Below is my column in The Hill on the Democratic establishment and media rallying around Graham Platner. As Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has repeatedly stressed, Platner is needed for them to retake power. The allegations of domestic abuse, the Nazi tattoo, and other controversies are secondary to that single overwhelming goal. The question is, when they take power by any means necessary, what will they be other than the majority?
Here is the column:
“Are we the baddies?”
That line from a famous comedy sketch came to mind this week as Democrats struggled to embrace Graham Platner, the Nazi-tattooed, Hamas-praising, veteran-bashing, sex-texting, self-described Communist who was just nominated to be the next U.S. senator from Maine.
The hilarious sketch from the British show “That Mitchell and Webb Look” portrays two Nazi soldiers suddenly questioning whether they might be the bad guys in World War II. Among other things, they notice the telltale death head or “Totenkopf“ insignia on their caps and uniforms. At one point, an officer asks his friend: “Hans — are we the baddies?”
It is a question that more Democrats should be asking as their leaders from House Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) back Platner.
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.
Klain, an aide who helped conceal President Joe Biden’s incapacity, might seem like the worst possible character witness. But he was soon surpassed by Hunter Biden, pardoned by his father to avoid federal prison time related to his years of drug-saturated, prostitute-laden, influence-peddling scandals. In joining Platner’s defenders, Biden the Younger wants the public to know that “I have not heard anything in any way that would say to me that he is an abusive, misogynistic, anti-Semitic, or racist person.” So that settles that.
Both Democratic politicians and the media lined up to repeat Platner’s dubious claim that he had no idea that this was a Nazi symbol. According to Platner, he apparently had no curiosity about the actual meaning of the large tattoo on his chest for years. But this claim (like a number of other claims about his background) was quickly debunked by his former friends.
One woman insists that he knew it was a Totenkopf and spoke to her about it, calling it “my Totenkopf.” Lyndsey Fifield told friends in an August 2025 in an email that Platner “has a Nazi tattoo on his chest” and that “it’s a Totenkopf.”
When asked how his former girlfriend could have been discussing the meaning of his tattoo before he announced for Senate, Platner just continued to deny any such knowledge. Then another former girlfriend came forward to say that he is lying and knew the symbol’s significance. She had been attracted to Platner for his leftist politics, but she still shared Platner’s reasoning behind the tattoo: He told her that he had decided to keep it to remind himself “the U.S. was the evil bad guy overseas.”
Platner insists that these are all lies. Democratic leaders are clearly choosing not to believe them. They are also dismissing the accounts of former girlfriends alleging that Platner physically and mentally abused them.
Once again, politicians and pundits are assuring voters that these women, like the tattoo, are not critical to their voting for Platner. This includes figures like Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who previously insisted that “we must believe survivors, not bully them.”
Whitehouse now says he is “unimpressed” by the allegations and the multiple women coming forward “seems like a lot of nothing.” He also reminded voters that one of the alleged victims is a Republican. So “MeToo” is apparently now “meh” in the new Platner party.
The question is whether Democrats will put their rhetoric through a certain denazification. Democrats have repeatedly analogized Trump to Hitler and his followers to brownshirted neo-Nazis. Indeed, defeating Republicans today has been compared to stopping Hitler in 1933.
So, for a party that literally sees Nazis around every tree, the one possible Nazi that they cannot see is the Democrat who had the Nazi tattoo on his chest.
In the meantime, Democrats keep openly cultivating hatred. This week, during protests in San Antonio against the Turning Point USA Women’s Leadership Summit, one organizer called on protesters to be “obnoxious” and “make sure they know we hate them.” As he spoke, a man dressed as death chopped the air with a sickle. Another protester mimicked Charlie Kirk being assassinated, to the delight of the crowd.
All of this still leaves Democrats in the same position as the characters in the skit where Hans (like Klain) tries to say that maybe a Totenkopf is just like a harmless skull and crossbones. After all, he notes, pirates have skull symbols, and “Pirates are fun!”
But his friend then asks if that is really “how it comes across?”
The same question could be asked of fellow Democrats as speakers call for hate, as a guy dressed as the Grim Reaper hacks at invisible Republicans.
When you start dismissing Nazi tattoos, alleged female abuse victims, and calling for abandoning any moral high ground, you might want to ask, “Are we the baddies?”
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the New York Times best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.“
Oh Mr. Hilter, you do have us on.
Dumocrat Graham Platner will make a great senator in Maine, but only according to IslamoCommuNazi standards. Platner abhors the law, abhors facts and evidence, abhors case precedent, abhors human decency, and abhors righteousness. But Platner loves IsamoCommuNazi ideology and looks at every issue through the IslamoCommuNazi lens. Platner is precisely the kind of senator that IslamoCommuNazi Dumocrats and RINOs want running every state in America.
Estovir, your comments have gone ‘beyond’ common laziness.
“Nazi this, commie that, dumocrats blah, blah, blah–
It’s like a chimpanzee has taken your position. And he’s just banging out the lamest cliches.
Like it doesn’t have to make sense. Turley doesn’t want real discussions here.
Because real discussions could veer from MAGA talking points.
What a joke. You dems have been screaming NAZI since Trump stepped into the game.
Now if a nazi in 2026 USA was running for office and he had a nazi tattoo on his chest, he could just hide it, I mean who’s gonna see his chest and he’s TRYING to get elected, not in nazi germany but in USA 2026, so of course he knows the tat’s gonna expose him and he will lose.
UNLESS dems actually want a nazi, then he would expose that tat and everyone would be talking about it and a nazi might just win in 2026 USA. So, which is it, why did make sure everyone knows about his nazi tattoo?
