Since the New York Times published multiple ex-girlfriend accounts on June 4 and Platner went on live TV to deny them, the drumbeat of damaging revelations has continued heading into Maine's primary election next week.

The Rally Gambit

Platner's campaign scheduled a Maine rally featuring Rep. Ro Khanna, the California progressive, according to AP News. The strategic logic is obvious: put a well-liked national figure onstage, change the visual, and give Democrats somewhere to look other than the headlines.

Whether that works is another question entirely.

The Tattoo Story Got Worse

Platner's original explanation was that he got a massive skull-and-crossbones tattoo while drunk on military leave in Croatia in 2007, and that he didn't know it was a Nazi symbol. He said he covered it with a different design last year.

The NYT reporting blew that explanation apart. According to The Atlantic's summary of the NYT report, one of Platner's ex-girlfriends recalled him referring to the tattoo as "my Totenkopf" — the German name for the Nazi SS symbol — and explaining that he and members of his military unit chose it because they saw themselves as killers comparable to the SS.

The Totenkopf was the insignia of the SS-Totenkopfverbände — the Nazi units that ran the concentration camps.

Platner's campaign has disputed the woman's account. But "I didn't know what it meant" is now significantly harder to sell.

What Platner Has Actually Admitted

Set aside the disputed accounts for a moment and look at what's already on the record.

Platner spent years posting from a personal Reddit account. In a 2013 post about women worried about being raped, he wrote — per The Atlantic's reporting of the NYT findings — "Holy fuck, how about people just take some responsibility for themselves and not get so fucked up they wind up having sex with someone they don't mean to?" That's a direct quote from his account.

A 2020 video showed Platner reminiscing about buying cocaine and using drugs during his military service.

Those posts contributed to the resignation of his campaign's political director.

The Democratic Party's Uncomfortable Silence

Fox News caught AOC dodging questions about the abuse allegations and Nazi tattoo claims. She said she needed more time before commenting. Several other Democratic senators have also been caught on camera avoiding a direct answer on whether they back Platner, according to Fox News.

This is the party that spent years telling voters that character matters. Democrats decided they needed a candidate who could speak to working-class men. Platner fit the template — Marine vet, oyster farmer, economic populist. The party moved fast and didn't look hard enough.

Mike Pence Called It "Incomprehensible"

Former Vice President Mike Pence weighed in, calling Platner's behavior "incomprehensible," per Fox News. It illustrates how far outside normal political territory this race has traveled.

Fox News has been running heavy coverage, which is not surprising — a Democratic Senate candidate with Nazi tattoo allegations and multiple ex-girlfriend abuse accounts is significant news. The underlying facts are what they are.

What Mainstream Coverage Is Getting Wrong

Left-leaning outlets are spending too much energy on the framing of "can people change?" and not enough on the specific, documented claims that are not disputed.

Right-leaning outlets are covering this heavily but largely skipping the policy context: Platner was running to unseat Susan Collins, a Republican incumbent, in a state that matters. The implications for Senate control are real.

And almost nobody is asking the harder question: Who vetted this candidate? National Democrats embraced Platner fast and loud. Someone decided he was the future of the party's appeal to working-class men. That person, or those people, should be named and should answer for it.

What This Means for Maine Voters

The primary is next week. Maine voters are being asked to choose between Platner — with everything now on the table — and Susan Collins, a Republican incumbent with her own long record to defend.

Platner's campaign is betting a rally with Ro Khanna can stabilize things. The Totenkopf account, the Reddit posts, and the ex-girlfriend testimony suggest otherwise.

If a candidate called a Nazi tattoo "my Totenkopf" and explained it as identifying with SS killers, that raises fundamental questions about fitness for the United States Senate.