Know Your Enemy - Command + F + Hitler [Teaser]

Matt and Sam discuss the Young Republican Hitler group chat, Graham Platner, the No Kings rallies, and more.

Duration: 3m
Broadcast on: 24 Oct 2025
Audio Format: other

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The theme of this rank punditry episode is Getting in Trouble on the Internet, and we begin with the frankly unsurprising story of the Young Republican Hitler group chats, then move on to a longer discussion about Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate in Maine, Graham Platner, and the revelations about controversial past posts on Reddit about guns and fighting fascism, rural white voters, his ideological allegiances, and more—all recorded before the news of his tattoo, now covered over, of a Nazi skull-and-bones insignia. Along the way we talk about what makes a change of mind and heart persuasive, how grace comes to us in our struggles, if Platner is Fetterman 2.0, and the class dimension of all these debates, and finally close with a relatively hopeful take on the "No Kings" protests last weekend.

Sources:

Jason Beeferman and Emily Ngo, "'I Love Hitler': Leaked Messages Expose Young Republicans' Racist Chat," Politico, Oct 14, 2025

Julianne McShane, “No One in the GOP Hitler Chat Was a ‘Kid’: We checked. Sorry, JD Vance," Mother Jones, Oct 15, 2025

Adam Wren, Erin Doherty & Jessica Piper, "Maine Senate Candidate Promoted Violent Political Action in Since-Deleted Online Posts," Politico, Oct 16, 2025

Lauren McCauley, "Unearthed Reddit Comments Present First Stumble in Platner’s Rise," Maine Morning Star, Oct 17, 2025

Kimberlee Kruesi & Patrick Whittle, "Maine Senate Candidate Platner Says Tattoo Recognized as Nazi Symbol Has Been Covered," Associated Press, Oct 23, 2025

Ben Terris, "The Hidden Struggle of John Fetterman," New York, May 2, 2025

Christian Wiman, My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer (2013)

Someone like Plattner, when I look at his candidacy, like one thing I truly believe is that grace comes to us when we're near the end of our tether. Sort of like you have to bottom out to change. And so I think like the people in our society who have experienced grace, whether you wanna articulate that in theological terms or simply realizing that we have to love our neighbors and community and solidarity, that are the importance of those things, the people who understand that most viscerally and deeply will be people who have fucked up. And to me, there's no rule. There's no like theory I can apply to it. It's more like case by case. Does the story that person tells? Does the way they explain their behavior, why and how they've changed? Does it seem real to you? And you gotta kinda go with your gut. And to me, Grand Plattner, his story is very like plausible and believable to me. I find him compelling and his story compelling. Well, Matt, I wonder if we should do a little gut check here because our very smart and rigorous listeners might be starting to feel a tickle of fear that we're John Federmaning. Again, that we might be indulging in some of the enthusiasm we felt for Federman who look, the only reason that these things are related is that he seemed like this candidate who represented the aesthetics of the working class from the place that he's from. And that was a big appeal to us and that he was able to work around the kind of institutional norms and even niceties of the liberal mainstream in a way that made him very appealing. There's certainly a listener wondering whether we're being sold a Federman-esque bill of goods here with Grand Plattner. And I'd be interested in what you think about that. I mean, there's one thing that is just an obvious distinction from the jump, which is that one thing we never talked about when we were excited about Federman was his position on Israel in Palestine, which we didn't know he was gonna become a fucking insane bloodthirsty freakazoid about. I think that was a shock to everyone

Transcription truncated.

Matt and Sam discuss the Young Republican Hitler group chat, Graham Platner, the No Kings rallies, and more.