Who really hates America?
In the run-up to No Kings Day, Republican leaders hysterically described participants as terrorists–as people who “hate America.” Those charges were never particularly effective; the first No Kings protest had brought out a cross-section of citizens who very clearly loved the America of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and who were prepared to defend it against the real “enemy within.” Grandmothers and veterans joined young and middle-aged people in an affirmance of genuine patriotism.
If there was any confusion about who loves and who hates the America envisioned by the Founders, it came just a couple of days before the second No Kings Day, in an expose from Politico.
Here’s the lede:
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.
Politico obtained 2,900 pages of Telegram chats–representing 28,000 messages– reflecting conversations among the leaders of national Young Republican groups. The chats spanned more than seven months, and included Young Republicans from New York, Kansas, Arizona and Vermont. As the report summed up the discovery, the contents offered “an unfiltered look at how a new generation of GOP activists talk when they think no one is listening.”
And the way they talk is both horrifying and profoundly unAmerican.
Together, the messages reveal a culture where racist, antisemitic and violent rhetoric circulate freely — and where the Trump-era loosening of political norms has made such talk feel less taboo among those positioning themselves as the party’s next leaders…
The group chat members spoke freely about the pressure to cow to Trump to avoid being called a RINO, the love of Nazis within their party’s right wing and the president’s alleged work to suppress documents related to wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein’s child sex crimes.
As Politico pointed out, the disgusting rhetoric employed by these Young Republican “leaders” reflects a widespread coarsening of political discourse and the increasing use of incendiary and racially offensive tropes. That coarsening comes straight from the top. The article referenced Trump’s post of an artificial intelligence-generated video portraying House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries in a sombrero, while Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer proposed trading free health care for immigrant votes. Offensive as that post was, it was only the latest of a long string of repellant social media outbursts from the senile and wildly unPresidential occupant of the Oval Office.
In his 2024 campaign, Trump spread false reports of Haitian migrants eating pets and, at one of his rallies, welcomed comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” and joked about Black people “carving watermelons” on Halloween.
As the article quite accurately notes, the chat rhetoric, which spared few minority groups, essentially mirrored a number of popular conservative political commentators, podcasters and comedians, all of whom have participated in the erosion of what was previously considered acceptable discourse. It quoted a political science professor who attributed the increasing use of racist and anti-Semitic rhetoric to Trump’s “persistent use of hostile, often inflammatory language.”
In one astonishing exchange, a suggestion that they tie an opponent to neo-Nazi groups was discarded because participants noted that it might hurt more than help–because such ties would be viewed positively by their own voters.
There is much, much more in the linked article, and it is sickening. It is also profoundly inconsistent with what I call the American Idea–the philosophy that permeates the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. It is an example–as if one were needed–of what the participants in protests like No Kings oppose.
Compare the disgusting, hateful, pro-Nazi comments in the chat (including one that “loved Hitler”) with the sentiments on the signs at the No Kings events, and draw your own conclusions about who the patriots truly are.
The Young Republicans who participated in this disgusting chat truly do hate the America that is trying to live up to its original ideals. And despite the pro-forma claims of elected Republicans trying to distance themselves from this filth, we know where they learned both the language and the sentiments.
i work side by side with this subject, and dine and go out with my wife and travel, and this is the way these red states have found thier norm. they have no shame and no moral value to others than themselves as they smile and point a red finger at anyone who thinks, or thinks diffrent. those commercials of ol mcdonald and rawhide are not America today. its dropped into a chasm of hate and who can kick anyone further into a ditch, as they smile at you. you dont need to be a minority. just be more aware and dont allow them to tell you how to think. they really hate that..
I received a News Break that the Republicans did NOT renew the Young Republicans charter. BUT…Republican foundation is built on lies so who knows where the truth lies regarding this issue?
No Kings … No pedophiles
Release unredacted
Epstein Files
I am a white, old man who carved many a tasty watermelon last summer. Eat four helpings of fruit everyday, says my doctor. Watermelon is another thing the idiots and perverts miss because of their hate, racism, and fear of women and Jewish people. Wake Up America!!
Actually, I don’t think the “outing” of “young Republicans” is anything all that new. In my fraternity house at Ohio University in the early 60s I heard the same thing. At my father’s funeral in the late 70s, I heard the same stuff from his “friends”. Nothing new here.
The hate is cultural and has always, ALWAYS been there. The institution of slavery and the demonizing of Judaism by churches throughout our nation since BEFORE it was a nation created this pustule of idiocy in our national fabric. Trump and trumpism just gave them permission to let the whole world see what monsters they really are … and have always been. Pathetic.
Living in mostly racist Indiana, this sentiment is prevalent throughout. These young Nazis developed their “sentiments” from their parents, and the kids reinforced it in their pearly-white schools.
J.D. Vance justified everything they said due to them being young college kids, but the Young Republicans consist of 18 to 30-year-olds. There was even an elected official in the Telegram chat. Vance couldn’t even condemn the language, but he has no problem condemning protestors of the government for “hating America.”
They are all above redemption.
