NEW YORK — Leaders of Young Republican groups throughout the country worried what would happen if their Telegram chat ever got leaked, but they kept typing anyway.
They referred to Black people as monkeys and “the watermelon people” and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers. They talked about raping their enemies and driving them to suicide and lauded Republicans who they believed support slavery.
I’d love to say this surprises me, but it does not in the slightest.
Remember: at the national level at least, democrats (at least the liberals) are foaming at the mouth to work across the aisle with these people and pass legislation that “every” american, including these shitstains of humanity, will agree on.
lol… no, they’re not. They just know how the game is played.
How is the game played?
Well, I’m not a politician, but I’d say for starters- it’s played by people with a firm understanding of how the concept of nuance works. That just because you want something real bad, you’re not entitled to it. And change comes with a cost. And lastly, a fuck-ton lot of compromise.
I mean, look around. Everyone thinks they know what it takes to turns the wheel. Yet no one has ever been at the wheel themselves to say as much. And somehow, we all still think we can say with certainty why things happen as they do.
No job has more armchair editors than that of a politician. So I’d say unless you have a functional understanding of political law, socio-economics, and a firm understanding of national-level budgetary administration- then you don’t know how the game is played.
But by all means, let’s keep filling in the blanks with whatever fuels our outage.
Lastly, I’ve no doubt I’ll be accused of bing a “bootlicker” or a “fascists” simply because I am not as polarized as the majority of users here, I just get that not all things can be easily spelled out in simple terms. Especially things like politics.
If you’d gotten this response to asking the question “How is the game played?” to someone insinuating that they knew how the game was played, would you feel that you’d gotten a satisfactory answer?
The guy to whom you are responding is deeply unserious. Look at their comments here and elsewhere. Dont waste your time more than I already have.
Are you seriously staking this conversation? Just because I chose not to debate with people who make up nonsense just to have a point, isn’t reason to try and steer people away from conversation.
Yes.
I, too, was interested to find out. I hope they reply to you with more courtesy than they showed me.
If you want courtesy, maybe show up with enough respect to not pump the discussion full of rhetoric and opinion.
There is no way to exclude rhetoric from any discussion. That’s what a discussion is - a rhetorical exercise. Also, none of what I said was opinion. The GOP is the party of bigots and reactionaries. When neo-nazis and religious extremists vote, they vote for the GOP. That is not really up for debate. Im sorry I triggered you by reference to objective reality.
In what world is eager collaboration with aggressively bigoted and reactionary opponents a pragmatic political strategy?
Yawn….
How is the game played? In what world is eager collaboration with aggressively bigoted and reactionary opponents a pragmatic political strategy?
maybe jill Stein can tell us with all of her legislative accomplishments!
Her career is not characterized by a principled commitment to leftist or even anti-imperialist values. She exists precisely to spoil elections in a first past the post system.
I’ll tell your what; when you find yourself able to refrain from creating scenarios that serve your ideology, and are able to see things objectively- and without injecting your opinionated rhetoric into it-
I’ll answer that question.
No one has been subjected to more vicious rhetoric and violence than President Trump and his supporters
Whiny fascists gonna whine
as always, facists and nazis are little bitch boys.
Anyone surprised? Yah me either.
Organize the workers and prepare
tbh I don’t especially care if people want to make politically incorrect jokes in their private chats. Obviously, not wise for a politician to do so. But my friends and I have made politically incorrect jokes in private that obviously don’t reflect our actual beliefs. For instance, I am queer, and I make queer jokes all the fucking time for example, but never with strangers.
Yeah, but do you joke about mass murdering people via gas chamber? There’s a line somewhere, and this 100% crosses it.
Even a joke about murdering people in a gas chamber can be funny in the right context. Arrested Development had jokes about this, and it aired on prime tv and got extremely high ratings. What’s not funny is, ado of nothing, “let’s just murder x demographic in a gas chamber.” That’s not really a joke at all.
So you didn’t read a single fucking thing about what they we’re saying and you’re in the comments defending it?
No, they are debunking that one statement that says it is never funny.
Everything can be funny in the right context with the right nuance.
Sure…but thats not what is happening in these text threads. Ive made lots of egregiously politically incorrect jokes among friends before but we are always careful to stay on this side of the line of maniacally endorsing genocide via gas chamber.
