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Democrat Graham Platner has leaned into his struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to explain a bevy of incendiary social media posts prior to his Senate run in which he justified political violence and insulted law enforcement.
But the progressive darling suggested PTSD and the trauma from multiple combat deployments are not an excuse for offensive behavior in a since-deleted post obtained by Fox News Digital.
Platner, 41, made the comment on the Reddit forum r/SocialistRA in 2020, five years before emerging as a potent challenger to Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, in November’s midterm elections.
Using a handle that did not identify him, Platner criticized a report in the Portland Press Herald about two former police officers who admitted to killing porcupines with their batons while on duty. One officer, a Marine veteran who was deployed to Afghanistan, attributed his actions to PTSD from his overseas deployment.
Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, left, is set to face a bruising re-election challenge from Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner, right. (Fox News; Getty Images)
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“Don’t buy into that bull—-. I did 4 tours in the infantry to Iraq and Afghanistan, saw all kinds of awful things, have a PTSD diagnosis and STILL manage not to beat defenseless animals to death for fun,” Platner, a Marine and Army veteran and oyster farmer, wrote in a social media post.
“That’s just cops giving excuses for their garbage behavior,” he added.
Platner’s activity on the subreddit r/SocialistRA and other Reddit forums was first reported by CNN. All of the Reddit posts were deleted months prior to the left-wing populist launching his Senate run.
Throughout the campaign, Platner has sought to tie his past offensive remarks to PTSD he developed after multiple overseas deployments, which he has called the darkest chapter of his life.
He has argued the statements are not representative of who he is today, but reflect someone who was “having a very difficult time settling into a society that he felt betrayed by and left behind by after having a fight in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
“This was a time in my life where I was struggling deeply,” Platner said in a video posted to social media in late 2025. “I got out of the Army in 2012, I had PTSD, I had depression, I had all of the things that come with serving in a war, two wars that I eventually began to not believe in at all.”
“It left me feeling very unmoored. It left me feeling very disillusioned, very alienated and very isolated,” he added. “And I think, like a lot of people, I went on the internet to post stupid things and get in fights and find some form of community in some way, some outlet for my feelings.”
Senatorial candidate Graham Platner speaks at a town hall at the Leavitt Theater in Ogunquit, Maine, on Oct. 22, 2025. (Sophie Park/Getty Images)
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In 2013, while discussing a video promoting female underwear designed to prevent rape, Platner wrote in a since-deleted message, first obtained by The Washington Post, “Rape is a real thing. If you’re so worried about it to buy Kevlar underwear you’d think you might not get blacked out f—– up around people you aren’t comfortable with.”
And in 2018, he appeared to justify political violence to achieve “economic justice,” in a since-deleted post reported by Politico.
But many of Platner’s most controversial remarks came as recently as five years ago, when he suggested that PTSD was not a shield for “garbage behavior.”
In 2020, Platner wrote that white people living in rural America are “actually” racist and stupid and that all law enforcement officers are “bastards,” in since-deleted Reddit posts reported by CNN.
The following year, Platner said he “got older and became a Communist” in a since-deleted post.
The Maine Democrat has also faced scrutiny over a chest tattoo of a Nazi-linked symbol that he had for most of his adult life after getting it in 2007 while out drinking with fellow Marines stationed in Croatia.
Graham Platner, a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Maine, points to a covered tattoo that was previously recognized as a Nazi symbol during an interview in Portland, Maine, on Oct. 22, 2025. (WGME via AP)
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Platner has expressed remorse for some of the online posts and covered up the tattoo, saying he did not know what the symbol of the skull-and-crossbones meant. Some reports that Platner denied indicate that he knew about the tattoo’s association with Nazi Germany.
Fox News Digital reached out to Platner’s campaign for comment.
The blockbuster Senate contest in the blue-leaning state is pivotal to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s, D-N.Y., longshot bid to retake control of the upper chamber.
Platner told Fox News Digital in an interview Monday that he would not support Schumer remaining Democratic leader — part of a growing chorus of progressives who want new leadership in the upper chamber.
The presumptive Democratic nominee has also argued that backlash from his past social media posts will fail to halt his campaign’s momentum.
Senate candidate in Maine Graham Platner told Fox News Digital in an interview Monday that he would not support Senate Democratic Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer, right, remaining Democratic leader. (Paul Steinhauser/Fox News Digital; Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)
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Gov. Janet Mills, D-Maine, 78, attempted to spotlight Platner’s comments about rape in campaign advertising, but the negative spot did not appear to damage his standing among Democratic primary voters. Mills, who was backed by Schumer, dropped out of the race in late April after significantly trailing Platner in public polling.
“The Democratic establishment tried to use all those attacks against me and failed miserably,” Platner said as he referred to the Mills campaign’s negative spots before she exited the race. “Now the Republican establishment is going to try to use the exact same attacks, and that will also fail miserably.”
