Is Maine Leftist Challenger Graham Platner Actually Jewish?

Whatever. But Why Wont't Regime Media Ask?

Rather depressing pic of U.S. Senate Challenger Graham Platner. But he’s trying!

One of the things I realized when I got started in journalism over fifty (aargh!) years ago is: you have to ask rude questions.

This is very hard if you’re a WASP. But I also found that that people were often so so startled (admittedly this was in then heavily-Anglo Canada) that they would then unguardedly respond with the truth.

The current rude question I’d love to ask: Is Graham Platner Jewish?

Platner, age 41, who is running for the Democratic nomination to oppose the appalling (but nominally Republican) Susan Collins in the Maine U.S. Senate race, was being auditioned by Democrats/ Regime Media for the role as their much-longed-for White Working Class (Leftist) Hero.

He is regularly described as an “oysterman” because he “took over” (per Wikipedia, presumably means bought) a marginally-profitable oyster company in just 2020.

And this was after what certainly looks like serious service in Afghanistan with the U.S. Marines, which he entered out of high school, and also with the Maryland Army National Guard. Platner is now on 100% veteran disability.

But the Platner coronation has recently hit a huge snag, courtesy what what the invaluable The Maine Wire reports is a ruthless Democratic Establishment oppo dump to help its favored candidate, term-limited Maine Governor Janet Mills.

(Janet Mills is born like me in 1947!) (ERR….)

You might think that, among other impolitic revelations, the fact that Platner was involved in training an Antifa militia would be paramount.

But of course it’s actually the fact that he might have, while drunk in Croatia in 2007 with fellow Marines (this happens), have gotten a SS Totenkopf tattoo that is now exciting attention among hysterical Democrats (and opportunistic Republicans).

The chances that Graham Platner is a closet Nazi are, needless to say, absolutely zero.

Of course, it is odd, although not completely inexplicable in his testosterone-crazed peer group, that Platner would have gotten what looks like a Totenkopf tattoo. The Marine Corps has for many years explicitly banned Nazi tattoos. But Platner’s Totenkopf seems to have been in Marine Corps olive green, which perhaps provided cover.

But back to my rude questions:

• Platner’s wife, Amy Gertner, has an Ashkenazi Jewish name. An Amy Gertner is listed among among the children of Ellen Joyce Gertner, who died in January 2025. Is this her?

If Gertner is Jewish, this surely puts in perspective Platner’s claim that he didn’t realize the tattoo was an SS symbol. Did his wife not see his chest? Did she not object? Why has nobody asked?

• Platner is also an Ashkenazi Jewish surname.

Graham Platner’s mother is a Leslie Harlow, now owner of a restaurant in Hancock, Maine. But his (divorced) father, Bronson Platner, is a lawyer. And his grandfather was a prominent architect.

This sociological pattern suggests to me that Graham Platner is Jewish at least on his paternal side.

Why does this matter? Well, maybe it explains Graham Platner’s reflexive Leftism—and his notorious alienation from the rural white Americans he seeks to represent.

And why is he hiding his background? Who is he trying to fool?