Progressive Maine Senate Candidate Gets Scathing Community Note Over Latest Attack On Susan Collins

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Graham Platner, the progressive candidate for U.S. Senate in Maine, received a scathing community note on X this week in response to his latest attack on Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) – whose seat he’s running for.

Platner posted a clip on the platform Tuesday and captioned it, “.@SenatorCollins: you voted to send me to Iraq. Did you learn anything from that experience? Anything at all?”

In the clip, Platner added, “Last week, Senator Susan Collins said that the Trump administration should attack Iran only as a last resort. Well, we know that that’s not what has happened, because Secretary of State Marco Rubio has stated publicly that the reason we did this is that we knew the Israelis were going to attack Iran, and if they did that, Iran would respond.” He added:

Therefore, we have to attack Iran first, which is quite possibly the most ridiculous excuse for starting a war. This whole thing is insane, and it’s getting worse. You know, Iranian missiles are getting through defenses. We are now telling American citizens to leave the region entirely. This thing is spiraling out of control.

Susan Collins has the power to stop this. Senator Collins, I’m just going to ask you straight up: You voted to send me to Iraq. Did you not learn anything from that experience? You need to stand up. The American people do not want this war. The American people do not support a war that is going to get young American men and women killed, that is going to kill an immense amount of Iranian civilians—all on behalf of the Israeli government and the Saudi government. And let’s be honest, because Donald Trump wants a distraction from the fact that he’s in the Epstein files. This is disgusting, it’s absurd, and it needs to end now.

X’s community notes quickly added some context to Platner’s claim, adding, “He enlisted knowing we were at war. He volunteered for 3 tours over 8 years. He said, ‘I thought I could do some good. And I wanted to play soldier.’” The quote comes from an August 2025 interview Platner gave The New Republic.

Platner has sparked a string of controversies since getting into the race. Last week, he deleted a tweet that boosted a post from avowed Neo-Nazi Stew Peters. Peters has long embraced anti-Semitic rhetoric, calling Judaism “satanic” and a “death cult, while questioning the Holocaust. Last March, he echoed Nazi rhetoric by calling for a “final solution” to mass-deport the Jewish population in the U.S.

Platner was also later revealed to have a Nazi-era symbol tattooed on his chest. “It was not until I started hearing from reporters and DC insiders that I realized this tattoo resembled a Nazi symbol,” he told Politico last fall. “I absolutely would not have gone through life having this on my chest if I knew that — and to insinuate that I did is disgusting. I am already planning to get this removed.” Platner later had the tattoo redesigned.

CNN’s KFile also reported on a series of posts from 2021 in which Platner referred to himself as a communist, called rural Americans “racist” and “stupid,” all cops “bastards,” and used the word “retard.”

Platner is running against Maine’s sitting governor in the Democratic Party primary to take on Collins, and has the support of the left-wing of the party – including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).

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