Conservatives rip Platner for 'disturbing' online trail as new Reddit post mocking teen suicide surfaces
This story discusses suicide. If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, please contact the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
Scandal-plagued Maine Democratic Senate nominee Graham Platner is facing even more scrutiny over posts he made on the online blogging platform Reddit, after a report surfaced fresh posts attributed to his old username, including one appearing to mock a teenage girl’s suicide attempt.
The New York Post reported Saturday that an account using Platner’s former Reddit handle, "P-Hustle," responded to a 2012 post about a young girl's failed suicide attempt. "A girl at my old high school tried jumping from a window because her cousin died the day before," the post’s caption read. "These students saved her. I have hope." The post showed the teenage girl hanging out a window, being held on by just her classmates from falling.
"Someone clearly isn’t trying hard enough," the P-Hustle account responded.
TOP OFF-THE-WALL REDDIT POSTS HAUNTING GRAHAM PLATNER’S MAINE SENATE BID
The newly uncovered Reddit posts follow other inflammatory remarks Platner has made on the online blogging platform Reddit, including comments calling rural White Americans "racist and stupid," posts pushing racial stereotypes about Black people, comments promoting political violence, and remarks blaming victims of rape, among others.
The freshly uncovered Reddit post mocking a young girl's suicide quickly drew criticism from Republicans and conservatives, including Maine State House Minority Leader Billy Bob Faulkingham, Maine Republican Party Executive Director Jason Savage, and former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer.
"Graham Platner is clearly a person with deep and disturbing psychological issues that predate his military service and continue to this day," Faulkingham told The New York Post.
"Yet another example of abject cruelty from Graham Platner," Savage told Fox News Digital.
"When someone tells you who they are, believe them," he continued. "Platner has told us repeatedly. Sadly, this time he was mocking the pain of a young woman facing a terrible loss. If this doesn't show you who Graham Platner is, what will?"
"Of all the rotten, troubling, and warped things Platner has done and said, his mocking encouragement of a young girl to commit suicide is the worst," Fleischer reacted, questioning how "anyone" could support the Maine Senate candidate amid all the controversies he has been embroiled in.
"There is something seriously perverted and wrong with Graham Platner," he added.
Platner's activity on Reddit has been a focus of his campaign as far back as last year, amid his attempt to unseat GOP incumbent Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. His controversial posts have included comments disparaging police officers and rural White Americans, remarks about rape victims needing to take more responsibility, promotions of political violence, and praise for Hamas. In one post, Platner slammed a Purple Heart recipient who Platner argued "didn’t deserve to live," blaming his return home on "poor marksmanship on the Taliban's part."
In one post from Sept. 1, 2020, Platner responded in a politics subreddit declaring that "White People Aren’t as Racist or Stupid as Trump Thinks."
"Living in white rural America, I’m afraid to tell you they actually are," Platner wrote of the people he is now seeking to represent in the U.S. Congress.
Platner had a history of promoting armed political action on Reddit as well, including writing that "an armed working class is a requirement for economic justice." In a separate post, he argued that if people "expect to fight fascism without a good semi-automatic rifle, they ought to do some reading of history."
PLATNER’S BRUTAL ATTACKS ON ARMY SOLDIERS AS ‘FAT, LAZY’ REVEALED IN RESURFACED POSTS
"There are times in this world when, for the good of tolerance and humanity, you need to kill a motherf---er," Platner also wrote on his now-deleted Reddit account in September 2013. "Sadly most people who are true believers in tolerance and humanity find that activity repulsive. Which I suppose is morally good, but pragmatically a shortfall."
Meanwhile, in a 2021 Reddit post, Platner wrote that all cops are "bastards" and called himself a "communist," though Platner later disavowed the remark about law enforcement and later said he has "an immense amount of friends" who are police officers and that they are "not all" bastards.
"I was [expletive] around on the internet at a time when I felt lost and very disillusioned with our government who sent me overseas to watch my friends die," Platner said in a statement to CNN at the time. "I made dumb jokes and picked fights. But of course I’m not a socialist. I’m a small business owner, a Marine Corps veteran, and a retired s***poster," the 41-year-old Platner added.
In another set of resurfaced Reddit posts, The Washington Post reported that Platner downplayed sexual assault concerns, including writing in a thread about rape-prevention underwear that "rape is a real thing," but that people worried about assault should "take some responsibility for themselves" and not get so intoxicated that they wind up "having sex with someone they don’t mean to."
The New York Post also reported this week that Platner praised a video recording Hamas terrorists shooting at Israeli soldiers and trying to kidnap one of them who was screaming for his life. Platner reportedly wrote in response to the 2014 combat footage on Reddit: "Looks like an all around well executed and successful small unit raid to me."
Fox News Digital reached out to Platner and his campaign for comment but did not hear back in time for publication.