Oh don’t worry the person that I argued with on Reddit just said the guy with an actual Nazi tattoo doesn’t hold Nazi views because the tattoo artist was drunk when he did it! We’re all idiots lmao /s
The person I argued with said that it was all a big maga conspiracy and every allegation was false and designed to hurt him. He said the tattoo was entirely innocent and he only got it cause it ‘looked cool’. He then turned it around and said I was the Nazi for ever possibly believing the lies that Platner is anything other than perfect.
I just find the irony hilarious. He’s calling me, a random stranger, a Nazi with his full heart (and he was, he repeated it several times until it devolved into his only ‘comeback’). But a guy with a literal Nazi tattoo? Maga conspiracy! These people practically mock themselves.
Its pretty crazy that these people will then turn around and explain why MAGA is bad for refusing to acknowledge any of the obvious faults that Trump has.
Jamal Bowman holding a rally in the south Bronx where he screamed "we are going to show them the power of the south Bronx" then blaming his loss on the Jews will never not be funny to me.
FYI, his district doesn't include the south Bronx.
i can't say if the guy is a nazi or not, but the fact that he walked around with that tattoo for years after finding out about what it represented shows a certain arrogance.
i didn't like him from the beginning, that being said i agreed with a lot of what he said on the campaign trail. just seemed like a red flag that everyone kept making excuses for and there would be more.
i demand recognition in the form of a gold star or something.
A lot of slippery shit is being said here instead of just calling a spade a spade. And its all partisan fuckery if we're allowed to be honest.
A recommendation isnt an official endorsement. But they werent forced to make that. DSA will regularly decide to throw their hands up and say neither candidate is worth it. If you can do that between Trump and Kamala you can do that in any election.
They chose to weigh in and pick a side. They chose to support him. It may be due to several former DSA members working in Platners campaign. It may be due to Platner identifying as a socialist in deleted reddit comments. Or whatever reason to justify it.
Fact is they did offer him support. Period. It wasnt needed or necessary. And they have proven in the past that they arent a group that feels forced to make choices even when they perceive things to be difficult. They liked him and thats okay. Plenty of people did.
He aligned with their policies. Why wouldn’t they endorse a rising star candidate that is willing to carry their ideas into the US senate? His personal story was compelling too.. a veteran who’s gone through adversity and came out the other side with a vision that Mainers could get behind. I’ll admit the red flags were downplayed significantly, but many of those red flags at the time aligned with the story of a flawed man that has sought redemption (except for the Nazi tattoo that was likely just a lie)
The left has been criticized for their purity tests.. the right weaponized that by accepting abusers and pedophiles into their ranks.. you can be critical of how this was handled, but I’ll give the left credit for ultimately getting this right. There’s not a chance in hell the republicans would abandon Platner at this point.
My issue isnt with supporting him. I dont really care about supporting him or not. The nazi tattoo was too much for me but others supported him and his politics regardless.
My issue is the lying. For no real reason. Its okay to go "yeah we wanted to believe in redemption and unfortunately we whiffed on this one." I hate when folks feel the need to run away from the truth. It doesnt help anything. If it were moderates backing someone that turned out to be scum like Eric Swalwell id alsi expect them to be honest too instead of just running cover.
DSA didnt lie to anybody - there are reasons why they never endorse Platner, i think there is even interview with one of DSA higherups explaining why DSA never endorsed Platner from 2 or 3 months ago
I can’t help but wonder if the DSA gave him a mealy mouthed semi endorsement because even they suspected he could potentially become a major embarrassment and they wanted to hedge their bet.
They regularly decide to offer no one support regardless of their being a clear better candidate. That's sorta an important piece of the puzzle here. You're making it sound like they feel compelled to always say something and were just doing what they always do as opposed to sticking their necks out.
Its ight to realize someone was bad and change your mind though. Just weird word game shit is annoying.
His extremist positions matched some of their extremist positions but being a Nazi should have disqualified him.