I don’t think it’s possible, within the context of a private chat, to take any particular string of words and declare them verboten. What matters is the context and meaning. If it’s ironic or sarcastic? I don’t really find it especially problematic personally.
My larger concern is more with the gradual erosion of irony which happens in some groups. I think this happens more on public forums and in large groups, say 4chan, than in private chats, but I don’t have access to large numbers of private chats, so I can’t know.
I appreciate your capacity for giving people the benefit of the doubt. It is an honorable quality…but you have some context - these are the private chats of conservative staffers communicating in private. I can tell you, as someone who has been in private work chats, that there is room for irony but these chats are not using gas chamber imagery because they really believe in the intrinsic dignity of minority groups.
well no, obviously not. They’re privately mocking people.
Right, and private mockery contains the verisimilitude of their intent. They may not be ready to spin up a gas chamber but their chats are fully representative of their attitudes about millions of americans and fully serves as a legitimate basis of criticism and derision.
people are being disappeared by government agents in plain clothes and masks. This isn’t a joke. they aren’t joking. they aren’t having fun. they are laughing about the horror they visit on their neighbors for not being white. I’m sure the KKK had a lot of off color jokes in private while they were building the bombs that killed black children too. You don’t need be worried if they have enough free speech and personal lee way to make off colored jokes while they build the machine to kill YOU with. You’re VERY high on the list, or are you insane and think this stops at Hispanic and African American people so your OK with it? OR ARE YOU SIMPLY LYING.
Oh, don’t get me wrong. For these particular people, since they’re my political opponents, I am glad that we can pounce on this slip-up that they made and get them cancelled. I just don’t think there’s anything objectively wrong with making politically incorrect jokes, and it’d be a double standard for me to think it’d permissible only if they were politicians I liked.
Of course, in 2025, we don’t really have the luxury of trying to apply a consistent standard to our opponents. These days it seems like we have to take what we can get when it comes to political warfare. (/genuine, in case there was doubt.)
BTW, stop it with the all-caps or I’ll block you.
No. They did not worry. You think they weren’t ready for this?
This has just encouraged the right. They don’t care. The youth are with them.
This is the future unless we change it!
Yes, pretty much the type you’d expect to be a young Republican.
Bet you they all have amazing parents too
Pretty much defines Republicanism today. Way too many people in denial about how extreme they’ve gotten.
🌏👨🚀🔫👨🚀
I don’t get it.
Oh, I’ve never seen it in emoji form so I totally didn’t make the connection, haha. Thanks for the reminder.
I used to be an internet edgelord, until I recognized that it doesn’t matter if you aren’t actually a bigot when you act like one online. The impact is the same, it makes the real ones feel more comfortable in their views.
I also came to this realization around age 16, and it sounds like these guys are in college…
Up to age 40, not just college-age
The thing about being edgy is that it shouldn’t necessarily imply a particular political bias but if it always goes One Direction that’s indicative
One of the “Alt Right Playbook” videos talks about how the right wing don’t argue against each other. I don’t like internet videos, but i make an exception for this series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMabpBvtXr4
Yep. I don’t know about similar communities on Lemmy because I avoid them like the plague, but I’ve been on reddit long enough to know that r/conservative is famous for preemptively not allowing anyone who doesn’t agree with them and immediately banning anyone if they go against the grain even a little bit, accusing them of being leftist infiltrators.
It’s the only way they can maintain their hateful bubble and their persecution fetish.
It makes for a very predictable pattern whenever something happens that MAGAts would be expected to dislike. They stay silent about it until someone higher up shows them an acceptable response or viewpoint and they all fall in line for fear of being ousted.
Lemmy leans left, which means we are all constantly arguing about it
Except they fight all the time.
It’s honestly a tactic we need to adopt. No more infighting, no more purity testing, no more abstaining
Nah fuck that shit.
Diversity is strength.
Diversity is a strength when everyone shows up, it doesn’t do you any good when you’re undermanned
Can you stop arguing with me and just agree with my point?
Diversity of views only gets you so far when everyone wants theirs on top
I’m not falling for that. The one view should be whatever proves objectively most appealing
Diversity doesn’t require anyone argue.
