Sexual abuse

Ms. Fifield also recalled that Mr. Platner’s displays of weaponry and discussions of violence sometimes left her uneasy.

She said he kept an AR-15 lying around his apartment on Capitol Hill, and would sharpen an ax — a relic from his time working on the Appalachian Trail before he enlisted in the Marines — while watching television.

He had what she described as a “warrior ethos” and would fantasize about killing people he deemed a threat, she said. She said he told her thatremoved was about power.

It was something that stuck with her through the years, Ms. Fifield said.

“He said this a lot: If anybody ever broke in here, I wouldremoved them,” she recalled, saying that he added that it would not be in “a sexual way, not in a gay way.”

“He was like, I wouldremoved them to show them that I’m dominant,” she said.

Asked about those remarks, a Platner campaign official did not dispute them. A friend who knew Mr. Platner and Ms. Fifield during that period said the comments sounded out of character.

  • HarryLime [any]@hexbear.net
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    19 天前

    Let me start off by saying I hate Graham Platner, for all the obvious reasons.

    But this is a Republican hit piece that the NYT is running because it wants Susan Collins to win. The main woman quoted is a lifelong Republican operative who co-hosted a DC podcast with Bethany Mandel.

      • HarryLime [any]@hexbear.net
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        19 天前

        I’m sorry if I snapped at you. It’s just this whole thing is super annoying. I wish Graham Platner had died in Iraq.

      • HarryLime [any]@hexbear.net
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        19 天前

        “I understand it’s a smear piece but It sounds right based on my judgement of the type of guy he is”

        Can you PLEASE not make me defend Graham Platner? Can you please just dismiss everything in this article so I don’t have to keep explaining how and why it isn’t credible at all and am thus put in the position of defending a Blackwater mercenary with a Nazi tatoo?

        • Blakey [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          19 天前

          You could just stop defending the war criminal with the Nazi tattoo who wishes he “got to fight in Vietnam” and gets mad that other people “got their bolts” without earning them.

          • HarryLime [any]@hexbear.net
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            19 天前

            Look, he’s a piece of shit, but you can’t just believe lies about him because he’s a piece of shit. That’s not how it works.

                • Blakey [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                  19 天前

                  Because this forum currently has too many people saying “I hate the guy but you should vote for him as harm reduction” and that’s obvious horseshit. He’s a naked imperialist running in the Zionist democratic party, there’s no way that his sole good foreign policy position survives the first five minutes and it’s fucking exhausting to watch. Apologies if that’s not your position but I am so goddamn sick of watching ostensible communists defend a man who says America should “stop fighting stupid wars that don’t benefit us” (ie, start fighting ones that do). It’s revolting and honestly shouldn’t be allowed in a supposedly anti imperialist space.

          • SwitchyandWitchy [she/her]@hexbear.net
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            19 天前

            We should be able to recognize and call out obvious smear campaigns rather than signal boosting them. It’s important for the credibility of our own criticisms, as well as knowing how to recognize it and respond effectively when these same tactics are used against our comrades.

            • Blakey [he/him]@hexbear.net
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              19 天前

              My concern is there’s a real problem with people actually defending Graham “we should stop fighting stupid wars that don’t benefit us” Platner as the harm reduction candidate. Even with their different positions on Gaza (and he’s running for a Zionist party, remember! No way his position survives election, unless he doesn’t get elected until after we reach “one day everyone will have been against this”) there’s nothing his opponent has done or could ever do to inflict more violence and misery on the global south than he has, and he clearly doesn’t regret anything about it except the part where he thinks he should’ve been paid better. He’s running on building more ships and increasing military wages! That is to say, growing the American military. I’m not saying he would necessarily be worse in office (no way to tell), just that this is a clear 99% Hitler situation and I thought we were agreed that voting for Hitler is bad.

