SAT . ‘I got older and became a communist’: Deleted posts show Maine Senate hopeful’s raw views on politics, war, and police

Graham Platner, a Marine veteran turned oyster farmer who is now a rising Democratic Senate candidate in Maine, once called himself a “communist,” dismissed “all” police as bastards, and said rural White Americans “actually are” racist and stupid, according to deleted social media posts reviewed by CNN’s KFile.

Most of the posts were made five years ago under Platner’s then-Reddit handle P-Hustle. They were deleted ahead of his campaign launch in August. The posts in some ways underscore Platner’s reputation as an anti-establishment outsider with unapologetically left-wing views. But the labels and tone used in his writings could also prove costly in a state known for electing political moderates.

In an interview with CNN on Tuesday, Platner disavowed his posts, saying they came from a time when he felt disillusioned and angry and expressed those emotions online. He said his criticisms of rural White Americans and the police, and his political comments, do not reflect who he is and what he stands for today.

“That was very much me f**king around the internet,” he told CNN. “I don’t want people to see me for who I was in my worst Internet comment – or even frankly who I was in my best Internet comment … I don’t think any of that is indicative of who I am today, really.”

He said he deleted the posts recently because he no longer wanted to be associated with his online comments from a darker time in his life.

In one now-deleted Reddit comment from 2021, Platner responded to a thread about people becoming more conservative as they age by saying: “I got older and became a communist.” The comment was made on a subreddit called r/Antiwork, a far-left forum “for those who want to end work.”

In another Reddit post that year, Platner reflected on his life after his military service, saying he was “a vegetable growing, psychedelics taking socialist these days. After the war, I’ve pretty much stopped believing in any of the patriotic nonsense that got me there in the first place, and am a firm believer that the best thing a person can do is help their neighbors and live a loving life.”

“Still got the guns though,” he added. “I don’t trust the fascists to act politely.”

In his interview with CNN, Platner wanted to assure voters: “I’m not a communist. I’m not a socialist. I own a small business. I’m a Marine Corps veteran.”

Platner, 41, entered the race in August to challenge Republican Sen. Susan Collins, saying he’s “not fooled by this fake charade of Collins’ deliberations and moderation” and that he’s running “to fight for working people” and “topple the oligarchy that’s destroying our country.”

The primary field for the Democratic nomination includes Janet Mills, the state’s popular 77-year-old governor, who announced this week she was seeking the nomination. She would be the oldest person ever elected as a first-term US senator.

A former Marine infantryman who later served as an Army National Guard soldier and private security contractor, Platner has quickly emerged as a fundraising force in the Maine Senate race, bringing in more than $4 million in the weeks after announcing his candidacy, according to filings and campaign statements.

His momentum has been fueled in part by a high-profile endorsement from Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who appeared with Platner at a Labor Day rally in Portland. He’s attracted national attention from progressive organizations, online left-wing influencers and grassroots Democrats highly supportive of his outspoken economic populism.

On his Reddit, Platner didn’t identify himself by name, but he shared biographical details, including his military service, age, occupation and residence in Maine. While the account dated back to 2009, many of his most incendiary comments reviewed by CNN were posted around 2021.

Some of his harshest rhetoric was directed at law enforcement in threads about police shootings and the nationwide protests that followed the 2020 murder of George Floyd. Platner expressed frustration with what he described as systemic corruption and abuse of power in American policing.

In one deleted comment, in a thread about a Black army lieutenant who was held at gunpoint and pepper-sprayed by police during a traffic stop, one Reddit user wrote, “Bastards. Cops are bastards.” Platner replied, “All of them, in fact.”

Platner also frequently weighed in on police violence, arguing that misconduct was “a problem that extends deep into the profession as a whole” and rejecting claims of accidental shootings after incidents such as the killing of Minneapolis Black man Daunte Wright, writing, “F**k these cops.”

“I can honestly say that that is me just being an a**hole on the Internet,” Platner told CNN this week. “I have an immense amount of friends who are police officers. They’re not all bastards because they’re literally buddies of mine.”

In another since-removed post from 2020, Platner responded to a thread titled “White people aren’t as racist or stupid as Trump thinks” by writing, “Living in white rural America, I’m afraid to tell you they actually are.”

When asked about the comment, Platner said he didn’t recall the specific exchange, but suggested it reflected an argument he was having online at the time.

“I’m also a White guy and I don’t think I’m a racist,” he said. “I don’t believe that. I’m sure I was just angry on the Internet about the state of things back then.”

In one Reddit post in 2021 about Maine’s vote to block a power-transmission project between the US and Canada, Platner responded sharply to a commenter from Canada questioning the result.

“I have to ask, and I do mean this is the most charitable of ways, but are you retarded?” Platner wrote. “We shouldn’t have the eat the pain because you c*nts and Massachusetts couldn’t act like adults. F**k off and die, leave Maine out of your capitalist fantasies.”

The project had been a political flashpoint in Maine, where nearly 60 percent of voters opposed it in a 2021 referendum, with critics arguing it would cut through undeveloped forestland, offer little benefit to Maine residents and primarily serve to transmit electricity from Canada to Massachusetts.

Platner repeatedly used the word “retarded” to insult other Reddit users, including in one deleted comment that began, “I don’t want to be excessively insulting here … but are you retarded?”

In other comments, Platner voiced frustration over his military service in Iraq and Afghanistan. He spoke candidly about how his combat experience reshaped his politics. Writing in 2021 on the subreddit r/SocialistRA — a self-described “anti-capitalist left” firearms-education forum that says it is unaffiliated with the Socialist Rifle Association — he wrote that his years in uniform had left him disillusioned with America’s wars and the country itself.

“My time in America’s imperial wars definitely radicalized me further, and I’m significantly more left today than I was back then. It is difficult to see all that horror, as well as all the grift and corruption, and not find the entire thing utterly bankrupt,” Platner wrote. “I did used to love America, or at least the idea of it. These days I’m pretty disgusted by it all.”

“It becomes increasingly clear the wars were a waste of our time and dead friends/violence we committed was all for naught,” he added.

Platner told CNN he no longer feels the same disillusionment with America he once expressed online, though he remains “very angry still about the wars I had to fight in and what I had to take part in.”

But that doesn’t mean he’s not patriotic, he said.

“I absolutely love the place that I live and I love the people around me,” Platner told CNN. “And I do actually believe firmly in the idea that we as Americans have a lot in common and that we can be the thing that we want to be the thing that we claim to be,” he said.

Platner said he still believes some of the ideas, if not the specific rhetoric he posted years ago. For example, he still condemns the conduct of January 6 rioters. On his Reddit account in 2021, he expressed harsh views of other veterans and service members who took part in attacking the U.S. Capitol, condemning them as “traitors,” “f**king morons,” “f**king p*ssies” and a “worthless p*ssy” for supporting what he described as “a coup attempt.”

He wrote mockingly in January 2021, “‘My coup attempt failed, so now I’m going to say I didn’t really mean it! Please be nice to me, my life is in shambles after I tried to overthrow the democratically elected government!’”

In another post in 2010, Platner took aim at musician Ted Nugent, a conservative activist.

“As a combat veteran, that m*therf**ker makes me want to puke when he spews his warmongering macho bullshit. Suck a d*ck, Ted.”

“To be fair,” Platner told CNN. “I’m not really regretful of that one.”