WINDHAM, Maine-Senate candidate Graham Platner (D., Maine) said Google and Palantir “wouldn’t exist” if he had his way. “If I had my way, we would break all these companies up. Palantir wouldn’t exist. Google wouldn’t exist,” Platner said Saturday during a town hall in the southern Maine town of Windham. “We could have regulated this nonsense in a way that . would make sure that we’re doing it in a fashion that’s going to benefit workers and not just people in power.” Platner accused the companies of using personal data to fuel corporate profits and societal division. “All of your data does not belong to you. All of our data is used against us daily. Figuring out how to fleece us of money, how to keep us angry at each other. The only way that that changes, in my personal opinion, is policies that don’t allow that to happen. We’re not going to beat them on their terms. We’ve got to build our own weapons. We’ve got to build our own ability to fight back,” he continued. “We’ve got to do it, frankly, using the old fashioned ways, which is connecting, winning elections, building secondary power, getting structural power again, and then using that into the tax code, using the monopoly law, however we want to do it. That’s how we’re going to have to go about it.” Those remarks are Platner’s most aggressive to date on big tech. He has, however, said more broadly that he wants to break up monopolies and use the tax code “to get back money that was stolen from the working people. I want to go after companies that have stolen from the American people for decades at this point and accrued all of the wealth at the upper echelons,” Platner said during a Nov. 15 event. Platner’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
https://freebeacon.com/democrats/maines-platner-if-i-had-my-way-google-and-palantir-wouldnt-exist/
Tag Archives: graham platner
Graham Platner dismisses old Reddit posts as ‘stupid joke comments’
U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner is disavowing a series of now-deleted social media posts in which he criticized police and said that white rural Americans “actually are” racist and stupid.
Platner, a veteran and oyster farmer from Hancock County, is running to challenge Sen. Susan Collins. His Reddit posts from 2020 and 2021 were resurfaced this week by CNN, which reported that they were deleted prior to Platner’s campaign launch in August.
In an interview with the Press Herald Thursday, Platner said the posts came from a time when he was disillusioned and angry, and expressed those sentiments online. He said the comments don’t reflect who he is today.
“A lot of it isn’t even things I believed then,” Platner said. “A lot of them are just stupid joke comments. I look back now and I don’t mean to be flippant, but it was just dumb stuff on the internet and when I stopped being lonely and isolated I didn’t use that as an outlet anymore.”
In one since-removed post from 2020, Platner responded to a thread titled “White people aren’t as racist or stupid as Trump thinks” by writing, “Living in white rural America, I’m afraid to tell you they actually are.”
In another comment from 2021, Platner replied in a thread about a Black army lieutenant who was held at gunpoint and pepper-sprayed by police during a traffic stop. When one Reddit user wrote, “Bastards. Cops are bastards,” Platner responded, “All of them, in fact.”
Other posts addressed Platner’s political views and how his military service reshaped his perspective. Platner served three deployments to Iraq with the Marine Corps and was deployed to Afghanistan with the Army National Guard before settling in Sullivan, where he grew up.
In one reflection on his life after the military, he wrote, “I was a vegetable growing, psychedelics taking socialist these days. After the war, I’ve pretty much stopped believing in any of the patriotic nonsense that got me there in the first place, and am a firm believer that the best thing a person can do is help their neighbors and live a loving life.”
Platner is considered a leading contender for the Democratic nomination to challenge Collins. Gov. Janet Mills, who is finishing up her second term, announced Tuesday that she is also running.
This story will be updated.
https://www.sunjournal.com/2025/10/16/graham-platner-dismisses-old-reddit-posts-as-stupid-joke-comments/