A Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate in Maine is addressing posts he made on Reddit forums four years ago in which he called himself a socialist-turned-communist, noting that he was struggling mentally at the time.
Graham Platner shared a video addressing the comments on Oct. 17, saying they were made during “an earlier part of” his life, and he no longer agrees with the things he said.
According to the deleted posts, which were first reported by CNN, Platner went by the Reddit username “P-Hustle.” In his posts, he said all police are bastards, and rural White Americans “actually are” racist and stupid, reported CNN. He also responded to a 2013 post about asking people from other races questions.
According to the Bangor (Maine) Daily News, Platner also questioned in one Reddit reply, “Why don’t black people tip?” The political candidate once worked as a bartender at Tune Inn in Washington, D.C.’s Capitol Hill.
He has since apologized for the comments he made, adding they are “not reflective at all of who I am.”
Calling the comments “the dumbest thing I ever wrote on the internet,” he said he wants to be judged based on who he is today.
‘I was struggling deeply,’ Platner said about past Reddit comments
“When I got back from Afghanistan in 2011, I stayed in the army for another year,” he said in the video. “I got out in 2012. Some of the worst comments I made, the things that I think are least defensible, that I wouldn’t even try to defend, come from that time.”
Platner, now in his 40s, added that he spent most of his 20s in the infantry, overseas, and in Iraq and Afghanistan. Calling it a “very male-dominated place,” he said women weren’t allowed in the infantry and he was used to “crude humor,” “dark feelings,” and “offensive language.”
According to the political candidate, he read through his Reddit history and saw the version of himself that was battling mental illness. When he left the military, he had Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and depression, and sought community online, he said.
And while his comments reflect that difficult time in his life, he said, he also saw a change as he read through the posts.
“My language gets less crude, my thoughts and my feelings get a lot less kind of rough around the edges,” he said in his Oct. 17 video. “It’s important to know that this was a time in my life where I was struggling deeply.”
He added that like other people, he went online “to post stupid things and get in fights and find some form of community in some way, some outlet for my feelings, for my rage, for my isolation.”
He said he stopped posing on Reddit around 2020 or 2021.
He shared on Sunday, Oct. 19, that he is proud of part of his internet history, posting a screenshot of a post where he encouraged veterans to seek therapy to work on their mental health.
Candidate was previously endorsed by Bernie Sanders
Graham, an oyster farmer, was recently endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, who called him “a great working class candidate for Senate in Maine who will defeat Susan Collins.”
Contributing: Bart Jansen, USA TODAY
Saleen Martin is a reporter on USA TODAY’s NOW team. She is from Norfolk, Virginia – the 757. Email her at sdmartin@usatoday.com.