I don’t think I’ll change your mind on this (and that’s okay) but I want to throw my two cents in here because I’ve done a lot of research on this because of the moral dilemma the media is exploiting to smear him.

I’m not living in Maine anymore, so I thankfully don’t technically have to wrestle with this dilemma, but yes, he does in fact seem sorry to me. I say this for a few reasons.

Reason number one. He got it blasted over with a shitty coverup instead of dealing with the time and travel it would take to get it removed. Maine doesn’t have as many businesses that do that, and there would still be evidence of it for a while during that process and probably after. As such he got a pretty mid coverup instead. He’d rather have a shitty tattoo than the original piece or the scars from removing the original piece. As someone that has been very picky and careful with the tattoos I’ve gotten, I’ve got to give a little respect for just doing whatever it took to disappear that image from his body.

Reason two is more personal to me. A trans woman at a town hall of his near where I grew up I think put it best. She said something like “I’ve changed a lot from a person I didn’t like, so I believe you are capable of, and are working on, the same”. I know so many trans people that have turned their whole ways of thinking around and bounced back from being really hateful people, and if I believe they are capable of that change, he is too. Hell I even know a few trans people with fully blacked out tattoos because they got a bunch of ink they don’t like anymore.

Finally is my frustration with single issue voting. I think people are within their rights to have “a line” where they won’t vote for someone based on their stance on a single issue, but I also agree with another commenter about what is essentially “harm reduction voting” while working to dismantle things more. His current anti-corporate, anti-oligarch, pro-union, pro-working class politics do a lot more for HIS CONSTITUENTS than his opponents. In the end he doesn’t have to convince you he’s sorry unless he is on your ballot. I grew up with the type of people he’s attracting, and for them the biggest appeal is his working class politics. That is what the lobster industry workers need. It’s what the logging industry workers need. It’s what the service industry workers in a state fed by tourism need. He doesn’t have to convince people sitting comfortably a world away removed from the communities he operates in. For many rural Mainers seeing someone with his history put in the work he’s putting in, and showing proof of growth, acts as an amazing example to people that fell into the right wing cult generations ago and have only been more indoctrinated since.

So yes, it sucks folks in this country have to choose between corpo scum and “Nazi tat guy”, but if you look at the people that are actually going to see his name on their ballot, he is a far, far better fit for them and more realistically represents them in both current politics and previous indoctrination. Many far right, pushing libertarian, Mainers are a small nudge away from looping around to far left politics. They are all very pro personal liberty, pro privacy, pro working class, even to a point of being accepting of queer folks’ desires for the same things. He is, love it or hate it, a huge improvement for the people of Maine.

If you made it this far, thanks for hearing me out. Like I said at the start I am no longer living in Maine, but I’ve forced myself to sit and think on this as if I was, because I had an initial knee jerk reaction to the tattoo and Reddit comments coming to light. After a lot, and I mean A LOT, more thought, I was able to find my willingness to give second chances big enough to give him one. That leap of faith felt very similar to the second chance I gave myself when I realized I needed to transition for my own sake. I was set up to become yet another generic white dude contributing to corporate rule and that felt completely wrong for me. In a weird way I see the same disillusion in Platner, tho I don’t think he’s trans lmao.

I think there are long term conversations to be had about if second chances should allow for a seat at the decision making table, but for now he’s a better choice for the people of Maine. Also the fact he’s getting smeared by both democrats and republicans kinda says all it needs to lmao.

Seriously I have no ill will towards you, and it’s really okay if you don’t change your mind. You don’t have to vote for him, so your conscious is clear. This is the moral degradation of the US on full display and we shouldn’t even be at a point where we have to make these comparisons and decisions, but here we are ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Let's say you're right and he knew what kind of tat he was getting.

Oftentimes those who realize how wrong they were end up being the best advocates for positive change. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Byrd#Political_views

Senator Robert Byrd was a man who was a member of the KKK and ended up being 100% in line with the NAACP and a strong advocate for civil rights. He didn't get a tattoo he didn't understand, he actually tried to block civil rights legislation, realized later how fucked up that was and busted his ass to change things for the better.

People like Byrd are an example to others who may be questioning their racist ideas. Creating an atmosphere where embracing bad ideas in your early twenties is an unrecoverable and unpardonable sin would result in most people never being able to move forward. Do we really want to lock people into their sophomoric notions? Or do we want to embrace and reward positive change?

Considering how prevalent MAGA is in the US. I want all of those people to grow out of this bullshit, because we're going to need them to help repair the damage they caused. And that can't happen if we never forgive their past transgressions even when they change and seek forgiveness.