Graham Platner
Image source: Greta Rybus for TIME.
What was the Accusation?
Graham Platner, a Marine Corps veteran, oyster farmer, and Democratic U.S. Senate candidate in Maine, faced repeated public criticism during his 2025-2026 campaign after several controversies surfaced. The first major controversy involved deleted Reddit posts, reported in October 2025, in which Platner had made inflammatory comments about police, rural white Americans, politics, and sexual assault. He said those comments came from a period of alienation and disillusionment after his military service and argued that they no longer reflected his current beliefs. The controversy intensified when a video from his brother’s 2015 wedding showed a skull-and-crossbones tattoo on his chest that resembled the Totenkopf, a symbol associated with Nazi Germany’s SS. Platner said he got the tattoo while drunk with fellow Marines in Croatia in 2007, did not understand its Nazi association, and had it covered once the issue became public.
The accusations broadened in 2026 after The New York Times reported claims from women who had dated Platner, including allegations of misogynistic comments, troubling behavior in relationships, infidelity, and one former girlfriend’s allegation of physical intimidation. Platner denied allegations of physical misconduct and denied that he knowingly wore a Nazi-associated tattoo, calling some of the claims politically motivated. At the same time, he acknowledged past personal failings, apologized for offensive language and online comments, and framed his response around growth, accountability, and his current political commitments. Despite these controversies, Platner won the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in Maine on June 9, 2026, setting up a general election race against incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins.
Key Apologia Strategies:
Mortification, Corrective Action, Differentiation, Bolstering, Minimization
Video
Transcript
Hey all, it’s Graham here. As you’ve probably seen, there’s a story that’s broken about comments I made on Reddit in an earlier part of my life. As I read through them, I read things that I absolutely do not agree with. I read through and I see things that I…words and statements that I abhor. I also see the trajectory of my life. When I got back from Afghanistan in 2011, I stayed in the army for another year. I got out in 2012. Some of the worst comments I made and things that I think are the least defensible, that I wouldn’t even try to defend, come from that time. I had spent the bulk of my 20s in the infantry, deploying overseas, fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. The infantry is a very male-dominated place. It’s a very masculine world. When I was in, women weren’t allowed in the infantry. It’s changed now and that’s a good thing. But when I got out, I still had the crude humor, the dark feelings, the offensive language that really was a hallmark of the infantry when I was in it.
I made comments that I’m not happy about, that I do not agree with, but they came from a time and place in my life. And as I read through the comments that were released, I can see myself changing. My language gets less crude, my thoughts and my feelings get a lot less kind of rough around the edges. I do get almost more disillusioned, though. It’s important to know that this was a time in my life where I was struggling deeply. I got out of the army in 2012. I had PTSD. I had depression. I had all of the things that come with serving in a war…in two wars that I eventually began to not believe in at all. It left me feeling very unmoored. It left me feeling very disillusioned, very alienated, and very isolated. And I think like a lot of people, I went on the internet to post stupid things and get in fights and find some form of community in some way. Some outlet for my feelings, for my rage, for my isolation.
It wasn’t until I found actual community that that all went away. And the reason that I stopped posting on Reddit around 2020 and 2021 is because that was the point in my life when I had found this. I have moved back to my home town. I’ve found community. I started a business. I met someone to fall in love with. I’ve been able to really begin to feel connected again. And not only did it let me feel connected, it also gave me a lot of hope. I had spent years being entirely isolated and feeling very very angry about the system that had made me go through that experience. Coming back to Maine, moving back to my home town, reconnecting to the community where I’m from, building real friendships, building real networks, real relationships with people, that helped cut my disillusion. I went from thinking that people were bad to knowing that people are good. I went from thinking that there was no hope, to having nothing but hope. A hope that is rooted in the fact that it was in my community here in Sullivan, Maine that I got to come home and build a nice life.
That all changed for me, but it took me a long time to get there and it was a very long journey. And along that journey, I was in different places that I’m not in now with feeling that I do not have now. I had different thoughts and opinions that I certainly don’t have now. But I am very proud of the person I am today. And it was that whole journey that got me here. And while I won’t defend things that I said in the past, I will just say that if it wasn’t for that entire journey, I would not be who I am today and I’m incredibly proud of who I am today. And so for those of you who have read these things and have been offended. Read these things and seen someone who you don’t recognize, I am deeply sorry. It’s something that…I see someone that I don’t recognize either, not in who I am today. It is someone that I do recognize, though. Somebody who is struggling. Somebody who is having a very difficult time, settling into a society that he felt betrayed by and left behind by after having to go fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. I’m sorry for this. Just know that it’s not reflective of who I am. I don’t want you to judge me on the dumbest thing I ever wrote on the internet. I would prefer if people could judge me on the person I am today. And I just want to say thank you all very much for your time.