The ‘But He’s a Veteran’ Defense is Condescending and Dangerous
· The Atlantic
Graham Platner’s victory this week in Maine’s Democratic Senate primary would have been a stunning achievement for a political newcomer under any circumstances. What makes it truly remarkable is that Platner pulled this off despite a decades-long trail of questionable behavior: a Nazi tattoo; contemptible written statements about sexual-abuse victims, Black people, and women; admissions of past substance abuse and marital infidelity; allegations of demeaning, disturbing, and physically threatening behavior toward former girlfriends. (Platner has denied any physical intimidation or violence.)
Visit librea.one for more information.
Platner and his surrogates have rolled out a catch-all excuse, meant not only to clarify how he could have made so many bad decisions, but also to shame people who criticize him: Platner, a Marine Corps veteran, was dealing with the heavy emotional burden and mental toll of the wars this nation sent him to fight. It’s not his fault. And he’s a better person now.
But that argument—and I say this as a veteran of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars—is nonsense, a convenient answer intended to divert the conversation from legitimate questions about Platner’s many flaws. It plays on Americans’ sympathy for those who have fought in war and overplays the distinction between veterans and civilians. Whether this justification is used cynically or sincerely—or ignorantly—it is insulting to veterans. Many of them suffer from their time in combat but don’t engage in the kind of behavior that Platner has. And many of them—despite, or because of, their wartime experience—are among our nation’s most accomplished, ethical, hardworking, and patriotic citizens and leaders.
Let me put this as plainly as possible: I know quite literally hundreds of combat veterans and the soldiers I fought with, to my knowledge, all somehow managed to avoid getting Nazi tattoos. It doesn’t take much effort to avoid being inked with an SS symbol.
[Mike Nelson: Condemning a Nazi tattoo shouldn’t be this hard]
Platner himself has said repeatedly that much of his bad behavior stemmed from his war experience. “I’ve been very up front since the beginning of this campaign that that was a pretty dark period of my life after I came back from my combat service,” he recently told MS NOW’s Chris Hayes, admitting to “not being a good boyfriend” and “self-medicating with alcohol.” He has spoken about having PTSD and, in an interview with The New York Times, described an incident in which his friend was badly injured when their vehicle got hit by an IED in Iraq. The morning after his primary win, Platner said that he had only started to feel like himself again in 2021, and added, “I wake up every single morning just trying to be a little bit better and a little bit kinder than the way I was before.”
His surrogates echo this defense, which plays into the dangerous and condescending stereotype of American veterans as broken people. Speaking at a Platner rally a few days before the primary, Representative Ro Khanna acknowledged that some of Platner’s past relationships were “toxic and volatile,” before pivoting to: “But we need to have an honest conversation in this country. We broke thousands of young men by sending them into dumb wars.” Senator Chris Van Hollen has defended Platner, saying, “Let’s take a couple issues, including the comments he’s made in the past. I mean, he’s been very clear that he went into combat on behalf of the United States. He went through a really rough period, PTSD-type period.”
According to this logic, Platner is not responsible for his own actions. The burdens he carries excuse things he has done over the course of two decades—in the military, after returning to civilian life, and apparently up until he decided to run for Senate.
Some of these defenses are well-intentioned. They suggest an admiration for the sacrifices that veterans have made. Perhaps some civilians feel unqualified to judge people who have served and who may well still experience the effects of their time overseas. The chasm between those who have been in combat and those who’ve only watched news of it is massive and growing: A smaller percentage of Americans served in the global War on Terror than in any other major war over the past century. This can lead some civilians to be overly deferential to veterans, who are, after all, human.
But showing respect to the point of refusing to judge someone’s questionable actions is a version of what George W. Bush called “the soft bigotry of low expectations.” Some Americans seem to view Afghanistan and Iraq veterans almost as an alien species, whose experiences cannot be understood and who therefore have a separate set of expectations. This attitude reduces an incredibly diverse group of individuals to the “broken veteran” cliché.