He’s stupid.
Hear me out, What if Platner is another Fetterman and dems are really voting for secret-MAGA candidates?
Mwahahah!
Democrats have argued that Platner is “one of us”. So it shouldnt be surprising that Democrats support a Nazi, misogynist, womanizer, America hater, Anti-Semite, homophobic, Marxist, grifter, suicide mocking troll, denigrater of US Veterans, etc etc etc.
Even a Maine newspaper provides insight into this monster
Read our full archive of Graham Platner’s deleted Reddit comments
He said he “became a communist” as he got older, criticized police officers and asked why Black people don’t tip.
https://themainemonitor.org/platner-reddit-comments/
Like gonorrhea, Graham Platner’s scandals are proving to be a constant drip, drip, drip, from a very sick man.
If anybody ever broke in here, I would rape them,” she recalled, saying that he added that it would not be in “a sexual way, not in a gay way. I would rape them to show them that I’m dominant
– Graham Platner
http://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/04/us/politics/platner-maine-senate-girlfriends-relationships.html
NB: Peter Shill / Svelaz / X: dont get your hopes up!
What has this to do with free speech?
Ignorable.
Professor Benson –
Professor Turley does not write exclusively about free speech issues. He often exposes the more extreme and ridiculous goings-on in the political sphere, which is where this article is classified.
A glance at the above section headings shows the following list below. It also shows that the professor classifies today’s article under both “columns” and “politics.”
Constitutional Law
Criminal law
Bizarre
Academia
Politics
Media
Free Speech
Science
Torts
Columns
NotSoOld: Excellent response.
Duh.
Just put your head back in your ass. You’ll feel better.
Trump has ACTUAL Neo Nazis as supporters. They helped try to overturn the 2020 election and Trump pardoned them. He has not spoken out against them. Platner has a tattoo that has been associated with Nazism–he says he didn’t realize this, and has never expressed any pro-Nazi ideology. There is no comparison whatsoever.
And you didn’t realize the Nazis were Joe Biden, Merrick Garland, Christopher Wray, James Comey, and 274 insinuated undercover FBI agents.
“he says he didn’t realize this”
what OTHER excuse would there possibly be for his tat?
I cannot think of a single reason except “oops, didn’t know”. “he says he didn’t realize this” because that is only one thing to say.
He cannot, (at this point in time) get elected by democrats saying “I’m a nazi”. But it certainly explains the tat better than ‘oops’.
The OTHER similarity: he hates jews, so in that way at least he is a nazi sympathizer.
“never expressed any pro-Nazi ideology”
So he disagrees with the entire democratic platform?
Hans, are we the baddies? Quotable quotes.
Turley says: “The allegations of domestic abuse, the Nazi tattoo, and other controversies are secondary to that single overwhelming goal.” How about all of the manure Republicans have overlooked to ram Project 2025 down our throats? There’s nothing Platner ever did that comes close to Trump–a 34-count convicted felon, adjudicated sexual assaulter, brags about assaulting women, former wife testified that he raped her when she wasn’t sympathetic enough to his postop scalp reduction surgery pain, stole classified documents, lied about returning them, returned some and forced the government to get a warrant to seize the rest. How about starting an insurrection because his fragile ego couldn’t handle the fact that he lost in 2020? Then, there’s all of the failures of his first “presidency”–mishandling of COVID, mishandling of the pandemic, economy in a tailspin, country mostly shut down, schools closed, restaurants and businesses closed, and new daily records for infections and deaths. How about the new controversies? Starting a war after promising “no new wars”, and then lied about making that well-documented promise. How about admitting that he doesn’t care how much Americans have to pay for groceries, gas and other essentials, after lying about bringing down the cost of groceries, gas and other essentials in order to get elected. How about numerous violations of the Emoluments Clause, tearing down the East Wing of the White House without permission, painting the Lincoln Reflecting Pool blue, based on a no-bid contract that boosted the cost to taxpayers from $2 million to $12 million (the pool is already abloom with algae, a sickening green color). How about tearing up Jackie Kennedy’s Rose Garden and putting in pavers and installing his name about JFK on the JFK Center for Performing Arts? What about lying that a deal was struck to end the war he started, that he lies about being a war, when all there is is a deal to talk about ending the war–a ceasefire. All of this is to push Project 2025, something else he lied about. How about staging a cheap, pathetic cage fight on the White House grounds, trying to attract young, white male voters–destroying the dignity and memory of decent men who previously occupied that building? How MAGA can accuse Democrats of being blind to Platner with all of Trump’s failures, incompetence, lying and grifting is nothing short of amazing. But the, again, Turley is offering MAGA’s usual daily dose of spam.
Platner has really gotten under MAGA’s thin skin, because he has a real change to beat Collins, who has let down Maine residents. So, MAGA harps about a tatto and “allegations” of domestic abuse. It’s not working, BTW.
whatabout whatabout?
It is working! Please vote for your nazi.
OT, Obama says that if he had a son who stabbed someone in the heart, he would look just like Karmelo Anthony.
“If I had a boy of my own, he’d be stabbing whiteys, too,” Obama said in the statement. “To see this young man, Karmelo Anthony, being tried, convicted, and sentenced for perpetrating the same type of horrific act I would raise any son of mine to commit, it really brings the racial divide in this nation into clear view.”
https://babylonbee.com/news/obama-says-if-he-had-a-son-who-stabbed-someone-in-the-heart-with-a-knife-he-would-look-just-like-karmelo-anthony
Curious, the deceased young man was a Christian.
Pierced his heart…