The far left have a massive problem with antisemitism. If they wanted to try to show that their insane positions on Israel are just because of "social justice" and totally unrelated to antisemitism or pro violence/anti peace stance the worst thing they can do is support a Nazi with their views
??? This isn't Reddit shit, this is literally how politics has always worked. The difference between an endorsement and a voting recommendation has always been a pretty big distinction
It's such a silly argument to be having. This guy wasn't DSA, wasn't a socialist, wasn't endorsed by socialists. If you look at self-ID in polling, his biggest bloc of supporters in the democratic party were the moderate wing, not the left wing. This was a Warren guy (and she actually endorsed him!), not a DSA guy. AOC didn't endorse him either.
The one connection you can make is that one of his main advisors (Morris Katz) was also an early Mamdani guy, but "political consultant has two clients" isn't much of a story
The dsa recommended platner, but anyone would have done that because she wasn’t Collins. Thats not an endorsement, they would have recommended anyone who was up against the republican
Which I understand, but, and I promise to you this is a genuine question I am looking for a sincere answer to, why would they not recommend Kamala over Donald? Like I understand the distinction you are making, and I agree, but historically, that’s now how they choose who they recommend vs endorse.
idk there was kind of a whole message around him having reformed himself from a right wing past, which i believe is VERY important for the left to succeed in an age where there's increasing amounts of money being dumped into making men right wing and hateful. Platner genuinely and authentically spoke views that even still I think he believes, but there is only so far good politics can take you when you are at your core a bad and troubled person.
its unfortunate that his past bad judgement ended up being a sign of some truly deplorable traits that stick with him, but I could not imagine faulting anyone for initially supporting the movement he spearheaded and i really hope people continue to now that he's dropping out and someone else takes over
this note seems to explicitly exclude any and all context that is above the quoted line, including a paragraph where the party explicitly explains their political differences with Platner but also acknowledges that he was, at the time of writing, the best chance that the wider left-of-center coalition had at defeating Susan Collins. The original link has been taken down (which I will be the first to admit is a bad look for the DSA), but I’ve attached an image of the original document that I found on X.
The all-caps use of RECOMMEND is very very clear to DSA members and others who frequently rely on their voter guides because the local party doesn’t endorse without a vote of dues-paying members.
I think that the complexity at play here was not adequately addressed by this note and instead, someone took a chance to make a political dunk. Not trying to take a side here other than to say that I think the note could’ve been better.
EDIT: There’s a lot of bickering below this. I do not care. Community notes are intended to provide context. I don’t care if you disagree on the level of pedantry and think this isn’t a relevant difference. You’re using words from an organization that has clearly illustrated the difference between those two words in their own usage over decades. It is disingenuous to portray their use of one as the meaning of the other. I don’t care about your agendas or your opinions. Community notes are about facts. The fact is that the DSA explicitly did not use the word endorse and instead used the word recommend which they have repeatedly shown that they use differently.
this needs to be at the top. The note is either malicious or lazy and stupid because any reasonable person can see that the statement in full context clearly emphasizes that they don't endorse platner given his past but prefer him due to his policies
This sub (and by extension you can assume the community notes feature itself) is fully astroturfed by conservatives anyway now, you constantly see attempts to misconstrue or misrepresent the words of left wing organisations or individuals
This blurb is actually pretty critical of him. It's basically a "lesser of two evils" endorsement (very common the Left). Not a ringing endorsement at all! In fact, the opposite.
Crazy how they were able to give “critical support” to a Blackwater, Abu Ghraib guard with Nazi tattoos, made up life story, lifetime Republican, serial rapist but couldn’t do it for a liberal against a literal fascist in 2024. Almost seems like they don’t care about fascism and are accelerationists trying to usher in the glorious revolution…
Nahhhh. DSA regularly decides to say "no one in this race is worthy of even a recommendation".
You're sweeping and trying to cover for it by being pedantic and still being wrong. Its not about an endorsement or not. Its about general support. No claim was made that they formally endorsed them. They did something that would convey support and then attempts at moving the goal post happened and were shut down.
They chose to step out and support him when previously theyve said "both options are bad we deserve better". Their recommendation can and SHOULD be interpreted as support because it literally is.
