RedState has extensively documented the various controversies involving Graham Platner, who is the Bernie Sanders/Liz Warren-backed presumptive Maine Democrat Senate nominee now that the state's governor, Janet Mills, has dropped out of the race after not putting up much of a fight.
Early on in the primary, Platner was enmeshed in multiple self-inflicted scandals, most of which centered around his time as a Reddit commenter, with some resurfaced posts dating back to 2013 and others as recent as 2021, and which included Platner boasting about being a communist and bashing law enforcement officers as "b**tards."
There was also the self-loathing towards rural white Americans and racially insensitive posts about black people, as well as some sexual assault victim-shaming. Though he blamed it on him just being an "internet sh**poster," the revelation that he's had a Nazi-themed chest tattoo since 2007 has been harder for the veteran to shake (he said he was drunk in Croatia when he got it, didn't know what it meant at the time, and has since covered it with another tattoo).
SEE ALSO: Dems Hitch Wagons to Graham Platner, but Impending Revelations May Have the Wheels Falling Off
As my colleague Rusty Weiss detailed earlier, more posts from Platner have been unearthed, including some that involved talk of... self-pleasuring in a porta-potty.
This is a direct quote from one of those posts. Warning for strong language and graphic imagery:
"I still have to jerk off every time I sit in a porta-s***ter… that blue water smell conditioned me."
And that wasn't all:
In a March 2021 post in the r/USMC forum, Platner responded to a thread about “GWOT D*** Art” by praising an explicit penis drawing in a portable toilet.
"Oh s---!!!," Platner wrote. "You’ve got the Hot Rod C--- from Manas!"
"I sat there in sheer awe. The soul filling joy to be allowed to witness such glory," he added, describing the graffiti as “beautiful,” “engorged and veiny,” and moving “towards its penetrative glory.”
Amazingly, but not surprisingly, disgraced former Rep. Eric Swalwell's (CA-14) bestie (or maybe former bestie, now?) Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), an Iraq war veteran who served in the Marines, rushed to Platner's defense, calling the gross and cringeworthy revelations something that made Platner "more relatable to veterans."
"Did Fox News talk to any grunt or deployed Marine before posting?" Gallego posted on X. "If the goal is to make him more relatable to veterans than mission accomplished."
Sen. Tim Sheehy (R-MT), a former Navy SEAL who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, quipped, "Mental note - don’t use the Senate men’s room after Ruben."
Others were a little less polite:
A sitting United States Senator is calling posts that fantasize about masturbating into public toilets relatable.
— CJ Pearson (@Cjpearson) May 19, 2026
I see now why you and Eric Swalwell made the best of friends! https://t.co/UvUW11ARwZ
Yeah, because a violent, angry, woman-hating, Nazi is so relatable to Democrats.
— The🐰FOO (@PolitiBunny) May 19, 2026
At least you're honest about it. https://t.co/5sXZ8Zty7r
This was AI, but still amusing:
When this porta-potty is rocking, don’t come a-knocking. What an embarrassment for all Marines. @usmc @SenRubenGallego @grahamformaine @RubenGallego @FoxNews @SenateDems https://t.co/51EZsLOwlx pic.twitter.com/6TXO5J4SDr
— @AZBigCountry 🇺🇸 (@azbigcountry) May 19, 2026
Best friend of likely rapist Eric Swalwell says he likes Platner more after finding out he masturbated in porta potties.
— Nick Poché (@NickPocheVOTE) May 19, 2026
This is not a sentence that I could have fathomed writing at any point in my life but here we are. https://t.co/8sV85czaOq
As far as I'm concerned, the defenses of Platner's comments from the likes of Gallego, Warren, Sanders, and other Senate Democrats are just as much of an indictment of them as they are of Platner.
They are so desperate to retake the Senate that Platner could come out tomorrow and explicitly say I knew exactly what that tattoo meant and am damned proud of it, and they'd still find a way to defend him.
While Democrats in Maine also don't seem to be too bothered by his troubling internet history or the Nazi tattoo, independent voters - some of whom Platner needs to win over to defeat Sen. Susan Collins (R) in the fall - could be another matter entirely.
Editor’s Note: The 2026 Midterms will determine the fate of President Trump’s America First agenda. Republicans must maintain control of both chambers of Congress.
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