Max Cooper’s letter of March 3 (“Don’t allow Maine to be embarrassed by Platner”) expressed anxiety and embarrassment over Graham Platner’s “tattoo” and “posts.” I share in distaste for the Totenkopf, but the Reddit posts, authored anonymously over a period of years when Platner was far from politics, are some of the strongest evidence that Platner is what he purports to be: a Bernie-style democratic socialist. The tattoo attests to an ugly permeability of the armed forces, and private military contractors, to fascistic iconography and sentiments.

If there is a basis for skepticism about Platner, it is whether that background belies his emphatic antiwar rhetoric. Time may tell, but the true embarrassment should be that the “professional” Democrat establishment politicians don’t even bother with the rhetoric and have worked hand-in-hand with the Republicans to expand the warfare state at every turn.

From helping to kill the Pine Tree Power proposal to recent vetoes against legislation protecting Native American land and farm workers, I see much more shame in Gov. Mills’ record as a septuagenarian governor than in the ink Platner picked up as a soldier in his 20s or 30s.

Asher Reisman
Brewer