I saw the Politico story about the disgusting Young Republican group chat a couple of days ago, and I thought, tell me something I don’t already know. But the story has legs. And if Vance thought his “boys will be boys” excuse would calm things down, it hasn’t. Julianne McShane writes at Mother Jones:
On an episode of “The Charlie Kirk Show” on Wednesday, Vance dismissed the messages as representing only the immaturity of “kids,” arguing that they were getting far too much attention.
“By focusing on what kids are saying in a group chat—grow up! I’m sorry,” Vance said. “Focus on the real issues. Don’t focus on what kids say in group chats.”
One problem with this defense? The people in the group chat aren’t “kids.” By scanning public records and media reports, Mother Jones determined the ages of eight of the 11 participants in the chat: They appear to range from 24 to 35.
I say Vance was inadvertently admitting to something true — that MAGA men are arrested adolescents, no matter how old they are. And MAGA men are running the Republican party.
Nor were these just a bunch of random righties. This was a Young Republican chat. Several of the participants had staff jobs with Republican elected officials. One was a bleeping Vermont state senator.
I was taken with this part:
“If your pilot is a she and she looks ten shades darker than someone from Sicily, just end it there. Scream the no no word,” Giunta wrote.
Charming. Peter Giunta was chief of staff to New York state Assemblymember Mike Reilly. I understand he was fired this week. But it seems to me that, if nothing else, the Trump Administration is doing a bang-up job demonstrating that White men can be as incompetent as anybody else.
Seriously, what this demonstrates is that MAGA “conservatism” is not a political ideology but a psychological profile. These people are weirdly disinterested in policy except for policy in service to their psychological issues — marginalizing the poor, minorities, and women who are not properly under their control. See The Symbolic Politics of Status in the MAGA Movement by a couple of academic nerds. Really, it all fits — the obsession with immigrants, often coming from people who are first or second generation Americans themselves (like Trump and Miller). The obsession with enforcing a weirdly un-Christian version of Christianity at a time when people are losing interest in organized religion. The disenfranchisement of minorities, the control of women’s bodies, the dismantling of the social safety net to provide more money for the rich. This is coming from people who, deep down, are terrified of a changing and diverse world. All this locker-room talk is false bravado masking their fears.
And maybe that’s what’s going on with fascists wherever they are.
Many of the participants in this group chat are older than the recent college grads who staffed up DOGE and dismantled the federal government. Many of them are older and certainly in greater positions of power and influence than the random people making rude comments on social media in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s murder — but when it came to those people, Vance and the broader right argued they should face serious consequences, from losing their jobs to being expelled from school to being refused visas to the US to being deported.
There are two issue here. One is that the MAGA right has a legitimate Nazi problem. The second is that the MAGA right believes there are two standards: The ultra-permissive one that applies to them and their followers within which there are zero consequences for even the worst behavior, and the far stricter one that applies to liberals or any other perceived political opponents. And they’re willing to use the full force of government to punish their opponents and create maximal permissiveness for themselves.
This goes beyond speech. The most obvious and egregious example at the moment might be Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar who was under FBI investigation for accepting a bag filled with $50,000 in cash in what seemed to be a bribery scheme… until Trump came into power and his FBI suddenly dropped the investigation. In the meantime, the administration has pursued mortgage fraud and other trumped-up cases against Democratic leaders, calling in unqualified ideologues who have never tried a single criminal case because the evidence is so thin the normal attorneys at DOJ won’t try to prosecute.
A lot of this is old-fashioned corruption on steroids, of course. But behind that is an assumption of entitlement — we can do this because of who we are. It’s just not okay for other people to do it, because they are less worthy. And we worthy people are afraid of them.
Ted Cruz just introduced legislation targeting the upcoming No Kings protests, which he claims “may well turn into riots” and says are possibly funded by George Soros, the perpetual bogeyman to authoritarian regimes across the globe. Never mind that the Jan. 6 protests claiming the election was stolen from Trump actually did turn into a riot that injured and killed several people, and those who committed acts of serious violence were pardoned by the president and cheered as heroes by his followers. This is not both sides doing the same thing. This is one side acting far more egregiously, and then bringing the full power of the state down on its opponents for doing far less.
