The Democrats have a big, Nazi-tattooed problem

For nearly 30 years, Maine has had a Republican senator, Susan Collins, who has held onto her seat even as the state has voted for successive Democratic presidents since 1992.

But with Donald Trump’s popularity plummeting, Maine is one of a handful of Senate seats that the Democrats have a very real chance of flipping at the November midterm elections, putting them on course to regain control of the upper house. 

Given that the Democrats have been haemorrhaging white working-class votes to Trump, a candidate who connects with this demographic should be great news.

But what happens when your golden boy turns out to have a Nazi tattoo? And has been sexting half a dozen women who are not his wife?

Welcome to the latest controversy cleaving the Democratic Party, which has been struggling to find a coherent message, ideological direction and compelling candidates to help it get back on track after its punishing defeat in the 2024 presidential election. 

When Platner, 41, burst onto the scene last summer, he was hailed as exactly that kind of authentic candidate who could transform the Democrats’ fortunes. 

Platner put himself forward for the Maine senate seat in August last year, pitting himself against Maine’s democratic governor, Janet Mills, an experienced politician who was seen as a strong candidate to challenge Collins.

Platner’s rough-and-ready approach immediately struck a chord, as he spoke about access to health care and the soaring cost of living from the perspective of someone who had lived through tough times. 

But his blue-collar credentials have been called into question: The New York Times has reported that he went to a private school and comes from a wealthy family of lawyers and architects. 

He also has a team of whip-smart political advisors helping shape his narrative, including Morris Katz, one of the key players behind New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s rise. 

But he talked the talk – with plenty of expletives – and had a compelling back story: he returned from three tours with the marines in Iraq and Afghanistan with PTSD and a drinking problem, which he worked through by taking over a friend’s oyster farm and embracing outdoors life in Maine. 

So far so good: an authentic personal arc of a real candidate pushing against the elites to represent the struggles of ordinary folk.

“People do not want their candidates grown in vats,” one of Platner’s advisers, Daniel Moraff, recently told the Wall Street Journal. “They want people who are real human beings, and they want people who do not look and sound like the vat-grown people who’ve been leading this country off a cliff for the last century.”

The question is, how real is too real?

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In October last year, it emerged that Platner got a tattoo of a skull and crossbones while serving in the Marines. The image closely resembled a Nazi Totenkopf, the death’s head symbol used by the SS unit that guarded concentration camps. 

Then came the unearthed Reddit posts from his 20s and 30s, in which Platner expressed pretty much every kind of unacceptable view, ranging from blaming women for rape, denigrating white rural voters, and defending peeing on dead Taliban fighters. 

But he weathered that storm, given that it fitted into the redemption arc his team had created: an imperfect man struggling to become a better person for himself and his community. He apologised for the Reddit posts and claimed he didn’t know the meaning of his tattoo. 

His star continued to rise, and Platner became the new media darling of the Democrats, appearing on the cover of TIME and getting lengthy profiles in all the major newspapers. In April, Mills dropped out of the race.

Then just before the Democratic primary, a new series of allegations dropped. It transpired that Platner’s wife had expressed concern to his campaign staff about sexually explicit messages Platner had sent to up to six women. This was as recently as last year. 

The New York Times also interviewed Platner’s ex-girlfriends. One accused him of being physically aggressive, and others said he was disrespectful to women. One ex-girlfriend said he knew exactly what his tattoo meant and referred to it as “my Totenkopf”.

Cue a Democratic Party meltdown, as prominent members divided into factions wanting to stick with a deeply flawed candidate in the desperate hope of electoral success, and others who said the Democrats must have higher standards. 

“We all say Democrats should fight harder, but what does it mean to fight harder? To me, it means you show up when an ally who challenges power is under attack,” said Ro Khanna, a Congressman from California and potential Democratic presidential candidate. 

But another Democrat Representative – fellow former marine Jake Auchincloss – said a Nazi tattoo should disqualify a candidate.

“It would be a mistake for the Democratic Party to think that Graham Platner’s brand of the Democratic Party is what wins us durable majorities throughout this country,” he told CNN. 

No one can seem to agree what to do with the Graham Platner problem, and Republicans are rubbing their hands with glee. 

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Of course, Trump and his allies have set a low bar for what is morally acceptable in a politician these days. 

A stand-out is health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr – married to actress Cheryl Hines. During the 2024 campaign, Kennedy was furtively sexting journalist Olivia Nuzzi, telling her he wanted to impregnate her and that he was “a river, you are my canyon”. 

RFK Jr has also snorted cocaine off a toilet seat, cut the penis off a dead racoon, and decapitated a beached whale. Trump still put him in charge of the US health system. 

Defence secretary Pete Hegseth’s first wife divorced him for infidelity. His second wife and mother of three children didn’t fare much better: she divorced him when he impregnated a fellow Fox News host. She became wife number three, but shortly after she gave birth to his son, he was accused of drunkenly assaulting a woman. 

Then of course there is the president himself, convicted of falsifying business records over a hush-money payment to an adult actress, and found liable for sexual assault. 

Still the voters elected him. And on June 9, Platner convincingly won the Democratic primary. 

There is plentiful evidence suggesting that American voters are willing to overlook all sorts of personal shortcomings in the hope of finding someone who might just represent their genuine hopes and grievances. 

Whether Democrats want to participate in this continual lowering of the bar for public office is a question they must ask themselves. But right now, with all the infighting and self-flagellation, they risk doing the Republicans’ job for them.