Similar with social media but I am making an exception for the Fediverse:-)
One thing that snapped me out of that phase was a psychology professor saying your actions define what you are.
I don’t think there are as many edgelords anymore anyways. Since the Trump MAGA era nobody pretends. It’s all out in the open now. You either are or you aren’t. Nobody hides behind the “it’s just a joke bro” stuff like in the older internet eras. The bigots aren’t hiding their power level anymore.
I definitely know people who still pretend it’s just a joke.
Same story for me as well and changed around the same age. It’s all fun and games until you realize most of these guys are not in on the joke.
Future leaders of the party, screeching xbox kids that fucked your mom and discord racists. Wonderful. Love that for the US.
There will probably be no consequences anyways.
Absolutely fucking wild.
PSA for new folks: please don’t feed the troll in this thread.
My money is on them being a fed, not a troll.
deleted by creator
It’s YOUR JOB to give them consequences.
But no, just go to your No Kings parade and pat yourself on the back for “doing your best.”
Hahaha, going to no kings IS the consequences a just a guy person can do
Everything else requires the correct circumstances and rare possibilities
Wha do you reckon Americans do? They’re fucked no matter what. You can condescend all you want but you have just as much power as they do to help them: None
Bullshit
Good luck! You’re really making a difference posting garbage online!
Nah- so much. My impact is about equal with that of the “No Kings” protest. So… you know. Cute, mostly well-intentioned, but ultimately useless.
Great ideas for solutions, you’re a genius! Way to go, champ.
Bending over before they even ask. How brave of you.
I think you need to focus on your own country’s issues.
In other words, go away.
This is like telling someone that is depressed that they need to smile more.
Makes you feel better anyone who has dealt with it just sees an asshole.
Great. I’ll make sure to coddle you. And meanwhile, you get steamrolled by Nazis.
This is fun. Of this was a hundred years ago, you definitely would be blaming the Jews for being sent to concentration camps.
Aren’t you Canadian?
Yeah. You might remember us from a few solid decades of telling you this was going to happen. Remember, when you got shitty and belligerent about it? “America’s hat?” Something like that.
It’s interesting how when US liberals get defensive about their inaction they start sounding like US conservatives.
Jesus dude. Just want to be angry at someone, huh?
Most American response.
“Anger? That’s just so unpleasant.”
What do you suggest I do? Say it directly, psycho
It’s more interesting when America’s hat won’t shut the fuck up about a situation they have no power in effecting. Go bitch about your countries own shortcomings.
Congrats, you’re a Bush-era republican.
And you’re a high horsing twat curiously ignoring your own country falling off a right-wing cliff right behind us.
Coward.
And you’re a current era Canadian with no power in US affairs. Don’t you have your own issues with corruption, genocide and rightwing bullshit? Fuck how pathetic to sideline whine about a game you aren’t playing in.
It’s possible to go to a protest, meet some people, and then go kick some Nazis together. Not everyone just holds a sign and stops there.
You could even add voting at the start of your list and it would still work out
Time to go beating children that I assume are Nazis I guess
This trash is 18-40 years old.
I’d love to say this surprises me, but it does not in the slightest.
100%. These assholes have been trained to gaslight and trot out nonsense about Robert Byrd being in the Klan like 100 years ago, or that Democrats were the real racists because of shit that happened before the 1960s, and completely ignoring (or lying about) things like the Southern Strategy and how the parties completely re-aligned since the Civil Rights era.
Thing is, I’m a white guy and I know how these motherfuckers talk when they think they are in a safe space. I grew up in an area that was overwhelmingly Republican, deeply racist and nearly 100% white.
They ain’t fooling me, I can tell you that much. This ain’t my first rodeo, I’ve heard all this shit before, and I’ve seen these mofos in action online since the BBS days, and shortly after that, the USENET days. I don’t care what kind of rhetoric they try to dress their “movement” up with and it doesn’t matter what protocol or platform they are on…their methods and tactics like employing the Gish Gallop should not fool anyone, either.
Thing is, I’m a white guy and I know how these motherfuckers talk when they think they are in a safe space.
