Democrat U.S. Senate hopeful Graham Platner, leading the pack in Maine’s primary race, spent a whopping 18 years sporting an SS Death Head tattoo—a chilling symbol straight out of the Nazi SS playbook, evoking gas chambers, concentration camps, and the Third Reich’s machinery of death. This isn’t some faded college prank; Platner proudly paraded it around until recently, as exposed in blistering reporting that’s got the Bulwark’s NeverTrump crew and lefty scribe Matt Yglesias suddenly playing defense. They’re not outraged by the ink itself—no, they’re embracing Platner while smearing the messenger, Big League Politics, as some fringe operative. It’s a masterclass in progressive hypocrisy: when your guy flashes fascist flair, it’s just youthful rebellion, but heaven forbid a conservative waves a Gadsden flag.
Dig deeper, and this reeks of the left’s selective amnesia on extremism. Platner, a self-proclaimed progressive firebrand gun-grabber, embodies the irony: while he’s pushing to disarm law-abiding Mainers under the guise of safety, his own history flirts with the iconography of a regime that disarmed Jews before slaughtering them. Remember, the Nazis’ gun control laws in 1938 stripped firearms from undesirables, paving the way for the Holocaust. For the 2A community, this is red meat—proof that today’s anti-gun zealots often cozy up to the very authoritarian symbols that justify our Founders’ warnings in the Federalist Papers about tyranny. Platner’s tattoo isn’t just ink; it’s a walking billboard for why the Second Amendment exists as a bulwark against those who romanticize power unchecked.
The implications for gun owners are stark: in a battleground like Maine, where Susan Collins barely clings to her seat, Platner’s frontrunner status spotlights how Democrats normalize radicalism while demonizing self-defense rights. If he’s the nominee, expect smears on 2A advocates as extremists from the same crowd shrugging off Nazi tattoos. 2A patriots, clip this story, share it wide—it’s ammunition for exposing the real threat to liberty. Maine voters, don’t let a Death Head disciple dictate your rights.
