Maine Democratic Senate Candidate Graham Platner Once Said Violence Is Necessary for Political Change

Democrat Graham Platner is running to unseat Republican Susan Collins in Maine. While he's campaigning as a moderate who has "crossover appeal" for Trump voters, the truth is that Platner is a radical progressive with ties to Zohran Mamdani and Bernie Sanders.

Yesterday, we learned that Platner has a history of revealing social media posts that were deleted sometime before he launched his Senate bid. In those posts, he admitted he's a communist, claimed that White rural Americans are racist, and attacked the police as "bastards."

There's more to that story now, and it gets worse.

In another deleted social media post, Platner claimed violence was necessary for political change.

Scoop: Graham Platner once suggested in online posts that violence is a necessary means to achieving political change.

If people “expect to fight fascism without a good semi-automatic rifle, they ought to do some reading of history,” he wrote in one since-deleted post. In…
— Adam Wren (@adamwren) October 17, 2025

Platner wrote, "An armed working class is a requirement for economic justice."

Here's more from Politico:

Graham Platner, who is running as an insurgent Democratic candidate for Senate in Maine, once suggested in online posts that violence is a necessary means to achieving social change — comments now drawing scrutiny in an era of increased political violence.

Platner, 41, a former Marine and combat veteran who now raises oysters, made the statements on Reddit in 2018, long before he emerged as a serious candidate to take on Republican Sen. Susan Collins in the midterms.

If people “expect to fight fascism without a good semi-automatic rifle, they ought to do some reading of history,” he wrote in one since-deleted post. In another, he said that “an armed working class is a requirement for economic justice.”

CNN first reported Thursday on Platner’s participation on the subreddit r/SocialistRA, alongside other Reddit forums where he called himself a “communist” and said that “all” police are bastards. All of the posts have been deleted.

The posts, which were removed three months ago shortly before Platner launched his Senate bid, were obtained by POLITICO and verified using an archive of deleted Reddit comments and by cross-checking other posts by the same user that mentioned biographical details consistent with the candidate’s life.