A bombshell report detailing virulently racist and antisemitic text messages shared among members of Young Republicans groups from across the nation has pulled back the veil on how the next generation of GOP leaders talk when they think no one is watching.
“Can we fix the showers? Gas chambers don’t fit the Hitler aesthetic.”
“I’d go to the zoo if I wanted to watch monkey play ball.”
“You’re giving nationals [too] much credit and expecting the Jew to be honest.”
“I love Hitler.”
Politico’s investigation, published Tuesday, found hundreds of text messages disparaging minorities, women, and religious groups. The report counted 251 uses of slurs like the n-word, and f****t. The report was met by widespread revulsion — by most.
The chat’s members were distributed across Young Republicans chapters from New York, Kansas, and Vermont. Many have already established footholds in the politics of their state and beyond. These include 27-year-old Vermont state Senator Samuel Douglass, Trump administration employee Michael Bartels, and Bobby Walker, who once worked for New York state Senate Minority Leader Rob Ortt.
Unsurprisingly — given the generally caustic tone taken by the Republican party towards minorities and migrants — some prominent conservative lawmakers and commentators jumped to defend the participants.
Perhaps most notable among the white knights was Vice President J.D. Vance, who downplayed the texts by comparing them to a leaked message from Jay Jones, the Democratic nominee for Virginia attorney general. Jones has come under fire this month after 2022 text messages in which he expressed a desire to shoot the former Virginia House speaker were made public.
“This is far worse than anything said in a college group chat, and the guy who said it could become the AG of Virginia. I refuse to join the pearl clutching when powerful people call for political violence,” Vance wrote Tuesday on social media. Jones has, in fact, been condemned by members of his own party. Jones is also one man, making condemnable statements, not a large group of politically minded individuals producing, sharing, and celebrating the very hate they claim to revile.
Vance addressed the texts on The Charlie Kirk Show later on Wednesday. “Focus on the real issues,” he said. “Don’t focus on what kids say in group chats.” He then suggested that whoever leaked the racist messages is a “scumbag.”
“Kids do stupid things,” he continued. “Especially young boys. They tell edgy, offensive jokes. That’s what kids do.”
It also bears noting that while “Young Republicans” may sound like a group composed of baby-fresh, underdeveloped prefrontal cortexes, the national organization accepts members of the Republican Party between the ages of 18 and 40. Some of those in the chat were not only well past their collegiate career, but held leadership positions within Young Republicans and had cultivated relationships with members of the Trump administration. Regardless, Vance and others are pretending that those implicated should be given the benefit of childhood naivete for fantasizing about putting their opponents in gas chambers.
“I literally do not care what a bunch of magger college kids said in a group chat,” right-wing streamer and commentator Tim Pool wrote on X.
Pizzagate conspiracy theorist Mike Cernovich took a similar tact, writing that “Young Republicans blowing off steam in immature group texts isn’t in the same universe as a powerful Democrat fantasizing about killing kids. Couldn’t give a crap less about that nonsense.”
The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh also seized on Jones’ texts to excuse the chat’s participants. “The Virginia AG candidate fantasized about murdering children and no Democrat at any level called for him to resign or denounced him in any serious way. Meanwhile a few college kids make edgy jokes in a group chat and conservatives are tripping over themselves to denounce and disavow and call for firings and resignations,” he wrote.
Several members of the chat have already been forced out of their jobs in Republican politics amid the fallout. Peter Giunta, former Chair of the New York State Young Republicans, has left his position in New York Assemblymember Mike Reilly’s office. Joseph Maligno, former General Counsel for the New York Young Republicans, has left his position in the New York State Unified Court System, per Politico.
In a statement issued on social media, Young Republicans wrote that they “are appalled by the vile and inexcusable language” used by their members. “Such behavior is disgraceful, unbecoming of any Republican, and stands in direct opposition to the values our movement represents. Those involved must immediately resign from all positions within their state and local Young Republican organizations. We must hold ourselves to the highest standards of integrity, respect, and professionalism,” they wrote.
Really, though, the racist messages and the corresponding minimization by Republicans speak to a conservative culture that clings to bigotry as a unifying force of identity — a pattern that has only been reinforced in the Trump era.
On Wednesday, the official Facebook and Instagram accounts of the U.S. Border Patrol posted — and later deleted — videos using the original version and lyrics of Michael Jackson’s “They Don’t Care About Us.” The song, which was rerecorded in 1995, originally included the lyrics “Jew me, sue me.”
On Tuesday, the official X account for the Department of Homeland Security posted “Remigrate” on X. Remigration is a fascist concept developed in the mid-20th Century by European white nationalists advocating for the mass expulsion of minorities and immigrants to their nations of origin.
And of course there is the bullhorn of anti-minority, xenophobic rhetoric emanating from the resident himself, who just over the course of the last year has described migrants as pet-eating terrorists who are poisoning the blood of the nation.
It’s no wonder the up-and-coming ranks of politically active youngish Republicans feel emboldened to speak in the way that they did to each other in the leaked messages. They have a mirror in the White House, and defenders all around them.
