freagle

Also, stop assuming what I have or haven’t done with my life

I don’t really have to. You provide all the evidence yourself

I’m not going to hand you a resumé just to earn your approval, because that would be performative and you would still dismiss it as “not doing the work.”

You don’t have to give me a resume. Your words are all anyone needs to see.

For the record, I’m not a white supremacist.

Highly recommend you actually engage in some deeper anti-racism work in community with other white folk and accountability with some black folk.

LOL. Someone’s not paying attention

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/30/us/politics/graham-platner-maine-senate-texts.html

Nothing’s stopping more POCs from running for office, so why aren’t they?

Tell me you haven’t done the work without telling me you haven’t done the work.

I’ve seen that phrase weaponized against people who have done the work so many times that I’m just desensitized to it now.

Tell me more about how hard it is to be white when people are constantly telling you that white people you support (or maybe even you yourself) aren’t doing enough.

You don’t know how much soul-searching he’s done or “actual consciousness” he has. You’re just assuming that he hasn’t

I’m going based on his communications. I know people who are on the journey of recovering from white supremacist patriarchy and not only is Platner not showing evidence of having done the work, he’s executing the classic “retreat to innocence” without a hint of self-awareness. I know former military who have done the work and I would vote for them. I know former neo-nazis who have done the work, but I wouldn’t put them up for election because collective enforcement of norms and consequences for past behavior are critical social technologies.

He’s already addressed it. You expect him to keep beating a dead horse, just because you’ll never let it die? And dwell on the thing with really bad optics during an election cycle?

No. I expect him to actually do something with his journey that isn’t immediately attempting to put himself into a position of power. I expect him to go work with troubled teen boys, work with skin heads in prison, work with veterans recovering from toxic masculinity, work with violent men to show them a path towards healing. It’s part of doing the work. You don’t just go to therapy, read some books, do some journaling, remove a tattoo, and then run for senate without doing ANY of the reparative work. That’s not how any of this works.

The Trump state that the Democrats paved the way for and did not lift a finger to stop. Stop acting like administrations are discontinuous. Most of the tools Trump is using were put in place or enhanced by former Democrat administrations. Tom Homan was an Obama appointee. The Obama/Clinton war crime campaign in Libya was initiated by Bush 2. All of the prior administrations expanded the military, expanded militarization of the police, etc. Bill and Hillary lived in the Governor’s Mansion in AK, saw the black house slaves from the prison who worked there and just went on being served by black house slaves for the entire term. Every administration and every swing of power in Congress has maintained and expanded the sanctions regime that kills 800k people every year.

The Democrats are not a solution. They have never been a solution. They have always been a part of the problem. The problem is not limited to a single party, it’s the entire political system. It was founded this way, it was designed this way, it was cultivated this way, it was protected this way, it was maintained this way. And Platner shows us exactly how it works. Bring in a white supremacist murderer with a tottenkopf tattoo who, after seeing the atrocities of the US war machine first hand decided to go work for Blackwater mercenaries who are known to be even worse in the field and then all he has to do is remove the tattoo, apologize, and then get frustrated when people keep bringing it up. Blame the voters for not voting the right way. It’s never the party’s fault. They literally couldn’t find someone who wasn’t a murderer who volunteered to keep the murder going multiple times and doesn’t really want to talk much about it except that everyone should respect him now for deciding to go into politics with empty promises that he has no power to keep.

What’s the alternative? When you see a Sophie’s Choice, just don’t play that game and go do something like organize locally with the homeless, with the racialized, and build a movement that will topple this tower of bullshit. Work with your racial and gender category in breaking down their internalization of oppressive systems. Actually engage in liberatory politics instead of literally fighting for a murdering mercenary and blaming voters for not choosing to pick a leader from among a bunch of people who literally do not deserve their respect and do not deserve the power they are asking for.

Correct! It’s almost like electoralism isn’t solving any fucking problems and we should stop wasting time on this race - because every single choice is a losing choice - and instead focus our efforts on literally anything else that makes life better because giving Democrats our energy is just frog marching us towards more and more death, destruction, and devastation.

This is mostly just cope. Platner needs to actually talk about the tattoo, what he learned, how he learned it, how it applies to the context of US politics and the military, why people might be upset about it, what he’s doing over and above what a normal person needs to do because the fact that he had a fucking tottenkopf permanently drawn on his body requires some more soul searching and actual consciousness than the kid who thought rap music was garbage when they were 15.

What’s NOT doing the work is retreating to innocence. “I didn’t know. How could I know? I removed it, what more could I possibly do? Actually people who are upset just don’t understand.”

That’s not the work. That’s literally text book crypto white supremacist defense mechanisms. It’s the same playbook that allows Bostonians to believe they aren’t racist when pretty much any POC who interacts with the city will tell you it’s one of the top racist places in the country.

Everything is meaningless if your entire theory of action is vote blue no matter, so it’s not surprising you think that saying Platner hasn’t done the work is meaningless.

But don’t worry. In a few more days you’ll need to explain why he was sexting with women on TikTok and his wife found out and she chose to share it with the campaign. And of course, he didn’t know it was wrong at the time. He was just caught up in the moment. He deleted the messages now so everything is fine. What more could I ask from him?

Criticizing Platner is not blue maga. Blue maga is literally people saying “We have to vote Democrats to make America great again and if we don’t fall in line and eat the shit the Democrats serve us then you’re just as bad a Trump”

LOL, telling on yourself on this one. The fact that he has not responded well to situation around his tattoo means he hasn’t done the work.

Those are promises, not policies. He’s not in office yet, he hasn’t voted on anything, and he will be the junior member and highly subject to party discipline.

He doesn’t have any policies. He’s a candidate for a low level elected office where he will be exactly 1% of the vote and he will absolutely vote to continue expanding the military and the police. He saw what happened and instead of becoming a conscientious objector he decided to voluntarily join Blackwater!

It’s not about being misled. The guy has very clearly not done the work. Sure. He looks like he’s starting to do the work, but he’s a massive fucking liability with the half apologies and the backtracking. He’s not woke yet. Yes, everyone has a right to start where there are. No, we don’t have to fucking vote them into positions of power over us.

Do you really believe only the Republicans are Nazis? Operation Paperclip was done under Truman. The genocidal campaign against North Korea was also Truman. LBJ lead the mass murder campaign in Vietnam and Laos.

No. The fact that Platner is the darling of the Ds is shifting the Overton Window of acceptable open proximity to Nazis, not proof that Platner isn’t as horrible as his history shows him to be. The man chose to join Blackwater AFTER he saw what they were doing in theater.

Don’t try to reason with blue maga

Stop trying to talk sense into blue maga

He also didn’t know what sexting was, eh? Just said some words that his buddies thought sounded cool and next thing you know his wife is sharing them to expose what he’s actually like?