              Sorry, that’s got little to do with this being an obvious hit piece but I am really disgusted by seeing people here, in an ostensibly anti imperialist space, defending the dude. I wish this had just been reported as propaganda and pulled down rather than even the very mild defense of saying “the dude sucks but this is just a hit piece”.

    • plinky [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      19 天前

      Cracker was lifelong republican (so he could have met others of this caliber), so let them fight it out in court eh? his campaign is spending in the millions, he can afford lawyers, or his new friend chucky schumer can provide some

  • TheModerateTankie [any]@hexbear.net
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    19 天前

    He had what she described as a “warrior ethos” and would fantasize about killing people he deemed a threat, she said.

    A huge portion of the GOP platform justifies itself by appealing to this type of depressingly common male fantasy.

  • Ms. Fifield, who is affiliated with Independent Women, a conservative group, insisted that her political beliefs had nothing to do with her choice to come forward. She worked briefly on Nikki Haley’s 2024 presidential campaign and before that for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

    Ok cool main source is someone who works for the fucking fascist Heritage Foundation

    Caroline Lemp, who dated Mr. Platner for several months in 2013, described him as a “gentle giant.” She said he never made her feel unsafe or showed any signs that he was struggling with the physical or mental effects of his military service.

    “He was a great boyfriend,” said Ms. Lemp, 36, who now lives in St. Louis. “He was super kind, very nice, fun.”

    The others, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Mr. Platner was never physically threatening. One, a nurse from Belfast, Maine, who dated him for a couple months after he returned home to Maine, described him as responsible, intelligent and supportive. Another, who dated him in Washington between roughly 2011 and 2013, said she witnessed some “potentially problematic behavior,” referring to his heavy drinking. But she “felt really safe with him,” she said.

    Planter has like 400 red flags and is literally the most suss candidate I have ever seen, we don’t need to go along with reactionary rags to dunk on him

          • mar_k [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            19 天前

            But what Platner described sounds like it’d involve active penetration which’d mean he’d have to be hard

            Also being bi is a lot more common than being gay, and I feel like half the frat guys hazing are at least a little bi

  • CyborgMarx [any, any]@hexbear.net
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    19 天前

    I think Platner is the first politician since Trump where the meme “Ah, well, nevertheless” can be applied to its fullest

    The chaos gods of America have forsaken Trump and found their new host; slicker, woker, GenZer, somehow even more cracker, I look forward to the Platner Heresy-era of American history

  • somename [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    19 天前

    Platner has lots of Sus things, but we also can’t fail into obvious right wing smear campaigns. I continue to stand by my strategy of ignoring him until he’s elected, and seeing what he does then.

    • Republicans hold a majority in the Senate but not by much and the Maine incumbent is a Republican, they are worried she will lose to Planter. But also yea it’s cause he is critical of Israel.

      Watch for the Dems attacking Planter, those are the real Zionists willing to cut their nose to spite their face

    • Blakey [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      19 天前

      I think insofar as it’s aimed at Republicans (rather than democrats, his actual voter base) it’s about team sports - something to be performatively outraged by. But why think this is intended for people who already wouldn’t vote for him? He’s a democrat and from what I have seen Republicans are very good at always voting for the Republican candidate so it doesn’t make much sense to bother smearing him to them.

  • hotcouchguy [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    19 天前

    I’m feeling very vindicated in my original take, that he’s completely amoral but non-ideological, and just extremely into doing hands-on violence. I think he just hit a certain age and realized he’d need to change careers to social murder instead.

    Looking forward to the next scandal involving taking trophies from his victims, like Ben Roberts-Smith and that prosthetic leg.

  • BigMacHole@thelemmy.club
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    19 天前

    Wow! I was ALL IN on Platner because the CURRENT Regime of Politicians has made my life HELL but this Republican Article COMPLETELY Changes my Mind and I’ll have NO CHOICE but to Vote for WHOEVER the Oldest and Richest Candidate is!

    -Alpha Americans who Read the News!