Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner got a Nazi tattoo in Croatia in 2007 while serving in the Marines – not just a swastika tat either, but a special skull and crossbones “Totenkopf” tattoo, similar to those worn by Hitler’s SS. He had the tattoo covered with new ink in late October 2025 only after it became a controversy during his emerging Maine U.S. Senate campaign. Notably, the offensive tattoo was not removed in a prolonged process of laser removal, but only covered up with another. What do the writers of the New York Times think of Platner’s Totenkopf tattoo? After all, the paper has spent years pushing the left’s most hypersensitive reactions to any signs of fascism, real or mostly imagined, on the part of Republican-identified figures, like Elon Musk’s so-called Nazi salute. Reporter Ryan Mac wrote in January 2025 under the headlines “Elon Musk Ignites Online Speculation Over the Meaning of a Hand Gesture -- Speaking at a celebratory rally in Washington, Mr. Musk twice extended his arm out with his palm facing down, drawing comparisons to the Nazi salute”). Certainly the real deal, a deep cut of Nazism emblazoned on the chest of a candidate for U.S. Senate, would inspire true revulsion. Yet the same paper that went into such hysterics over nothings (even the “OK” hand gesture was suspected of links to “white power”) has greeted Platner’s Totenkopf with a shrug, as long as its owner has a chance to damage the Trump Administration by defeating moderate Republican Sen. Susan Collins. It’s certainly not a dealbreaker for New York Times writer Frank Bruni, who announced his support for Platner, who appears to have wrapped up the nomination for the June Democratic primary, in order to kick Collins and help deprive Trump of his Senate cushion. Bruni made his blunt argument in his May 4 newsletter “If Democrats Have Appropriate Fear of Trump, They Will Elect Platner.” What Democrats have to fear from Sen. Collins, who actually voted to impeach Trump in 2021, is another matter. To be fair, Bruni wasn’t at the forefront of the Times’ feverish bouts of cancel culture, and has made occasional chiding noises about liberals’ overzealousness in their search for enemies (perhaps like calling everything they don’t like fascist?) But in a January 2025 “written online conversation” he hosted between business writer Bethany McLean and Nate Silver on Musk, Bruni argued that "Musk isn’t just a private citizen anymore; he’s a government official who might end up with an office in the West Wing. Shouldn’t we be talking about his stiff-armed salute — or whatever we’re calling it — at that rally on Monday in that context? What do you think it meant? And whatever was going on there, isn’t it incumbent on Musk in his new role with his new responsibilities to check his speech and spasms in a manner that forbids anyone from seeing a 'Sieg Heil' and flashing back to the Nazis?” Bruni went after Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s Christian tattoo in a recent column on April 13 to bolster his argument that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is a religious Crusader with a capital C based on Hegseth's Jerusalem Cross, “Deus Vult” tattoo: “Hegseth has a tattoo on his right biceps that says ‘Deus vult,’ Latin for ‘God wills it.’ He has described that phrase as a battle cry during the Crusades, which, of course, pitted Christians against Muslims." A December 2024 Times article claimed the Deus Vult motto had been used by white supremacists. (Platner’s literal white supremacist tattoo was not similarly linked). The Times doesn’t care that anti-Semitic leftist luminaries like podcaster Hasan Piker have praised Platner: “He was giving Hamas credit in 2014. What more do you f***ing want?” Indeed. Platner also sat for a podcast interview with antisemitic conspiracy theorist Nate Cornacchia, with Platner saying he was a “longtime fan.” But for the Times, Platner is just a jaunty “populist oysterman.” The paper has referred to Platner as “an oyster farmer and veteran” without even noting the specific Nazi tattoo he got while serving in the Marines.