Due to Trump’s senility, he sometimes blurts out the quiet parts while he is meandering through his “speeches.” His response to the NKPs was to share an AI-created video of him in a king’s outfit. I don’t know how Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin converse with this imbecile, or any of his hired boot lickers.
p.s. I spent significant time last night watching experts on munitions and video production discussing Charlie Kirk’s death and who Erika Kirk was before she married Charlie. The video breakdown from multiple angles points to obvious questions about the government’s account. Additionally, the video camera behind Charlie was removed by a TPUSA representative after he was taken to a regional hospital. The police didn’t even protect the crime scene. What I find most interesting is that I attempted to engage Google Gemini AI in a conversation about alternative theories, and it insisted that the government’s version was accurate, while dismissing all other theories as “social media conspiracies.” It even insisted that the media had already confirmed the government’s account. Really? LOL I call bullshit!
p.s.s. Since we have a significant Navy presence in the Caribbean, why aren’t they stopping the boats and searching them? Why do they insist on destroying them along with the drugs? They can’t even prove their version of “drug runners coming from Venezuela.” Once again, I call bullshit!
You have to be taught to hate, you have to be carefully taught. (From the musical South Pacific)
In each example shown, where did Trump or the republicans Suffer a Major Setback? We shame them- and move ahead- as if No Kings for example is Enough- by itself. It’s not- I try to address more of this in my latest writing at: GeorgeMarxdotorg. We confuse a great, great Day of Protests and our Horror at Explicit Racist exposed with Organized Resistance. It will take us Increasing our efforts.
Nice haiku, Norris Lineweaver! (and great nom de plume!)
Lately I am reminded of the note message from Thich Nhat Hahn, talking about his conversation the first time he and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. met together. He said: “That was the day we combined our efforts to work for peace in Vietnam and to fight for civil rights in the US. We agreed that the true enemy of man is not man. Our enemy is not outside of us. Our true enemy is the anger, hatred, and discrimination that is found in the hearts and minds of man. We have to identify the real enemy and seek nonviolent ways to remove it.”
I try to keep this in mind, even when I think of the despicable behavior that these young men, and their role models, behave. Somehow, we have to find a way to love them even while condemning their words and actions.
I also keep in mind that there are giant corporations whose sole purpose is to keep Americans divided against each other, and I try to not let them control me. It is a burdensome task.
Those “kids” on the group chat were about as mature as your as average ten year old. Their intelligence has been stunted for a long time. It’s no wonder they support Orange Jesus (OJ), whose intellectual growth ended at about that same age. How many of us have actually tried to read a transcript of one of OJ’s speeches? Talk about torture. I kept hoping for a crypto key but there weren’t any available. It must come with the red hat!
The crowds of protesters was diverse, friendly, and peaceful. Here in Florida the weather was perfect. It’s truly an uplifting experience to get together with a few thousand like minded people and to know that ten miles down the road there’s another just like it. Protesters vs Young Republicans is truly a battle of polar opposites.
We are all human, so we are all capable of hate and anger. It lies under the surface, though. MAGAmedia provides the excuse to express it on social media. It’s a devil cycle. Get primed by MAGAmedia, revert to social media, express your hate at virtual others, switch back to MAGA to reload.
There is no off-ramp.
James, Thich Nhat Hahn was a marvelous person, as was MLK.
The Catholic church “othered” the Jews, and the myth it promulgated remains
strong and “safe” in the warped minds of so many Christians, who can not think for themselves, like the fellow who told me he could not continue a conversation we were having, because I used the word “evolution.”
These Young Republicans were even younger when Trump did his first POTUS act, ad was not too shy about suggesting that violence, was a good thing, and “Others” were bad things. And, what did they learn from their presumably Republican parents?
I suppose that there is some plausible justification, after 2000 years, for the majority of people to have forgotten that Jesus was NOT a Christian. He was a JEW! He was a believer in the concept that the JEWs were the chosen people of God, who created all things and was therefore, his father. I am a descendant of God’s creation, and also, therefore, a son of God.
Jesus was a Jewish prophet, in the tradition of Micah and Jeremiah. He was convinced that the bulk of the Jewish population was deviating from the path that God had set for them in the Torah, and he was committed to steering them back onto the path of righteousness. He was not trying to create a new religion. That was a path taken by his disciples.
On the seventh day, God rested, looked at the universe he had created and said “It is good.” That is an inclusive “IT!” He is not quoted as saying some of it is good, or that is good except for… Humans need to realize that we are all part of God’s good universe, and either we learn to respect and live with each other or we will all perish together. There are enough nuclear weapons already on the earth to kill us all several times over.
So much surfacing that it boggles the mind, except we knew it was there all along, just under rocks and out of plain sight, but at the ready for business if only given permission. Then….along comes dumptrump, the most unlikely and under-qualified POTUS EVER, by a very long shot, and to add to those sparkling personal facts we add the racist, misogynistic, creepy, lawless, uneducated, non-empathetic, coarse, crude, undisciplined, venomous, vitriolic, vengeful, bloviating, cheating, mendacious, sociopathic psychopathic traits, and we come up with exactly what just over a third of our country wants to follow (one third being the approximation of Christian Nationalists, the magas, and the actual percentage of eligible voters who voted for him, apparently each group roughly being the same folks). This kind of crap – the disgusting language and accompanying hatred – has been with us for a long long time, and will probably be here for the foreseeable future. It will continue to be intolerable and always have to be squelched, at least enough so that we can live our lives apart from it.
Racists are taught to speak like that all over the country. It’s nothing new to my experience and hearing the N word often where I grew up.
Shame nobody said “Happy Birthday” Professor.
All the best for this next year.