Maine Senate Candidate Graham Platner Faces Backlash Over Resurfaced 'Cops Are Opportunistic Cowards' Reddit Post

Graham Platner, the far-left Democratic candidate challenging Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, is under fresh scrutiny after a since-deleted Reddit post resurfaced in which he called law enforcement "opportunistic cowards." The comment was published in June 2020 under Platner's handle "P-Hustle" on R/Maine and archived by The Maine Monitor. It marks the latest in a documented series of anti-law enforcement remarks spanning nearly a decade that critics say raise questions about his fitness for the Senate.

The Post and Its Context

The June 2020 comment appeared in response to a discussion about the Hancock County Sheriff's Department seeking approval to purchase riot gear during a period when Black Lives Matter protests were spreading across Maine — some of which resulted in vandalized storefronts and looting. Platner, then 35, dismissed the department's request as "ridiculous" and derided the sheriff's deputies in crude terms before writing, "Cops are opportunistic cowards." The post had not been previously reported before The Maine Monitor surfaced it.

The same month, Platner publicly called a Maine police chief "thin blue line trash" for declining to kneel with George Floyd protesters, and separately wrote "all cops are bastards" — remarks first reported by CNN. In April 2021, he posted a since-deleted comment questioning whether policing had a systemic problem "that extends into the profession as a whole."

Law Enforcement Critics Push Back

State Rep. Donald Ardell, a Republican and retired federal special agent and criminal investigator, told Fox News Digital that current officers and former colleagues expressed widespread disgust with Platner's remarks. Ardell said the comments reflect "a complete lack of understanding of the way law enforcement operates" and described the pattern as "a series of consistent bad decisions." Asked whether Platner's stated growth over the past six years was credible, Ardell said any personal improvement should happen "on his own time — not on Mainers' time, and not in the U.S. Senate." The Platner campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

A Widening Field of Controversy

The resurfaced post arrives as Platner is contending with a broader range of damaging disclosures. His campaign acknowledged a period of infidelity during his marriage to Amy Gertner, whom he wed in 2023, that involved sending sexually explicit messages to at least half a dozen women. He also maintained an account on Kik, an app widely used for sexual encounters, which his campaign said he had deleted. Former girlfriend Lyndsey Fifield has alleged abuse. Separately, a former girlfriend who dated Platner in 2021 shared text messages, reviewed by The New York Post, that referenced a "Nazi tattoo on his chest" — a skull-and-crossbones Platner says he did not learn was linked to Nazi SS units until October 2025, years after acquiring it while drinking with fellow Marines in Croatia.

Platner has said many of his online comments were taken out of context, attributing some to post-traumatic stress disorder following multiple overseas deployments and describing others as "s---posting." Ardell was direct about the trajectory: "This is not a guy that has a skeleton in the closet. This is a guy that has a whole graveyard."