"I had PTSD, I had depression, I had all of the things that come with serving in a war and two wars that I eventually began to not believe in at all," he said. "It left me feeling very unmoored. It left me feeling very disillusioned, very alienated and very isolated. And I think, like a lot of people, I went on the Internet to post stupid things."
"take some responsibility for themselves and not get so f-ked up they wind up having sex with someone they don't mean to?"
"expect to fight fascism without a good semi-automatic rifle, they ought to do some reading of history."
"Why don't black people tip?"
Levi Platner, a 41-year-old military veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, made years-old crude comments on Reddit targeting Black diners, rural white people, police officers and sexual assault victims. Posts ranged from asking "Why don't black people tip?" to urging people to "take some responsibility for themselves" regarding sexual assaults and advising those fighting fascism to obtain semi-automatic rifles. Media reports identified comments from 2013, 2018 and around 2021. Platner's political director resigned. Platner posted a five-minute video on X apologizing, attributing the posts to PTSD, depression and feeling unmoored after wartime service, and saying he later reconnected with his hometown and wife.
#veteran-ptsd #offensive-online-posts #political-campaign-controversy #racial-and-sexual-insensitivity
Read at Axios
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]