Same! I have the added pleasure of being a big, bearded, “straight-passing” gay man. I get to have really fun moments were the Republicans around me say despicable things about gays, I tell them I’m actually gay, then they trip all over themselves to explain how they’re actually totally cool with the gays. I call them out for being racist when that happens too. Making them uncomfortable by calmly shining light on their own words is one of my favorite group activities.
Now that I’m an adult and in not such a red area, I do notice times when I’ll get what I think are probably a few trial balloons. When I don’t bite, they don’t go any further. For example, some comment about “men in women’s sports”. Or how they will say they “identify as an attack helicopter”. Or how they should “put on a wig and a dress” so they can go into the women’s bathroom. That last one always amazes me, and I think I’ve heard it way too many times for it to be purely anecdotal. I do think the trans stuff is the go-to for this kind of thing as attacking trans is still considered mostly okay, and it’s the gateway drug for the rest of it…
But back when I was a kid/teen/adolescent - in the 70s/80s/early 90s - wow, some of the stuff just said casually, nearly all the time - unbelievable, even back then.
I’m bi, but straight passing. I got that southern boy look and draw in my voice. I do hard labor and I’ll jam out to some red dirt country music…and boy when I speak my.mind to folks like that, they don’t know what to do. I understand how you feel. It’s funny, but also annoying. Just cause we share the same pigmentation doesn’t mean we share the same views.
and how the parties completely re-aligned since the Civil Rights era.
“Completely” is wrong. The economically progressive policy on one side and crony-capitalist on the other have not shifted places.
One can rather describe it in the “Nazi bar” terms, racists jumped from the Democrat “bar” to the Republican “bar” and changed it for their ideas, but only where the racist categories were not orthogonal.
The end of the Dixiecrats
I want to like this comment 10 times. I feel like I’m reading my clones thoughts.
Stole this description from the other post about this.
Thousands of private messages reveal young GOP leaders joking about gas chambers, slavery and rape.
Leaders of Young Republican groups throughout the country worried what would happen if their Telegram chat ever got leaked, but they kept typing anyway.
They referred to Black people as monkeys and “the watermelon people” and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers. They talked about raping their enemies and driving them to suicide and lauded Republicans who they believed support slavery.
William Hendrix, the Kansas Young Republicans’ vice chair, used the words “n–ga” and “n–guh,” variations of a racial slur, more than a dozen times in the chat. Bobby Walker, the vice chair of the New York State Young Republicans at the time, referred to rape as “epic.” Peter Giunta, who at the time was chair of the same organization, wrote in a message sent in June that “everyone that votes no is going to the gas chamber.”
“If we ever had a leak of this chat we would be cooked fr fr,” he wrote.
Get cooked, fuckface. nihilist racist pieces of shit
Great job on Politico’s part, though.
What’s wrong with “nihilist”?..
Say what you want about the tenants of National Socialism Dude, but at least it’s an ethos.
I thought that at some point, but after encountering many real people in my life (doing all the human things, like breathing, eating, walking, sleeping, not an alien at all) I don’t anymore. It doesn’t fucking matter which consistent ethos a person has, all of them are fundamentally inconsistent due to human psychology or conflicts with the complexities of reality. And some of those suck donkey balls. Like National Socialism.
It’s a quote, from a very popular movie.
And nihilism is not healthy, it sounds like you should talk to a professional, but all they’re going to tell you is to get a hobby. Check out the library, lots of free/cheap starter hobbies.
Catching all sorts of strays lately.
Nihilist doesn’t mean “is cool with murdering people”
On it’s own, nothing really? As long as you don’t let that nihilism justify making life worse for others.
Combined with racism and the rest of the bigotry on display in these leaked exchanges, I think it’s useful to distinguish between someone whose ignorance has allowed them to be co-opted by bigotry against their own interests, and someone who justifies their bigotry because “nothing really matters”. I also think it’s useful to accuse them of not actually believing in anything when they’re running a political movement. Especially if the target audience for that movement does have a belief that some things intrinsically matter (be it democracy or, more likely here, the christian faith).
I’ll readily admit I was mainly trying to go for more than just “racist pieces of shit”, while having a clear impression from the tone and content of the leaked exchanges that there is an undercurrent of nihilism that is, if not fueling them, then at least lubricating them. If you have a better suggestion I would love to hear it.