A whole lot is riding on the midterms. If the Dems fail to take back Congress next year, the nation as we knew it may effectively be dead.
Boys being boys.
Yes, a psychological profile with some very pathological if not psychotic parameters. The skin pigmentation parameter, for sure, which is the MAGA definition of race, but not one consistent with other more formal definitions of the word race. The religion parameter is also present, with some rather peculiar definitions there also. The new "ruling class" does consider itself elite and with the right to rule. The only rule they must abide by is to be a member in good standing.
Good standing is what Bolton lost. He failed to be sufficiently subservient. Other than that example I hesitate to comment on what rules apply to them. Few if any of the normal social norms and tabus for sure. Bribes and fraud for sure don't, as deception in general is considered a positive attribute. Some rules apply only to lower classes. Lower classes are not allowed to bribe, commit fraud, lie, or divulge state secrets. Here too what is lower class defies standard definitions, as some fundamentalists get ruling class status on certain days and by fluctuating whims.
Most norms are now abnormal. Most vices are now potential virtues. All rules are subject to change and exceptions and likely not what the majority of the population prefer. The future never looked so formidable. Good luck.
When I was reading your post, I kept thinking about the filter at the bottom of my kitchen sink, or more precisely the scum caught there, before it can go on to clog the drain. This is what the Republican party has devolved into, at the retail level, all the broken toys and their various pathologies. Life has sorted them to the bottom of the pile. That and a bunch of scared Karens.
As a counterpoint and palate cleanser, I recommend this brief conversation between two superstars, A New Way to Think About Religion and Politics with James Talarico, with Heather Cox Richardson. I didn't know that LBJ started out in the public school system, and like Talarico, this is what drove him into politics.
If you really want to be uplifted, I offer Yes, It's Going To Get Worse, Part 2, from one of my spiritual teachers, based in an intentional community in Palo Alto, CA. Her Rx is something I realized all the way back in the wake of 9/11.
It's weird, because you touch on what feels like a really ugly truth.
The Republican party is angry we said you must feel sorry for the homeless. They're angry we said you must feel sorry for the hungry; they're angry we said you must feel sorry for the sick, and the poor. They've been resenting this for years, and now, they want to "suck it, libtards!" as hard as they can. I mean… that explains doge better than anything else.
The white nationalist branch (which is most of it, to be honest) of the Republican Party is similarly furious we're told to feel sorry for anyone except white men. We shouldn't feel sorry for Black people, but we should feel sorry for white men. We shouldn't feel sorry for women, rape victims, harassment victims, we should feel sorry for white men who can't have a girlie calendar any longer. We shouldn't feel sorry for under-represented minorities of any time, unless, it just so happens, that white men are under-represented, in which case it's a gummint conspiracy to destroy Real America, and we should not only feel sorry, we should be furiously angry at the injustice.
Assuming they want to prove "we do not either have to care for anyone! For any reason!" predicts their behavior admirably. Which is scary.
G'da used to say 'give 'em enough rope they'll hang themselves'
I've long held tongue-in-cheek for Operation Just Let Them Speak
By their works (words) you will know them …
I've tried to understand and describe the mindset that's taken over the GOP (and isn't limited to card-carrying Republicans.) The best example is the laws passed in various (including blue) jurisdictions that prohibit feeding the homeless. The mechanism behind the rule is truly evil.
"I do not like those people – therefore I am willing to expend public resources (police and courts) to make that class of people die or go away."
Now apply this to ANY group of people – by complexion, religion, sexual orientation, or ethical standard. They are willing to spend government resources to kill or drive a class of people out of sight. (Gays can exist but only in hiding, fearing exposure.)
They're going after people with a tolerant philosophy who believe that, absent a real injury, tolerance should be the legal standard, (Or do you think that the outcome of a 100-yard dash is what drives Republicans to exclude transgender athletes?)
The word 'hateful' comes to mind.
So, coming from rural red state hell, I know this "psychological profile" is quite prescient.
https://harpers.org/archive/1941/08/who-goes-nazi/
My question becomes how, when the resistance wins, how will they punish the collaborators, including myself? I see that my local morons actually do have real and valid grievances that were not being fulfilled by the previous regimes and were just being degraded by the "coastal elites" instead . Those grievances will are not addressed by "the resistance" and are shat upon as invalid and/or racist. I can give examples if requested.
