SouthernWorldwide.com – As Graham Platner, the presumptive Democratic nominee for Senate in Maine, faces mounting criticism for his past remarks, new details have surfaced regarding his deleted Reddit account. These additional comments reveal the combat veteran’s discussions on overseas prostitution, including his defense of men who engaged in infidelity while abroad.
Platner made references to prostitution in both Thailand and Latin America through two separate Reddit posts, one from 2019 and another from 2012. In a post dated April 2012, he offered a defense for men who cheated on their wives and girlfriends while traveling overseas, in response to a news article discussing prostitution.
“You don’t have much experience with Latin American hookers, do you?” Platner wrote in April 2012. He was responding to another user who had expressed concerns that prostitutes in Colombia were part of a vast sex trade, with the women effectively enslaved.
The comments reviewed do not provide evidence that Platner himself hired sex workers. It is noted that the account frequently employed crude or hyperbolic language.
Read more : Powell's Shadow Fed Majority Threatens Jobs, Housing, and Growth
These comments have emerged as Platner’s deleted Reddit history becomes a significant liability in his campaign to unseat incumbent Republican Senator Susan Collins. This is particularly true following the surfacing of posts where he characterized the U.S. Army as “full of fat, lazy trash” and ridiculed Ted Daniels, a former Army infantryman and Purple Heart recipient who was injured in Afghanistan. The archived posts also show Platner using slurs, disparaging white rural Americans, expressing support for political violence, and making sexually explicit remarks.
On the same day he posted about “Latin American hookers,” Platner also posted a defense of men who had been unfaithful to their partners while overseas.
“I’ve heard that idiotic sentiment made within the confines of the the [sic] military. ‘If you can’t remain faithful to your wife, how can you remain faithful to your comrades?’” Platner wrote. His comment was in response to a piece concerning Secret Service agents who used prostitutes. “Well, I have many good buddies who lied and cheated with women, and yet were straight shooting hard men when it came to their work.”
“I find it is a sentiment only held by moral relativists who need something to cry about, intelligent people realize they are not mutually exclusive,” he added.
Years later, Platner continued to discuss prostitution on Reddit.
“And sadly, the Afghan tax f—ed everybody on the 330 game,” Platner wrote in 2019. “Spend your leave banging hookers in Thailand instead of getting b—-ed at by the wife back home, and you could sell it as avoiding federal income tax.”
It is believed he was referring to a tax strategy utilized by some government contractors working abroad. Under this strategy, if they spent more than 330 days outside the United States, they could avoid paying federal income tax.
The posts were made from the Reddit account “P-Hustle,” which Platner has acknowledged as his. Comments from this account have been compiled into a searchable database by the Maine Monitor.
The Senate hopeful has attributed his online conduct to psychological trauma stemming from his combat deployments, as well as the “crude humor” and “offensive language” he became accustomed to during his service as a Marine.
“I’m sorry for this. Just know that it’s not reflective at all of who I am,” Platner stated in October regarding his Reddit comments. “I don’t want you to judge me on the dumbest thing I ever wrote on the internet. I would prefer if people could judge me on the person I am today.”
