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Dave Moss of Oakland is a member of the Beth Israel Congregation in Waterville and one of the original organizers of the “It’s On Us” campaign.
I am a Jewish Mainer who once organized a national campaign against sexual assault called “It’s On Us” and I am endorsing Janet Mills for the United States Senate.
Her Democratic primary opponent, Graham Platner, has a past that I think should disqualify him from public office and a present which gives me no confidence that he has reckoned with it. Recently, Platner claimed that after meeting with Jewish leaders in New York and explaining his tattoo, “pretty much everybody’s like, again, ‘That seems like an eminently reasonable thing.’”
I don’t know why he needed to leave Maine to find them, but I’d like to have a word with any Jewish leaders who think a totenkopf tattoo is reasonable because they definitely do not speak for me.
I have experienced antisemitism many times, including violence. I know what it looks like when people minimize Nazi imagery. Platner’s tattoo is not a swastika, it’s the totenkopf or the “death’s head,” and it is one of the most recognizable Nazi symbols. It appeared on the caps of SS officers who murdered my relatives. It was worn by the men who ran the concentration camps who imprisoned them.
Platner says he did not know what it was. He also claims to be a history buff. Jewish Insider reported that a former acquaintance heard him refer to the tattoo as “my totenkopf” at a D.C. bar, where he would frequently show it off. CNN found Reddit comments that contradict his claims. You do not call something by its German name and then claim you never knew what it meant. I do not believe him.
Tattoos aren’t my only concern about his candidacy.
One of my proudest accomplishments was helping to create the It’s On Us campaign during the Obama administration. Launched at the White House in 2014 by Vice President Joe Biden, the campaign carried a simple message: the vast majority of men who would never commit sexual assault have the power and the responsibility to stop those who do. It’s not on women to wear longer skirts or avoid certain streets at night. It’s on us. All of us.
That campaign changed the way I think about silence. So when I see Platner telling victims of sexual assault to “take some responsibility for themselves” and not to drink so much I am compelled to speak up. No one who says these things about rape should hold a seat in the U.S. Senate.
If a Nazi tattoo and victim-blaming comments about rape are not enough, let’s consider competence. As a progressive, I agree with much of what Platner says. But saying the right things is not governing. I see no evidence he can deliver on any of it.
Gov. Janet Mills can and she has. Maine saw more economic growth during her tenure than in the entire 14 years before she took office. She stewarded our state through a pandemic. When President Donald Trump tried to bully her in the White House, she told him she would see him in court and then she won a court case.
It seems these days that there is no level of imperfection we cannot tolerate in a man but that no woman can ever be perfect enough. Mainers have the chance to buck that trend. We can send a qualified, dignified, accomplished leader to take on Susan Collins, a senator who I believe wrings her hands and furrows her brow in concern and then votes what I consider the wrong way every time it matters.
I think Collins should lose her Senate seat and she should lose to someone with a track record of accomplishment. Janet Mills is that person. I urge every Mainer who believes character and competence still matter to vote for Mills in the June primary.