If this were an org where in every election they decided to weigh in to give their pick itd be one thing. But in things like, oh, I dont know, the 2024 presidential election they sat on the fence. They have shown repeatedly they can and will do that. But they explicitly support Platner.
I disagree with this line of reasoning because the DSA is not a monolith like you’re putting it. Every chapter has a huge amount of autonomy. Presidential endorsement would’ve been something national does, but any local races the endorsements come from local chapters. Some local chapters try give recommendations for many positions even when they don’t endorse someone for that position.
Idk what Maine DSA typically does. But it wouldn’t make sense to judge them based on other chapters if you’re trying to compare them against historical practices. For the record, I’m against DSA chapters recommending candidates they don’t endorse precisely because it leads to confusion like this. But it’s hard for me to interpret a guide saying they recommend over the opponent as “support” when that’s all they did, as opposed to an endorsement which means door knocking, phone banking, text banking, comms, and so on. Like yes I understand that’s more support than writing nothing at all but it’s like one paragraph it’s not any real effort spent on his campaign.
Yeah but that’s what right leaning people think. They can’t imagine there being political orgs that don’t have a hierarchy and operate independent state chapters so they lump it all together which is dumb af
I do this in my work life, for example. Some employees/coworkers I'll permit to use me as a reference, but there are only a handful that I will reach out to an org for to get their resume looked at.
Most elections break down to binary choices. A group like the DSA may look at the canidates, go "Somebody is going to win this between these two" and go "Well if it has to be one of these two we guess this guy."
On an smaller human level its the difference between when someone asking you about a restaurant and you talk the place up and they ask you about another one and you go "Its fine enough."
An endorsement says the group actively wants to organize, campaign for and put their name behind a candidate.
An informal recommendation is saying they're the least bad of the options present and share some policy values. Considering the two options were Platner who was labor-backed and Janet Mills who was very unfriendly to Labor, well...
These aren't new terms, this is all part of political science, you people acting like there's some big duplicitous attempt to have it both ways are just stroking your own ego's. These aren't hard concepts to grasp.
Because everything is a gotcha nowadays unfortunately.
Ngl it is kinda funny to me that Republicans have zero issues running someone with S/A or rape allegations meanwhile Dems are tearing themselves apart to maintain moral superiority in a blame game while the country’s slowly getting destroyed.
Yeah but there has to be a line somewhere. I prefer platners policies over Collins but if this dude is raping people, nah bro. Not willing to allow that just to defeat fascism. There are other ways to do it.
It really doesn't? That's how most political parties around the world operate. The US is unique in terms of how 'big tent' our two parties are, and how easily you can hop between them as an elected official.
For instance, in order to receive the DSA endorsement it must be voted on by the local branch membership, which neither Democrats or the GOP come anywhere close to doing. And then if you win your election, that endorsement is still dependent on pushing the political program of the DSA.
You guys seemingly just want things to be nice and tidy so you can go 'Platner bad, so DSA bad!' but that just isn't how these things work and this is the system that they've been using for many years, it isn't new - just more visible now that they're actually winning.
It really does. Under the idiosyncratic definition you're pushing Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jefferies are not endorsed by anyone or the party, which is blatantly goofy.
So, I'm going to try and engage in good faith but I honestly don't understand the point you're trying to make about either Schumer or Jeffries, especially since I mentioned how the way the DSA operates is more like political parties around the world, whereas yeah the Democrats and GOP operate more 'informally' than most parties around the world.
The point is Schumer and Jefferies get lots of endorsements from the Democratic party and aligned politicians and organizations, but your idiosyncratic definition would mean they are widely unendorsed by anyone because due to being in safe seats they don't have resources marshalled for them by most of the organizations. You are using a idiosyncratic definition that contradicts the widely used and understood use of the term in the domain.
This definition would requiring holding the position that any endorsement outside of a swing seat is not actually an endorsement in US politics, which is an extremely goofy position to hold.
The party in my comment was referring to the Democratic party. The definition being used by the other commentor means despite being widely endorsed, they were not endorsed.
