Platner, who had a Nazi symbol tattooed on his chest for decades, described his campaign as ‘an extension’ of the civil rights movement
PORTLAND, Maine—Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner, the grandson of a world-famous architect known for “opulent” designs who attended an elite Connecticut prep school, said billionaires should be “extinct.”
“I just have to call out the ‘Make Billionaires Extinct’ T-shirt I see down there,” Platner said approvingly during a Sunday rally, referencing an attendee who donned the shirt. The audience erupted in cheers and applause.
If Platner swapped “billionaires” for “millionaires,” the call would likely apply to members of his own family. His grandfather, Warren Platner, was a world-famous architect known for “opulent modernism” designs, including the “Platner Easy Chair,” which sells for nearly $20,000. Platner himself attended the Hotchkiss School, an elite Connecticut boarding school that costs upwards of $75,000 a year and boasts powerful alumni like Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart and former CIA director Porter Goss, the Washington Free Beacon reported.
Platner’s father, meanwhile, served as an assistant district attorney in Maine and chaired the board of a local nonprofit with ties to former Senate majority leader George Mitchell, former secretary of defense William Cohen, and former Maine governor Joseph Brennan.
Platner, who before becoming an oyster farmer worked as a State Department contractor in Afghanistan for Constellis, formerly known as Blackwater, bills himself as “working class.” He sports a thick beard and frequently wears plaid shirts with the sleeves rolled up. He recently told MSNBC host and former Biden press secretary Jen Psaki he’s “never been close to money and power.”
During Sunday’s rally, Platner also called his campaign “an extension” of the civil rights movement.
“What we are trying to build here is an extension of the movements of the past, pushing ever forward towards justice and equality,” he said. “In those movements, song and music was a necessity in the labor movement, in the civil rights movement, in the anti-war movement.”
It was an interesting remark, given the Nazi symbol Platner had tattooed on his chest. Several prominent Jews played crucial roles in the civil rights movement: Stanley Levison served as an adviser and speechwriter to Martin Luther King Jr., while Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel walked arm-in-arm with the famed activist during the 1965 march in Selma. And Jack Greenberg, whose parents fled pogroms in Europe, was co-counsel to Thurgood Marshall in Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court case that outlawed school segregation.
Platner has claimed he was unaware of the Nazi symbolism behind his Totenkopf tattoo, which consists of a skull and crossbones or “death’s head” in a particular style used by the SS. His associates have contradicted that claim. Genevieve McDonald, who resigned as Platner’s political director after his Reddit posts promoting violence and describing himself as a communist surfaced, called Platner a “history buff” who likely knew the meaning behind the tattoo. A person who knew Platner when he lived in Washington, D.C., told Jewish Insider that he fondly referred to the tattoo as “my Totenkopf.” And an “acquaintance” of Platner told CNN that “Platner spoke about his tattoo resembling a Nazi symbol.”
Platner has since covered up the tattoo with a wolf design. He did not respond to a request for comment.
