It's unfair to attack Platner with political motivations, he always attacked civilians purely for the love of the game 
this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2026
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as usual liberals fail to understand the difference between disingenuous far-right attacks and objectively correct rebukes from their left.
You cannot get someone to understand something if their brunch relies on them not understanding it.
"criticism of politician are politically motivated" yes that is called politics, sir
The political motivation: He's a politician.
The double standard: I 200% hate nazis.
Liberals believe elections should have nothing to do with political motivations.
Jacobin: "Yes, the sky is blue but here's why Nazi mercs are the real left"
All the wokes are just crying because he’s a part of the real left. A petit-bourgeoisie, dyed in the wool ex-USmilitary/mercenary/AbuGhraib guard with a Nazi tattoo. If you don’t like it you're a poser
someone pointed out on a thread on here recently how all of the people rushing to Plat's defense are the exact same people who dropped Maurrine Galindo like a hot potato the instant the NYT did an article about her making a couple of sus statements. I guess being a tenant organizer and supporting progressive politics wasn't enough for her, but doing nothing of note and supporting progressive politics is enough to completely wash Plat's entire history. If you think the electoral and lesser evil or "people can get better" arguments hold water, then that's a MASSIVE double standard. Why does Plat get so much grace that other progressives simply don't?
I think that on some level that's what people who are really mad about Platner are responding to. Platner gets grace because Amerikkkans view going to another country and murdering brown people as a lesser crime than saying something slightly sus on social media. Platner gets grace because even many of the progressive minded among us still kinda worship troops and so the fact that he's lied about his record and gotten immediately caught multiple times gets handwaved away. Platner gets grace because he might flip a Maine Senate seat - that last one is the kind of purely practical political calculation I would expect from someone invested in the Democrats as a political project, and I would accept it (while disagreeing that that should be the goal) if they were at least honest about it.
Platner gets grace because Amerikkkans view going to another country and murdering brown people as a lesser crime than saying something slightly sus on social media.
the reality is many americans were raised by war criminals and their fondness for the war criminal makes them scared of criticizing other criminals
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I'd respect it onlynif they were planning on using it to accomplish something other than pocket lining
yeah I ended up changing that sentence from "respect" to "accept"
Lesser evilism is just a tool to justify voting blue no matter who. They don't actually believe in lesser evilism. You'll see this with people saying shit like Kamala lost because America doesn't want or woman president / she had a funny laugh.
The other day I started a book about U.S. neoliberalism that actually recognized how the mere existence of the Soviet Union led to better conditions for workers in the U.S., and how since its fall the U.S. has tightened the noose on the working class. All right! Let's keep reading!
Two pages later he said something like "This is not to imply that I'm defending communism, which is a reprehensible form of tyranny . . ."
I groaned, put down the book, and googled the author to see how much more dipshittery I could expect. Lo and behold, he had a friendly interview about the book with Jacobin, where for some reason they didn't ask him, "Hey, if communism was a reprehensible form of tyranny, what do you call a system that, absent a countervailing power on the other side of the world, insists on making conditions worse for the vast majority of its population?"
I've read more than one book which contained insightful analysis, deep research, or other fascinating material in regards to socialism and/or the USSR, which then went on to dismiss AES countries as "authoritarian" or other such nonsense.
Sometimes you gotta put up with some liberal propaganda. But it can be worth it.
Yeah, I know (but I still appreciate the reminder, as I have to remind myself of this with some frequency). Par for the course for non-Marxist scholarship. I'll keep reading. Just need to treat my whiplash first.
Lately I've been having trouble with just about any book on U.S. history. There's always this tacit acceptance of American exceptionalism.
What's that quote? About the compulsion to genuflect before anticommunism to prove you're not outside the acceptable bounds of liberal discourse? I think it was from Parenti or something but now I can't find it.
Anyway assuming I'm remembering it correctly just imagine I replied with that instead of with this.
