The Guy Who Blamed His Nazi Tattoo, Social Media Post on His Military Service Once Said This About PTSD

Graham Platner deleted a slew of incendiary, insulting social media posts. In those posts, he attacked police officers as bastards, called a Maine police chief 'trash' for not bending the knee to BLM, called himself a communist, and smeared rural White Americans as 'racist' and 'stupid.' He also told women they needed to act like adults to avoid being sexually assaulted.

He's also the guy who had the Nazi tattoo on his chest for years, specifically the Totenkopf, a skull and bones symbol adopted by Hitler’s Schutzstaffel (SS). He covered it up only after decided to run for the Senate and he blamed his military service for not only that offensive ink, but his social media posts as well.

But, once again, the supposed humble oyster farmer once was signing a different tune on PTSD, calling it a 'bulls*** excuse' for inappropriate behavior.

Maine Senate candidate Platner dismissed PTSD as 'bull----' excuse for bad behavior in 2020 — now cites his own PTSD to explain years of incendiary posts pic.twitter.com/xOjU6OoZoE
— Fox News Politics (@foxnewspolitics) May 13, 2026

Here's more:

Democrat Graham Platner has leaned into his struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to explain a bevy of incendiary social media posts prior to his Senate run in which he justified political violence and insulted law enforcement.
But the progressive darling suggested PTSD and the trauma from multiple combat deployments are not an excuse for offensive behavior in a since-deleted post obtained by Fox News Digital.
Platner, 41, made the comment on the Reddit forum r/SocialistRA in 2020, five years before emerging as a potent challenger to Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, in November’s midterm elections.
Using a handle that did not identify him, Platner criticized a report in the Portland Press Herald about two former police officers who admitted to killing porcupines with their batons while on duty. One officer, a Marine veteran who was deployed to Afghanistan, attributed his actions to PTSD from his overseas deployment.
"Don’t buy into that bulls---. I did 4 tours in the infantry to Iraq and Afghanistan, saw all kinds of awful things, have a PTSD diagnosis and STILL manage not to beat defenseless animals to death for fun," Platner, a Marine and Army veteran and oyster farmer, wrote in a social media post.
"That’s just cops giving excuses for their garbage behavior," he added.