In some cases, Platner supporters who are veterans themselves have tried to lend credibility to this explanation. In a Substack essay published shortly before the primary, Daniel Barkhuff, the founder of Veterans for Responsible Leadership, a super PAC that endorsed Platner, wrote: “He said dumb things. He did dumb things.” Platner, Barkhuff added, seems to have “the sort of impulsive aggressiveness that is curated and encouraged in ground combat units where 99% of your problems can be solved by getting more violent and faster than the other guy. None of that is hidden, and none of it needs to be excused.” Barkhuff explained that he himself has used offensive language in online arguments. But that analogy doesn’t amount to much of a defense of Platner, whose troubling history goes well beyond a few bad words.
Platner and his supporters frequently talk about his personal story as one of redemption and recovery after his time at war. “Graham clearly made a mistake. What I appreciated about him is he owned that mistake. He took responsibility for it,” Representative Seth Moulton said in reference to Platner’s tattoo. But has he owned his mistakes? Although Platner claims that he didn’t know the significance of his Nazi Totenkopf tattoo, others have disputed this. His former campaign political director said that Platner “knows damn well what it means.” A former romantic partner, Lyndsey Fifield, told The New York Times that Platner had referred to the tattoo years ago as “my Totenkopf.” When Hayes asked Platner about a text in which Fifield referred to the “Nazi tattoo on his chest” before the tattoo became public, Platner responded, “Well, she certainly didn’t send that text to me.” His denial proved even more absurd when an unnamed second former romantic partner told The New York Post that she’d had a conversation with Platner about the tattoo and its Nazi meaning in 2021, and shared screenshots demonstrating her awareness of the tattoo prior to the public disclosure.
In reaction to a New York Times story in which Fifield alleged that Platner had grabbed her, pushed her, and twisted her arm, Platner denied not only that behavior but also that he and Fifield had ever dated, despite contemporaneous texts and social-media posts suggesting that they had been in a relationship. Platner’s campaign has also attacked Fifield, who has been active in conservative circles, as a political operative, though the Times found no evidence that Fifield was acting on Collins’s behalf. Part of redemption is accounting for one’s faults, and targeting the people who bear witness to those faults is not accountability—it’s defensiveness. When Morning Joe’s Mika Brzezinski recently asked Platner whether additional controversies might come out, Platner said, “There’s nothing out there that’s actually concerning. People will make everything seem very concerning.”
[Elizabeth Bruenig: Yet more damning revelations about Graham Platner]
I have seen veterans deal with the very real stresses of America’s long wars—physical wounds as well as psychological ones that linger after witnessing death and carnage, or coming close to it oneself. The separation from home, family, and social networks to deploy to high-stress and high-risk environments, repeated cyclically over the course of decades, took a toll on every veteran of the War-on-Terror generation—whether they deployed once or a dozen times, whether they were directly in harm’s way or far from the explosions. Many veterans have sunk into substance abuse or engaged in questionable personal behavior, and I can understand why. Some no doubt have felt the need to “cut loose,” and we shouldn’t be surprised that the kinds of people who sign up to exit an aircraft mid-flight might also have a high risk tolerance in their personal lives.
But even if Platner’s pattern of behavior isn’t unique, that doesn’t mean it’s representative of the experiences or choices of the great majority of people who have served. And if all veterans who have suffered or stumbled deserve help and treatment, that doesn’t mean their hardship is a blanket excuse for immoral behavior. Everyone is responsible for the choices they make. That’s a lesson we learn in the military.
Anyone who claims that this kind of baggage is the cost of getting “regular” people—and specifically veterans—to run for office doesn’t realize how smug and out of touch that claim is. This argument implies that veterans are all a bunch of drunks with a history of contemptible beliefs and actions. We can’t claim to pay tribute to veterans while holding them to such low standards. This logic also ignores the many veterans who have entered public life without such questionable pasts.
Veterans are a part of American society, and many will continue to run for public office. But their status as veterans, though an important component of their story, should never excuse decisions they have made. Nor should veteran candidates use their service as automatic proof of their worthiness for office. If a candidate wishes to make his wartime service an essential part of why voters should select him, then he should highlight the traits he wishes to bring to the office, not dismiss the traits he wishes them to ignore.