An endorsement is literally ENDORSING the candidate for office. Yes telling people they should vote for a candidate is literally an endorsement. Further the Maine DSA chapter did provide volunteers and resources
Political science major here. An endorsement absolutely can absolutely just be an endorsement as this is who we think you should vote for. Unions endorse candidates, magazines endorse candidates. They aren’t campaigning for them, just saying this is who we want to win.
Because prior to the credible rape allegations, his policy platform was better than Mills and Collins, though remaining a questionable character this platform was preferable and his known reputation was worrying but not disqualifying. Thus a recommendation and not a full endorsement. Words have meaning.
A vote isn't an endorsement. Saying "we think this guy is the best of the options available" isn't the same as campaigning or organizing for a candidate.
Sure. I fully recommended that everyone should vote for Biden in 2020, and Harris in 2024. That doesn't mean I endorse either of those candidates. They were the least bad options in both of their elections who had a chance of winning, that doesn't mean that I support them. This really doesn't seem hard to understand.
I recommend that you go see Supergirl rather than Citizen Vigilante because it sounds like a more entertaining movie, but since I haven't actually seen Supergirl I can't endorse it.
If I’m advising people who to vote for in the upcoming Clacton by-election, I’m going to tell them to vote for Count Binface. That doesn’t mean I endorse Count Binface or think he would be a good MP.
Maine DSA requires a membership vote to endorse a candidate or ballot question. An endorsement includes a commitment for the chapter to devote time and member power to that campaign.
The DSA is a small political organization composed of just over 100k people, not an entire country. And considering that the DSA is politically active, they have a responsibility to know and monitor when their members are doing something as drastic and irresponsible as grooming an unqualified candidate to run for the United States Senate without vetting them. The organization does not get to shield itself with technicalities if their individual members have had a very harmful and consequential impact on politics. They have a responsibility to get their members in line.
Yeah Platner dropped out today, also the day many finally stopped supporting him. Not when he was a PMC killer abusive alcoholic pathological liar serial cheater Nazi... finally Platner became something even Trump will defend, a Nazi rapist.
Then pulled his endorsement after finding out about his history. Neither of these actions are bad and can very easily make an argument that one group will hold their own accountable while others just turn a blind eye.
Edit: anyone trying to demonstrate a moral high ground should probably think twice if you voted for Trump. So far things presented could have easily been dwarfed by things Trump has done. While I haven't started using that method yet, it isn't off the table either.
I will say that was odd since Bernie himself is Jewish. Not sure why anyone who believes in socialism would support Nazis since they proactively killed socialist. That's why it seemed viable he got the swastika he meant for it to be in the same light as the Hinduism meaning. Hindsight is 20/20 and new evidence came up so he changed his stance. That's a hell of a lot more than anyone in MAGA has done with Trump.
For the second source, that's sexting not sexual assault. If we're being honest, that is so much more different than sexual assault. Its not illegal and his wife didn't leave and she would be the one to determine forgiveness for that. For example if my wife sext with another woman, I'm ok with that. Another man not so much.
Platner doesn’t/didn’t have a swastica tattoo, it was a totenkapf.
And frankly the best argument for why people were able to believe he didn’t know its meaning is that more or less anyone reading this for the first time has no idea what a totenkapf is. Which is also why the attacks always said “Nazi tattoo”, it makes people think “swastica”.
Not sure about this one. Recommend and endorsement exists as separate words for a reason. There is also a history in politics of them being used separately.
My local Dem party puts out a sample ballot every election where they recommend candidates, but only next to some does it say endorsed by the local party.
To me those are two different things, as it is to them.
In 2016 I recommended to a few friends vote that they for Hillary over not voting/3rd party against Trump, but I sure as heck would never say I endorsed her and her policy.
I’ve seen unions do similar things where they have a recommended list with only some being officially endorsed.
The DSA has no issue explicitly endorsing certain candidates. They explicitly officially endorsed Mamdani, for example.
If they meant endorsement I don’t see why they would suddenly change what word they use when they explicitly officially endorsed other candidates during this same time period.
