I can believe a progressive dem went through a similar cycle.
If your main hang up is accountability wait until you hear about the competition
Also “the totenkopf on the dude on the left” shows up as a white blob in that picture. There is no way to make a connection from that shot to anything in real life.
Yeah that was a crazy read by that commentor, but the real point i was trying to make was that people have been saying “totenkopf is an obscure symbol, only WW2 buffs know about it” and then there’s platner active on WW2 history threads about the SS, talking about skulls and Nazi symbolism in the US military. He’s clearly more active in those circles than 99% of the population, which is why I dont give him the benefit of the doubt he didn’t know what it was. It’s not THAT obscure.
Whatever you say man. I just feel like leftists are giving this guy with massive red flags a ton of benefit of the doubt just because they like his (current) politics, and I think there’s a very good chance they’ll regret it.