On Wednesday’s episode of MS NOW’s “The Moment,” host Katy Tur said the explanation offered by then-Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner for his Nazi tattoo was “not very believable.” She also argued that Democrats had been willing to look past that issue, along with several other concerns, because they believed Platner might be the kind of candidate who could connect with voters the party had struggled to reach.
Tur framed the discussion around the Democratic Party’s search for candidates who could speak to a wider electorate, especially voters who had drifted toward Donald Trump. In that effort, she said, Democrats appeared to see Platner as someone who fit the moment.
“The Democratic Party, in searching for somebody that fit the bill of someone who could relate to and appeal to a broader set of voters that had been lost to Donald Trump, they found Graham Platner,” Tur said.
But she did not pretend Platner came without problems. Quite the opposite. Tur said he had “a lot of warts” and that party figures had chosen to overlook them.
“And, yeah, he had a lot of warts, a lot of warts, and they overlooked them,” she continued. “This one is clearly a bridge too far.”
Tur then shifted the conversation to a broader question: how political parties should think about redemption, especially when candidates have troubling pasts. She said the issue was not simply whether someone had said or done offensive things years earlier, but whether there was any real path back for a person who had made serious mistakes.
“I think it does bring us into the realm of, at what point do you allow for redemption?” Tur said. “At what point do you say this person did have a rough past, they did make mistakes?”
She was careful to say she was not defending Platner’s alleged conduct. Still, she raised the question of where a party should draw the line when a candidate has a history of offensive online comments, questionable behavior, or something as serious as a tattoo associated with Nazism.
“Again, I’m not justifying what Platner did ultimately, or is alleged to have done, which he denies,” Tur said. “But how far does the party let someone go who’s said bad things online, who has a tattoo that’s not great? Like, where is the path for redemption?”
MS NOW political analyst Basil Smikle responded by saying he looks for evidence that a person has done something meaningful to atone for past behavior. In his view, the question is not only whether someone made a mistake, but whether that person has shown real remorse and taken clear steps to make amends.
“I guess what I look for is, you may have done some things, but where is the — is there penance?” Smikle said. “How much have you done since then to kind of make up for that bad behavior?”
Smikle then turned directly to the tattoo controversy, calling the tattoo “horrible.” He noted that Platner had said he covered it up after learning what it meant.
Tur interrupted at that point and said she did not find that explanation convincing.
“Which is not very believable,” she said.