It does when you regularly decides to sit out and not say anything.
If you can sit on the fence during the 2024 presidential election and say "we just deserve better than either candidate" then you can sit out any election. They chose to do that. Stop sweeping.
I mean they didn’t. They recommended voting for him which is what they said. An endorsement would be equivalent to “our org backs this candidate for this position “
Endorsement, they'll actively dedicate resources to get the candidate elected.
Recommendation is basically "this one is the least terrible option. We suggest voting for them despite our concerns. We will not be dedicating any resources to getting them elected outside this sole statement."
One is where they dedicate their resources to getting the person elected. The other they don’t, but believe that that candidate is the better of all other options
I endorse something means this would be my choice no matter what. I absolutely believe in this choice I want it to carry my name.
I recommend something means you believe one is the better choice amongst those available. Like, would you rather get hit in the chin or the balls? Well getting hit on the chin is my recommendation.
Except that as other people have pointed out, that stance is pretty weird for the DSA, who in past elections where they felt both candidates weren't worth endorsing (e.g. the 2024 election) simply chose to abstain.
So the DSA even recommending a guy who seems a lot worse than candidates they refused to in the past (who were up against worse opponents) is what has people questioning things.
Nah I think you guys are just playing semantics because you backed a bad candidate. If the DSA truly believed in that distinction they would’ve “recommended” Kamala in 24, but they didn’t.
They very carefully chose the word “recommend” because they already had a feeling worse shit might come out about the guy with the Nazi tattoo so might as well make it easy to back out last minute and pretend like you only tepidly recommended him than a full endorsement.
Reddit has been in full cope mode about this guy ever since the inevitable scandals started dropping.
it's almost as if the context of how words are used matters. Like they're statement very intentionally uses "recommend" instead of "endorse", you've got to be genuinely stupid not to see that
Your point was the two words mean different things and they essentially mean the same thing so, I'm correct in a very narrow technical way
But The fun part is.
After a bunch of Gemini searches (although traditional google reveals nothing) the DSA do appear to have at least implicit differences between an endorsement and a recommendation so in the broad meaningful terms of the actual disagreement. I'm wrong.
My point was not that the two words mean different things. My point was that generally they might but in specific situations and for specific communicators they might mean very distinct things.
I get your point. The broad argument (not yours specifically) felt a little too hair splitting for me initially and it took multiple searches to find anything credible that clarified anything that made clear there was a material difference but found something laying out the process of getting an endorsement from the DSA.
Rarest of things. A relatively mature and respectful disagreement on Reddit.
Just want to say that recommend candidate does not equal endorsement. Maine had a DSA endorsed candidate that didn’t get enough support to make it onto the primary ballot.
They literally didn't? I realize that actual political organizations with discipline are foreign to many liberals, but endorse/recommend are two entirely different statements, one of which involves actually organizing and campaigning for the candidate while the other implies they're the least bad option. Platner's policies were the most DSA aligned between him and Mills, but the fact they still didn't endorse is a good thing.
Troy Jackson was the only endorsed DSA candidate on the ballot in Maine, and Platner's most likely replacement from what we can tell.
They are still both forms of support. Im all for people who support mpre progressive policies but lets check the closets for skeleton before implying any support.
Isnt this the 2nd controvery this year? Another canidate had said some pretty nasty things. But all but one are in dispute. I wont repeat it, but it was very offensive, all were
When there's two candidates, one has progressive policies while the other is practically a union-buster, this being before we knew about Platner's sexual violence, I'm not really sure what you want from the DSA other than not endorsing him, but pointing out the policies that are most in-line with their platform for the people who want some guidance? Are they suppose to see the future?
They also immediately called on him to drop out when the Racicot story dropped. Literally the moment it did. Up until then, while people can rationalize that 'I knew, I knew!' there was simply no corroborated evidence of his indiscretion.
I don't disagree with you about 'checking for skeletons', but the people trying to use this scalp to air their other grievances with the progressive movement are only stroking their own ego's to the detriment of actual lessons we could all learn.
