Insert LinkInsert LinkPretending to be “shocked” by junior Republicans revealing their inner Klansmen must be a challenge, at this late date, for anyone who has been paying attention. Perhaps some of the GOP officials proclaiming their disgust over the disclosure of thousands of racist, antisemitic, homophobic, misogynist and yes, Hitlerian texts exchanged by leaders of the National Young Republicans organization are sincere – but are they truly surprised?
Replete with primitive bigotry and fantasies of horrific violence, the messages unearthed by Politico capture the essential character of Trumpism and those attracted to it. Given what we already know about the Young Republicans, the MAGA movement, and the direction of the Republican Party in the Trump years, this latest scandal is no surprise at all.
It is not at all astonishing to learn that leading figures among Donald Trump’s political heirs profess their “love” of Hitler and their hatred for almost everyone else. The infestation of the Republican Party by neo-Nazis and their fellow travelers is a sickening and rapidly growing phenomenon that has only gotten more pronounced in recent years as party leaders averted their gaze.
Indeed, the angry protest heard from responsible Republicans in 2017, when Trump praised the “good people on both sides” after the Charlottesville neo-Nazi riot, has faded into distant memory. The outrages have grown more frequent and blatant, but Republican leaders simply ignore them – and meanwhile the neo-Nazi infiltration proceeds rapidly. Just ask Nick Fuentes, the goose-stepping Gen Z YouTuber who got his first taste of fame when he dined with Trump and Kanye West, another Hitler admirer, at Mar-a-Lago.
Remember that little scandal? Unbelievably, Trump later claimed not to know what West had said or who Fuentes is, but the unsavory pair somehow got into his private club for an intimate meeting. And although the then-former president issued a social media blast at West over his effrontery in planning to run for president, Trump never said a critical word about Fuentes.
That little hate entrepreneur – who along with most of the Young Republican Nazi sympathizers bears no resemblance whatsoever to the Aryan “master race” – has consorted with many prominent Republicans, including Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who spoke at his white nationalist “American First Political Action Committee” conference and has hired various neo-Nazis to work on her campaigns and in her office. In that regard, Greene is hardly a MAGA outlier. Her colleague Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), infamous for his fantasy animations of deadly violence against Democrats, also runs a ultra-right hiring hall on Capitol Hill.Not to be overlooked is Gosar’s fellow Arizona Republican, State Sen. Wendy Rogers, the kind of aging fangirl who shares Nazi song lyrics on X.
The notorious Fuentes visit wasn’t the last time that white nationalists or actual Nazis were welcomed onto Trump property. Candace Owens, the raving anti-Semitic podcaster recently barred from Australia, has headlined a campaign fundraiser with Donald Trump Jr. Both Don Jr. and brother Eric have appeared at the Trump Doral’s “Reawaken America” events that also featured outspoken anti-Semites and neo-Nazis. Jack Posobiec, the far-right operative who is frequently seen at Mar-a-Lago and enjoys presidential patrongage, has a long history of promoting neo-Nazis and sharing anti-Semitic propaganda on social media. Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host and Trump confidant, another longtime fan favorite on the ultra-right, has taken to promoting Holocaust revisionism.
As for the Young Republicans -- and especially the New York state chapter -- their vile ravings in private chats were not exactly astounding either. The Manhattan Young Republicans, whose leader Gavin Wax has been blamed for this week’s chat leak due to an internecine feud, repeatedly hosted ultra-right extremists like Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes. The club’s 2024 gala attracted such honored guests as the Berlin youth chair of Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland Party, an outfit founded and heavily laden with real live Nazis.
Only three years ago their prospective candidate for governor, upstate New York Rep Elise Stefanik, backed a foul-mouthed bigot named Carl Paladino in a Congressional primary -- an endorsement she did not withdraw even after Media Matters resurfaced an interview where the Buffalo developer described Hitler as "the kind of leader we need today." Somehow Stefanik excused his remarks as "taken out of context," but he lost the primary anyway. The point is that even Paladino, having uttered many such slurs during his public career, wasn't too extreme for the Republican who rose to the third-highest position in the GOP House conference.
So when "conservative" Republicans put on their horrified faces-- and even fire a bozo like the New York state YR chairman Peter Giunta -- it is appropriate to be skeptical or even cynical. The authentic MAGA reaction to their vile babble was voiced instantly by Vice President JD Vance, who reacted by citing a string of awful texts sent by Virginia Democrat Jay Jones, the nominee for attorney general, in which he fantasized about lethal violence against Republicans. Horrifying as Jones’s texts were, they displayed only his own immaturity and stupidity. Yet Vance seized on them to excuse the “kids” in the Young Republican chat group, most of whom are well into adulthood, with several holding jobs in the Trump administration or even elected office.
Just as there is no such organization as “Antifa,” despite the wild ravings and accusations of the Trump White House, so there is no equivalent among Democrats to the political sewer inhabited by the Young Republicans. Every Republican politician who professes to be appalled must know better by now. The filth runs too deep and too wide to be cleansed by hosing a few hapless morons.
Joe Conason is founder and editor-in-chief of The National Memo. He is also editor-at-large of Type Investigations, a nonprofit investigative reporting organization formerly known as The Investigative Fund. His latest book is The Longest Con: How Grifters, Swindlers and Frauds Hijacked American Conservatism (St. Martin's Press, 2024).