It's funny - he implicitly addresses this in the previous paragraph. Here's the full quote. Pages 11-12:
Putting the fall of communism at the center of the story of neoliberalism's rise requires an understanding of the role of communism in shaping the politics of the United States in the sixty years prior the to 1990s that is different from what is offered in many histories. In these accounts, fear of communism is treated as a limiting force on progressive politics. Countless progressive movements, it has been argued, trimmed their political sails rather than risk being tagged with the kiss-of-death label, "soft on communism." But the threat of communism, I argue, actually worked in a quite different direction: It inclined capitalist elites to compromise so as to avert the worst. American labor was strongest when the threat of communism was greatest. The apogee of America's welfare state, with all its limitations, was coterminous with the height of the Cold War. The dismantling of the welfare state and the labor movement, meanwhile, marched in tandem with communism's collapse.
To argue for communism's importance is not meant to rehabilitate it as a political movement. Communism was an indefensible system of tyranny. Rather, it is meant to help up to understand the role that communism played in the century when it was a feared force, and then to call on us to reckon with the effects of its sudden and complete disappearance from international and national affairs . . .
why do so many people fuck with graham platner genuinely?
They only believe that brown people are human insofar as it is a useful rhetorical tactic
does it rly matter that he verbally expresses support gaza if he hunted brown people for sport himself?
What do you mean? He was an adorkable goof who got tricked into going overseas to murder people. We have to focus on the present, things that happened more than fifteen minutes ago aren't real, and also isn't forgiveness what left politics are all about?
With respect. This is exactly the wrong take on Platner. He has never renounced his past service to the US military. He regrets only the particular boondoggle he directly participated in (so-called war on terror), not as a systemic critique but a strategic critique which embraces the system.
Platner is a progressive face on US imperialism. He advocates for better veteran healthcare and has apologized only for uncouth comments he made about fellow soldiers. Leftist candidates have no business campaigning on pro-military stance.
Platner is radioactive and there is no reason to accept Platner in any capacity
I tried to make it so exactly wrong that it would read as sarcastic. I should have used a tag
Sorry, that did go over my head
Always use a tag
If you weren't a hexbear I would have thought your comment was real.
From how things are going you can't assume even then
So much. For. The. Tolerant. LEFT.
Lesser evilism has allowed the overton window to move so far to the right that you can be a straight up Nazi now and be defended because the blue team are the good guys stop purity testing the left.
Residual subconscious feelings regarding graham cracker pie crusts and how much better they are than the regular kind(s).
This seems to be really driving a wedge in whatever exists of the western left at the moment. I was surprised to see on Breakthrough News just a couple days ago (YouTube), the episode with guest speaker Krystal Ball, apologia for Plant Platner. Like what the hell, usually Rania has good takes but why is even she tripped up by a guy like Platner? He’s not “messy” he’s a murderer
Fucking Rania was backing this guy? wtf
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Double standard of no nazis? Yes our "politically motivated" disgust of Blackwater Nazi murder fratbois who until he was running never saw the "Are we the baddies?" Sketch or any WW2 film growing up as an American.
Actually I operate on the single standard of "don't have a literal fucking SS tattoo"
i have other standards too, but thats a very good baseline one
Imagine Robespierre reading this shit
Time for some self crit
Hot take: Jacobin is correct because there are plenty of "Slava Ukraini" libs who are now shitting on Platner because of his Nazi tattoo. If you're cool with Ukrainian neonazis with Nazi tattoos ethnically cleansing the Russian population of the Donbass, why are you suddenly criticizing a dude with his own Nazi tattoo?
Jacobin probably supports Ukrainian Nazis.
Dawg just discipline your candidates for once.
So?
Why is political motivation a bad thing? Like someone tell me anything a political figure does in the political space that isn't motivated by politics?
Is this some sort of self-humiliation ritual?
This is more embarrassing than vote blue no matter who.
Uhhh yeah, I mean my politics oppose showering random people on the street with grenades so...yeah
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