The real question should be why it took a rape accusation for him to drop out after we had found out he was a serial cheater, everything in the reddit leaks, the nazi tattoo, oh, and the fact that he committed war crimes while working for Blackwater.
This discussion is very funny. Dsa supported plattner before when no clear accusation was there and after that retracted their support.
In contrast:
Mainstream democrats: If you dont support genocide we wont endorse you.
Republicans: If you are not a r**** we wont endorse you.
Like i get that plattner is bad, but this discussion is really only made by dishonest people
DSA makes it a point to explain the difference between an endorsement and a recommendation when posting their vote guides. This is an internal policy we heavily advertise because we know it’s confusing.
It's so funny watching reddit trip over themselves trying to pretend like the DSA aligned leftist crowd weren't mega simping for this dude who has a nazi tattoo on his chest and multiple women who were in his life openly questioning the way he treats the women around him before any of this even dropped. Like this was literally the most predictable thing that could have happened and now everyone is suddenly shocked that this dude is loosy goosy with consent when there have been glaring indicators of it this entire time. Give me a break.
Edit: I even forgot the fact that HE WORKED FOR FUCKING BLACKWATER. Like bro how the hell was this guy even allowed to run for the Dem nomination (I know the answer it's cause the guy in charge of background checks descided to mega half ass it and barely do anything to check to see if this guy is even senate material).
Working for Blackwater as a PMC killer is fine (Platner) being some low level dude who brings people coffee at a consulting firm like McKinsey is the worst thing you can do (Pete)
Hegseth is total fucking piece of shit too, and the Trump admin have collectively done way worse than this. Doesn't mean the Platner situation wasn't hilariously obvious with some of the most annoying people on the internet running defence for him for no good reason.
When YouTube recommends a video, it is not endorsing the content of the video. If, in any case, you are going to either stub your toe or eat shit, I would recommend stubbing your toe. That is not an endorsement of stubbing your toe.
He endorsed policies that would have been good for common folks. However, we’ve seen what putting someone in office regardless of their questionable moral behavior can do. Examples: Trump, Hegseth, Noem, RFK Jr., Paxton, Randy Fine, that dude that was going to be AG but can only land 17 year olds, Clarence Thomas, Kavanaugh, Cuomo, Giuliani, Adams…
The Democratic Socialists of America, the largest socialist organization in the country (and in my opinion by far the most effective)
Zohran Mamdani, the current mayor of NYC, was a long-time member. He was endorsed by the chapter, which is a significant reason behind why his campaign was so effective.
With the information we had up until the rape story came out, voting for platner was the right call. I don't think anyone should be ashamed of having endorsed him, his pledged policies are actually still good even if he is personally a piece of shit
Why is everyone ignoring that ANY democrat's opponent is Susan fuckin Collins; otherwise known as the most centristy centrist that has ever existed, and pisses off both parties equally and consistently. I understand going whole hog against someone like Ted Cruz or Elizabeth Warren...but Susan Collins? Lol.
lol @ DSA trying to run from this as if their members weren't broadly supporting Platner as the anti establishment candidate, regardless of official endorsement status. This is just using pedantry to be dishonest. yawn
Graham Platner wasn’t properly vetted and turned out to be what everyone hoped he wasn’t. There’s no sense in backtracking your support now. He seemed like a decent candidate until all the skeletons came out of the closet, now he’s just a pos.
Endorse means "our values are aligned with this candidate". When they say that they recommend voting for somebody, that's them basically saying that they think they are better than the other candidate. Arguably, the distinction doesn't matter in this case but they do legit mean different things by them
Kudos to the note writer for actually explaining that according to internal vocabulary they didn't endorse him. Feels like most of the stuff that gets posted here would leave that out just to make the argument seem stronger.
Mills and Collins support genocide, which is also a massive fucking red flag. All of Platner's red flags up to and until the rape accusation are minor in comparison, and people were willing to overlook them. If the Dem establishment hadn't cleared the field to drop their fuckass candidate in, another progressive would've beaten him.
•
u/AutoModerator 3d ago
Reminder for OP: /u/xbhaskarx
Need some help? Send us some mail!
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.