Reporter Blasted For ‘Deliberately Dishonest’ Argument That ‘Republicans Look Silly’ For Criticizing Platner’s Tattoo

Even in an election cycle filled with some of the Democratic Party’s most cartoonishly far-left candidates, none have grabbed as much attention as US Senate candidate Graham Platner from Maine.

Now that he’s clinched his party’s nomination ahead of November’s general election, however, Democrats and the mainstream media have been dutifully circling the wagons around him and his scandal-ridden past.

That includes attempts to whitewash his Nazi-linked tattoo, among the first controversies to emerge after he entered the race. 

As Twitchy noted, however, one reporter’s effort to make that case quickly backfired on social media:

Democrats in Maine, and across the country, have made it clear that they don’t care if their candidate had a Nazi tattoo on his chest for nearly two decades. Voters have made up their minds that they’re going to vote blue no matter who, so they can take back the Senate and tend to their priorities, which include impeaching President Donald Trump and not much else.

Ryan Grim is a reporter at Drop Site News, and he has a hot new take on Graham Platner’s tattoo. He says Republicans make themselves look ridiculous by claiming Platner has a Nazi tattoo, because when most people hear that, they assume it’s a swastika. It’s cool … it’s not a swastika, it’s a Totenkopf, a symbol of the SS.

The majority of responses to Grim’s comments were unsurprisingly negative:

One of the most recognizable death camp symbols

"The Republicans look silly"

Nah, don't think they do mate.

— Arizona Ranger01 (@ArizonaRanger03) June 12, 2026

You're being deliberately dishonest. It may not be a Swastika, but it's still a Nazi symbol. In fact, that particular symbol, the Topenkoff, is WORSE than a Swastika. It is the symbol of Adolf Hitler's elite guard, the Schutzstaffel, or SS for short.

— Timothy Van Hoeck (@VanTimothy43258) June 13, 2026

Any basic student of WWII recognizes that symbol from the hats of SS death camp guards. Just because you're ignorant doesn't make it any less of a Nazi tattoo.

— David x (@Davidx864932876) June 13, 2026

Democrats: Republicans are Nazis!!!!!
Then you turn around and run a real one for the Senate and now democrats are defending Nazi iconology. You can’t make this stuff up. 😂

— Military Arms (@MAC_Arms) June 11, 2026

The democrats spent three months saying this was a Nazi salute pic.twitter.com/s4nYY0iHKE

— Tony Tickle (@tony_tickle_) June 11, 2026

This is not only a Nazi tattoo but represents Nazi military and intelligence agency units that committed some of the most heinous crimes against humanity during WW2.

You are defending an actual Nazi.

— OldBreedHwarang (@OldBreedHwarang) June 11, 2026

All of that goes without saying the condemnation of Platner and his tattoo isn’t exclusively found among Republicans.

But as for the power-hungry Democrats who are willing to turn a blind eye toward his background in hopes of securing a majority in the Senate, critics like legal scholar Jonathan Turley have some thoughts.

Here’s what he wrote for The Hill:

For years, Schumer and others have been calling their political opponents “Nazis.” With help from an enabling media, they even fueled outrage over a false claim that Elon Musk had given a Nazi salute at an inauguration celebration.

Yet presented with a man who paid to have an actual Nazi death head tattooed on his chest, Schumer would only repeat the same mantra to reporters, that a Platner victory means Democrats will “win back the Senate.”

The co-host of ABC’s “The View” was cheered by the studio audience after declaring that Democrats have to abandon “the moral high ground. … Let’s get some power!”

Former Biden aide Ron Klain dismissed Platner’s tattoo as “a skull and crossbones to remember his fallen comrades.” But the SS-Totenkopfverbände was not a grief support group, and the Nazi Totenkopf is not a Jolly Roger symbol. Rather, it is the well-known symbol of Adolf Hitler’s Third SS Panzer Division, famous for committing multiple war crimes and massacres during World War II.

For a characteristically nuanced take on the matter, here’s Bill Maher from his latest episode of “Real Time”: