If Republicans do not want to be called Nazis, it would help if they stopped declaring “I love Hitler.” That was one of the many shocking revelations in a recent POLITICO expose documenting a long-running text thread between multiple Young Republican leaders.
Over 2,900 pages of texts written over a seven-month period, about a dozen Young Republican leaders from Kansas, Vermont, New York and Arizona regularly took turns engaging in a horrific game of derogatory one-upsmanship. The comments ranged from calling Black Americans “watermelon people” to using gas chambers as punishment.
The exchanges took place on Telegram, a social meda platform created by Russian entrepreneur Pavel Durov that prides itself on never taking down even the most offensive posts on the basis of free speech. That has in turn made it a darling of libertarian-oriented tech moguls and far-right politicians.
It also made it a perfect environment for these Young Republicans to share their vitriol.
It would be a mistake to think they were an isolated group. This type of rhetoric has been building on the right for over a decade. By appealing to free speech, a broad swath of the right has engaged in hateful rhetoric and ideologies. How else to explain Colorado’s own Mike Davis, a lawyer who clerked for Justice Neil Gorsuch, referring to Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries as a “house slave,” even after the POLITICO article? When challenged, they either dismiss their comments as a joke or take umbrage at any challenge as anti-speech.
Yet, Republican leaders have been equally as strident attempting to quelch the free speech rights of those who disagree with them.
In the aftermath of the Charlie Kirk assassination many leading Republicans attacked liberals for calling them Nazis and fascists. They blamed such speech for his death. They subsequently used that to attack anyone who disagreed with them. President Donald Trump said “we just have to beat the hell” out of “radical left lunatics” and has declared antifa a terrorist organization.
Most recently, U.S. Speaker Mike Johnson began referring to planned “No Kings” marches across the country as “Hate America” rallies.
When confronted with the speech of his own supporters, Vice-President JD Vance attempted to deflect to Democrats and then referred to the texts as a “college group chat” and said he refused to engage in “pearl-clutching.” Of course, these were not a group of random college kids. These were people in their twenties and thirties who held leadership positions within the Republican party. One served as the chief-of-staff for a New York assemblyman; another was an elected member of the Vermont state Senate.
The people in this Telegram chain were rising stars and the future of the GOP.
Most telling, they almost certainly used such rhetoric to obtain those positions. In private corners and places they did not think they’d be overheard, they almost certainly used similar comments to win friends and power. That is the shock discourse that plays as a shibboleth in many parts of the current Republican party.
Demonstrating your disdain for political correctness by denigrating others is a type of currency.
Just look at some of the most popular media figures on the right today. From Joe Rogan to Theo Von, vast fortunes have been made pandering to the right’s desire to be politically incorrect. They listen because they believe it frees them from the shackles of a world where they are afraid to utter their inner beliefs.
Even Kirk made his living going as close to the line as possible. He regularly denigrated minorities, women and members of the LGBTQ+ community without resorting to the same ugly epithets. He certainly did not deserve to die, but he also did not deserve to have his messages amplified and adored by millions. In an ideal world he would have lived out his life as an outcast mumbling his hate speech to himself.
Yet he recognized something in the broader world today. Many people, too many people, harbor disdain for anyone who looks different or has different beliefs. Kirk was neither the first nor the last to capitalize on it. He was never even the most high-profile.
President Donald Trump rode that wave to the White House, not once but twice. He began his first campaign by descending from a golden escalator to denounce migrants for “bringing crime” and being “rapists.” Since then he has dined with a white nationalist and Holocaust denier, referred to racists who attacked a peaceful march as “very fine people,” asked far-right militias to “stand back and stand by” and subsequently pardoned more than a thousand violent insurrectionists.
When the president has made such speech the cornerstone of his rise to power, is it any wonder that so many others have followed along the same path?
Since the POLITICO story, several of the not so young Republicans have lost their jobs or been called on to resign. Yet it is difficult to believe that many within the party privately condemned what they said; to the contrary, their true sin was getting caught and exposing the GOP for what it has become. That is why so many have been so quick to either publicly renounce and distance themselves.
The dirty secret is that they will be replaced by people who more likely than not share similar perspectives. The next batch of prospective Republican leaders will likely use it as a warning, not to avoid such language, but to be more careful where and when they use it.
Americans should take note. What those Republicans said reflects what many others in the party believe in private. So paint with a broad brush and understand that it more likely than not applies to many Republican leaders in the party today.
Mario Nicolais is an attorney and columnist who writes on law enforcement, the legal system, health care and public policy. Follow him on BlueSky: @MarioNicolais.bsky.social.
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