this post was submitted on 18 May 2026
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electoralism

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[–] starkillerfish@hexbear.net 62 points 3 days ago (5 children)

yes. he says that "platner has changed"

[–] RondoRevolution@hexbear.net 57 points 3 days ago (1 children)

sadness-abysmal look at my western left, there's no way

[–] GrouchyGrouse@hexbear.net 24 points 3 days ago (4 children)

My feelings are extremely mixed. I want to believe people can change. I do think seeing the evil eye to eye can awaken people, even if that change isn’t immediate. I also think that we live in a Nazi ass country so yeah a gormless boot could get a Nazi tattoo and have it just float through the milieu for a time.

I also think it’s an incredible indictment of everything that he says he got security clearances etc with that tattoo. Apparently nobody noticed it was a symbol from the literal SS? I’m not buying it. There’s a real story here that our government doesn’t give a fuck about blatant Nazi ink. That’s real fucking bad.

I still don’t trust Platner but the whole thing is fucky

[–] GnastyGnuts@hexbear.net 26 points 3 days ago (1 children)

The tattoo is a red-herring for the fact that Platner "served" at Fallujah, was a torture-camp guard at Abu Ghraib, and worked as a mercenary for Blackwater, long after they were pretty much exclusively known for committing war crimes (and had changed their name to avoid the association with said crimes).

[–] AssortedBiscuits@hexbear.net 8 points 2 days ago

Enlisted in the Marines, the branch where all the serial killers and white supremacists go to. Continued reenlisting in the same baby face shooting branch. Worked as a mercenary in Blackwater because he couldn't adapt to civie life where he can't shoot babies in the face anymore. Became a petty bourgeois small business owner because working is boring if you can't shoot babies in the face.

[–] CommunistCuddlefish@hexbear.net 21 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Totenkopf tattoo: maybe he was just an idiot and has changed. He did get it covered up.

"Serving" in the Fourth Reich's army, then becoming a mercenary: redemption requires at minimum he makes "marg bar amriKKKa" the most important plank of his platform. Veterans who do not feel ashamed of being veterans are irredeemable.

[–] Jabril@hexbear.net 22 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Exactly, I know so many veterans who have nothing but regret for that time and are anti-war and so on. Platner clearly loved that period of his life and regrets nothing, which is disturbing

[–] GrouchyGrouse@hexbear.net 17 points 3 days ago (2 children)

See that’s part of why I don’t trust him. He’s like “anti war” as in “bring the boys home” it’s too government coded “love da troops” setting off some real old John Kerry shaped alarm bells in my head

[–] CommunistCuddlefish@hexbear.net 16 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Exactly. "Bring the boys home?" Why, so they can pilot drones and murder people in safety? Fuck them, it warms my heart whenever I hear one of these war-criminal boys die.

[–] GrouchyGrouse@hexbear.net 7 points 3 days ago

It would certainly align with my feeling that the security state is circling some wagons

[–] Jabril@hexbear.net 9 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Exactly, he says the right things because he's supposed to, not out of any internal growth or commitment. It feels very manufactured and it is

[–] PleasantPeasant@hexbear.net 8 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

i hesitate to say it was manufactured, the reddit account getting exposed from years ago makes him seem more genuine to me. I suppose you could say it's part of some grander plan from an intelligence agency but I try to steer away from that level of conspiratorial thinking.

i just think he probably has a lot of cognitive dissonance that he refuses to confront, he has always been a very weird/dumb guy, dude got himself kicked out of a gw bush rally for sneaking in an antiwar sign and shouting during it as an ~18 yo but then he joins the military a year or 2 later? i really dont understand how that can happen but then again the machinations of the mind of my fellow amerikkkans are nearly an enigma to me anyways

fwiw I think the only way for him to truly show he's changed would to be to publicly denounce the US military in a way that would seriously damage his chances of winning the election, because i can squint and see the argument that he's "hiding his power level" but i dont think you get to do that after serving as an imperial death squad goon

[–] GrouchyGrouse@hexbear.net 5 points 3 days ago

Yeah that’s the conspiracy thread I’m hesitant to tug but with no proof just a vibe it feels like the security state dabbling in left populism to get ahead of whatever chaos happens next

[–] AssortedBiscuits@hexbear.net 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Do you have a breakdown of what branch each of those vets served in?

[–] Jabril@hexbear.net 4 points 2 days ago

Lol no but I think most were army although a few air force come to mind

[–] AssortedBiscuits@hexbear.net 10 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Apparently nobody noticed it was a symbol from the literal SS? I’m not buying it.

His fellow crayon eaters tried to use the excuse that holding up the SS flag isn't nazi shit because SS stood for "scout sniper." They all fucking knew.

[–] GrouchyGrouse@hexbear.net 8 points 2 days ago

I’ll never forget that brazen lie, like all those dudes raised on the same WWII movies as me didn’t know what the SS symbol was. Also wasn’t Australia part of that debacle?

[–] RondoRevolution@hexbear.net 9 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Nah I get it, we have to believe people can change. I remember seeing a video of a guy that become a nazi in prison I think and that later came to regret that so he covered the tattoo and changed his ways (I don't remember more than that since it was a long time ago I saw it, but I think he also was very vocal anti nazi in that video). But the thing is that changing requires action to back it up, and last I checked, Platner was a military dog turned mercenary that kept doing war crimes but for a private company and he never apologized for either, this is the opposite of changing, it reeks of covering your bullshit to appear more palatable.

The only way I would trust this guy and type of person is if he went all out on denouncing all this shit, including his military and mercenary work (that I heard he never apologized for) and being open about being anti-imperialist and a principled leftist. But given this is the US we are talking about, if he was simply anti-imperialist he would already be further left than Sanders, which would be a record compared to what you can expect from that hellscape.

Honestly, from all I've seen of the US, y'all need a new Black Panthers or at least the existing communist parties need to do try something else, cause the moment you have a candidate running that had a nazi tattoo is the obvious sign shit needs to change fast in case that wasn't obvious already. I know there's progress and good work being made, but the empire keeps escalating their aggressiveness as they fall and we are all at risk specially here in the global south. Shit feels grim.

[–] GrouchyGrouse@hexbear.net 11 points 3 days ago

I’m not expecting every vet to be Mike Prysner but any of them that claim to align with my politics should be aspiring to be more like Mike Prysner in beliefs at the minimum. You have to be against US empire and the military that feeds it and feeds off it. That bar isn’t in heaven it’s barely off the floor yet I don’t see more people clearing it, it’s quite grim.

And yeah, I always hold out hope for rehabilitation but, it’s the Fourth Reich, it’s like if you were to take me out of an AA meeting and drop me off outside a bar. Steeping in this culture makes rehabilitation of that awful chud military mindset harder.

[–] Infamousblt@hexbear.net 21 points 3 days ago

True but here's the full context

Platner has ~~ex~~changed ~~money with sellout Hasan Piker~~

[–] eldavi@lemmy.ml 9 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

he supports all of the fake leftists/progressives.

he's a liberal that hasn't finished all of the leftist reading so he's still wrong about a lot of stuff including calling himself a leftist.

look! he got the tattoo covered, what more could you want! vote