Graham Platner Smeared Cops as ‘Trash’ and ‘Authoritarian Bullies’ in Deleted Reddit Posts
Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner (D.) called a small-town Maine police chief “trash” for refusing to take a knee in solidarity with Black Lives Matter protesters, and referred to other police officers as “authoritarian bullies” in deleted Internet posts.
In a Reddit post, Platner lambasted the chief of police in Ellsworth for declining to kneel at a June 2, 2020, protest in the city over the death of George Floyd. According to Platner, who lives near Ellsworth, the chief told the crowd of around 200 protesters that officers were “not allowed to display opinion” by kneeling. “Naturally, this pissed people off. Hell, it pissed ME off,” Platner wrote.
“Literally the simplest possible gesture to appease the crowd, you don’t even have to say anything. Take a knee for 10 seconds, the crowd would have cheered and clapped and felt like they were part of the same community as the cops,” added Platner.
“But no. Just tight lipped thin blue line trash.”
The modest June protest in Ellsworth was described by local media at the time as peaceful and dignified, with no clashes between protesters and the police, who largely stood on the sidelines and aided in crowd control. The chief, Glenn Moshier, was quoted in The Ellsworth American as thanking the Black Lives Matter organizers and participants “for their calm restraint in these trying times.”
Platner’s remarks about police officers, especially those in his home state, could prove a political liability for the Democratic rising star in his race against Republican incumbent Susan Collins. And it’s part of a pattern of Platner’s inflammatory remarks on Reddit, where he posted under the handle “P-Hustle” until 2021.
Platner described himself as a “communist” and referred to rural white Americans as “racist and stupid.” In a 2013 post, Platner wrote that women who had been sexually assaulted should “take some responsibility for themselves and not get so fucked up they wind up having sex with someone they don’t mean to.”
Platner has apologized for some of his posts, attributing them to his struggles with PTSD after leaving the military in 2012, depression, and alcohol abuse. “I also used to like to get drunk and post on Reddit, because that was fun when I was angry and alone,” Platner said in a podcast interview last year. “I don’t think any of that is indicative of who I am today,” he told CNN.
In the late spring of 2020, when Platner made his “trash” comment about Ellsworth, he was several years past what he had described as the low point in his struggles with PTSD and alcohol. Platner has said he started to shift away from Reddit in 2020 and 2021, when he made many of the anti-cop posts, after moving back to his hometown and “met someone to fall in love with.”
But Platner has not specifically addressed his remarks about police officers. In those posts, Platner expressed broad contempt for police officers, casting them as inherently racist, corrupt, and “authoritarian.”
In a February 2018 post, Platner said he was “extremely wary of local police and their abilities.”
“[I] do not like the idea of relying solely on underpaid and undertrained (and often authoritarian bullies) for my protection.”
In May 2019, Platner criticized police officers and military veterans who embrace the skull logo from the “Punisher” comic books as “insecure.”
“Gotta show everyone how badass you are because deep down you know you’re a coward,” he wrote.
His criticism of skull tattoos came several years after Platner, when he served in the Marine Corps in the early 2000s, got a Nazi skull-and-crossbones tattoo called a “Totenkopf” on his chest. Platner only covered up the tattoo last year after reporters began asking about its Nazi origins, and claimed he did not know the historical significance of the tattoo. But Platner’s friends have reportedly said he openly referred to the ink as “my Totenkopf.”
Platner denigrated the police in other posts.
“Every small town is ‘shocked’ when its cops do the thing that cops do everywhere else,” he wrote in April 2021. “It’s almost as if there is a problem that extends deep into the profession as a whole…like, into the system itself.”
“F— these cops,” he wrote in an April 2021 post after the police shooting of Daunte Wright, who was fatally shot by a Minnesota police officer while resisting arrest during a traffic stop.
Platner’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
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