“You’re telling me a guy who joined Blackwater in 2018 did not behave well in his personal life?”

Whilst we Brits across the Atlantic have plenty of our own problems—not least the rotting carcass of Your Party^[1] currently hanging around our necks—the Yanks are faring no better with the farce of Graham Platner. I write this to urge those who enabled him to get their shit together, and to accept culpability for holding water for this Totenkopf-touting rapist-soldier of empire—one who bragged about circumventing regulations on mortar fire in populated urban areas by jury-rigging a grenade launcher. The fact that Platner reached such a zenith, enjoying widespread support from those ostensibly ‘on the left,’ is a damning indication of how the chauvinism of empire still runs through the blood of the self-styled left-wing commentariat.^[2]

This need not devolve into a hit-piece on those individuals; many are already watching their hypocrisy get exposed on Twitter. While the platform itself hardly promotes nuanced discourse, publicly dunking on those who laundered Platner’s reputation plays a key propagandistic role in drawing attention to the chauvinism rife across America’s so-called socialist movement. The position of such commentators owes more to fandom than to political alignment—a sectarianism rooted in celebrity-worship culture that has become a hydra we must slay. The legitimacy of talking heads supposedly rests on the depth of their analysis and their correctness in assessing the current conjuncture. Yet their arses have been exposed in a manner that would make even the most unabashed baboon blush. They are social imperialists through and through; they do not see Platner’s victims—from his time as a Marine and as a Blackwater mercenary—as people, but as collateral.

Let us recap what was not a disqualifier for those who defended him to the hilt: his four tours in the US Army; his tour with Blackwater; his Nazi tattoo; his description of urinating on dead bodies as merely a “poor choice” (only due to the “current state of media affairs”); his bragging about killing Iraqis. The list could go on. Why did these earlier outrages fail to register? Because, for this commentariat, imperial violence against brown bodies is background noise—regrettable, perhaps, but never disqualifying. It is the expected cost of empire, easily laundered as the complicated baggage of a veteran. It took an accusation that struck closer to home—an American woman, a domestic crime—to finally render him untenable. Laid bare is the hierarchy of victimhood: the Iraqi dead were never real people to them, only abstractions. I do not doubt for a second that the rape accusation is true. But the left-commentators' sudden revulsion reveals their own dehumanising sin: only now are they disgusted. This man has demonstrated no shame in his service, nor in the crimes he committed in the name of the American Empire. These commentators should be ashamed and beg for forgiveness.

Here, the left-commentators have committed the same dehumanising sin as Platner. Only now are they disgusted by his behaviour; only now are they walking back their support, pretending they never laundered his reputation with their full-throated approval. Perhaps this reflects how online I am, or how my feeds are littered with a large strata of the American socialist movement—but this is an embarrassment of international proportions, and you must learn from it so it cannot happen again. Those accused of being sectarian “ultras” for upholding clear red lines—lines that anyone calling themselves an ally of the oppressed should align with—have been vindicated.

This is the Platner Left. They are the current incarnation of social imperialists, advocating for politics that misdirects our movement away from the anti-imperialist positions vital for any progress. While they now walk back their words, acting as if they always supported him in moderation, they must be reminded of their culpability in this moment. Candidates for office must be vetted extensively by an independent socialist party; they must be cadre; they must be willing to fight for a minimum programme for socialist transformation that makes no excuses for imperialism. The socialist movement must eject these self-styled leaders, who are more concerned with personal branding than with the advancement of the international workers’ movement.

Finlay

1. For the unaware reader, yes that is the real name of the new political party that Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana are public figures of. For a good overview of the political equivalent of a slow motion car crash, the following articles provide some good coverage to get yourself up to speed https://novaramedia.com/2025/09/25/your-partys-messy-public-breakdown-shows-it-has-big-questions-to-answer/

   https://novaramedia.com/2026/02/10/is-your-party-over/

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2. This is to say nothing of Platner’s widespread popular support from the public from his economistic messaging and platform – perhaps an even greater damming of the level of political consciousness that exists amongst the American public.

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