Sounds like a true representative of the average American.

What does it matter after he is dumb. Don't vote for dumb people as leaders. I have posed the question before what is worse dumb or evil and have posited that im kinda leaning toward dumb. I mean at least a highly intelligent person wanting the best for them and everyone else be damned may recognize how being a regular person in an advanced economy is better than being a king in the middle ages.

And yet people are still defending it/are surprised someone doing that many tours and time in Blackwater may not be the brightest

Odds are probably not.

Because his entire reddit history for the past decade has been dug up and none of it points to nazi posting. Even posts that were deleted.

You'd think if he was a secret nazi, then maybe it would show in his private online shitposting. When he wasn't running for office, when he didnt have to maintain face... but no, its not there.

Literally, ALL, the evidence this smear campaign has is the tattoo (which he immediately covered). None of his private history for a decade supports this. Instead most of the private reddit posts contradict it.

You think a white supremacist is calling white rural voters a bunch of racists? You think a nazi is posting ACAB?

I’m getting Fetterman from him

Say what you will about Hasan

According to his own words, he is already supporting Janet Mills, who is seemingly antithetical to his expressed political ideology and values i.e. her being loosely pro-genocide and a neoliberal.

The election is one year away and over six months until registration for the primary ends. There is zero reason to stick with someone that has this many red flags. If he manages to win the primary, he will all but guarantee another Collins victory, because its real easy to write attack ads against this guy.

You know how Bernicrats always get smeared as being low key bigots? This doesn’t help with that image. I have seen multiple POC and jewish people on bluesky lamenting the fact that Bernie’s supporters are known for purity tests, but the cis-white male with a nazi tattoo gets a pass. That’s the image that is being conveyed to the public at large. There’s just no way to come back from having a nazi tattoo when running as a democrat in this day and age. And ‘I got it covered up once everyone found out’ is not an answer that is going to fly for the majority of people out there.

This isn’t the DNC going against him, Ken Martin supports him, Bernie still endorses him, he was all over CNN like a month ago as the exciting outsider oysterman who tells it like it is. And then it came out he has a nazi tattoo. So much of the general public turned on him. Some reporter said that when polling dem senators about it, they all said the tattoo wasn’t an issue, and still think he’s good for engagement. It isn’t them going against him, and most news articles are still going soft on him, and using his phrasing to describe it. But the general public hears nazi tattoo and, rightfully, wants nothing to do with him.

It is over a year until the election. There are multiple primary candidates. Maybe we should look a bit farther than the nazi who joined Blackwater after hanging out at Abu Ghraib

Hard working journalists looking for anybody that will protect Susan Collins!

Or just anyone with eyes that saw the tattoo?

https://archive.is/N9y0k

If I'm being very generous, this dude was in straight up denial about all his buds being Neo-Nazis for a looong time. I guess it's possible all those crayons blocked a lot of his critical thinking lol. Working for Blackwater is still by far the most damning, I'd need to hear an authentic condemnation of all the merc shit He's done to really believe that he's not a fascist or that he's at least reflected and reformed.

It'll be interesting to see how many ppl in Maine will choose this guy over the incumbent, and whether this kind of background matters at all to the electorate as long as the policies being advocated for actually address affordability

https://archive.ph/N9y0k

Providing that really should be a rule.

https://archive.is/N9y0k

Ya but it says what we want to hear

If this was a mistake about something that wasn't literal nazismz it would be a witch hunt. However it's actual nazi imagery and lies and cover ups and comments that align with nazi type beliefs. He may be reformed but denying it and pretending is not a sign of reformz even if human.

We should welcome Nazis who reformz that haven't committed nazi acrsz only expressed their horrible views, but they should be denouncing those views and apologising.

I think the bad attempt to minimise it is what is giving it legs.

That’s almost certainly true. And i believe him when he says those tattoos are commonplace, that marines don’t consider the original meaning, and that he knows black & Latino people with them.

But i think, at the very least, not getting it covered up before choosing to run for office demonstrates a staggering lack of political acumen and is a very large indication of a lack of good judgement.

I mean, we don’t give ordinary people a pass if they fly a Confederate flag and say it’s just because they’re from the US South and it’s meaning for them is entirely divorced from slavery. Same thing here, except politicians are supposed to be held to higher standards.

I’d also say that the times the US is finding itself in, with rapidly encroaching fascism, open racism, and the slightly-more-gradual embracing of Nazi symbolism from the current administration, makes it even more important for the left to reject someone with a literal Nazi tattoo - regardless of how they got it and what it may mean to them.

Does it matter?

Here are the facts:

1. He has an SS skull tattooed on his chest
2. He got it 20-ish years ago
3. He finally covered it up 1-ish week ago
4. He insisted he did not know the meaning of it as recently as this week
5. He apparently was getting into internet arguments over how he knew the meaning of it and it was not 5 years ago
6. Thus, he has known he had a nazi tattoo for at least 5 years

I don't care if it is Emperor Palpatine behind this and Sheev starts giving crotch chops over how he got all of us. I just care about not electing a fucking nazi to the senate under the Democrat flag. Republicans already got that shit on lock.