There is no path to detente to me because there is no message from the resistance that addresses these grievances. "Democracy" and the high-falootin' words of the "No Kings Day" participants, to the morons, only sound like going back to a system that that they believed was giving them the short end of the stick. So, their view is, I suspect, why not punish the perpetrators because there is no value statement in "the resistance" that fits them because life will be a son-of-a-bitch regardless if the GOP wrecks the economy.
The wishful thinking that rural red state white folks and their useful idiots will just magically flip over to what they see as the party of woke is silly. As good ol' Milton said "show me the incentive and I'll show you the outcome."
So. what now? Will the flagrant base of the republican party reject racism, fascism, and antisemitism? Will the upcoming talent spend its time on planning a future republican party which is humanitarian and honestly respects all of the citizens of the United States and their contributions? Not a chance in hell.
I now question if the Republican Party of old ever had more than a facade of decency? For sure the party of Lincoln knew the evil of slavery and was guided by a rejection of that level of elitism or was it but another con job? If not, then the party has truly lost its soul, and will never recover it.
No, a coat of gold paint will not do, nor would a shell of pure gold. The core is rotten, and the base is weak and unstable. Without a new foundation it cannot and should not be expected to whether the upcoming storms. The "young republicans" we see are neither young nor the party of Lincoln. With them there is no future for the United States but a disastrous one. How does a political party go about finding a replacement soul?
What I see in most commentators these days is "us and them"… "we are right, they are wrong"… divide and conquer.
This is what collapse looks like. The GOP does not give one f*ck that it is alienating 1/2+ of the country so that our global competitors (many of whom just want revenge against the good ol' U S of A) can exploit the divided weakenesses, dominate, make us poor, and suffer… and laugh as they exploit the last of the global resources while the planet dies and Americans contemplate their belly-buttons.
Lincoln's Republican party are today's Democrats. They jumped ship in response to LBJ's civil rights legislation – previously the bigots in the South called themselves Dixiecrats.
I now question if the Republican Party of old ever had more than a facade of decency?
So does Paul Waldman, in The Young Republicans are the Truest Republicans, subtitled "A little nazi stuff? What's the big deal?"
This is all you need to see and understand tRump's base. I do not know how we cleanse deep hatred from America.
You push them back under the rocks where they came from. You demonstrate that there are more of us than there are of them. You wake up from your slumber and learn to effectively fight the bullies who are terrorizing you. You punch through their media with the truth. The best thing I've seen so far today (it's still early): Indivisible Wants You to See This.
Note how the roar of the crowd is overdubbed into this video, and the effect this has on you, the viewer. No Kings is about confronting tyranny but especially about building and demonstrating solidarity, and realizing that there are many more of us than there are of them.
Their media and theatrics is designed to frighten, atomize and isolate people – so we can be picked off and neutralized. It's a trick that people have to see through and not buy into. Imagine if a video like the one above punched through the noise and was seen by millions of Americans.
No, that's what we've done all along: drove them back into the wood work and … well, sometimes you've just got to replace the wood. There has to be another way …
"Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."
Frank Wilhoit
My sister claims she is politically 'independent' but admits that she has never voted for a Democrat in her life. I have watched – in horror – as she evolved from a (tepid) Old School Republican into a solid Trumpist MAGAt.
IMO, that evolution was largely the result of decades of GOP Culture War propaganda, designed to trick middle-class Americans into voting to transfer their wealth to the Rich. Sadly – but somewhat ironically – the 'smart guys' who designed this [very effective] political strategy lost control of the monster they created, in 2016, when Trump grabbed the GOP by the, uh…
But I've ranted about that here often, and that's not what this Post is about.
The psychological profile which I see in my sister is a simplistic judgmental view of people: there are Good People, and Bad People. Almost all people /really/ want to believe that they are Good; and any successful politician will spend time telling his constituents exactly that.
Authoritarian leaders learned several millennia ago that it's easy to get 'good' people to do bad things to 'bad' people. (See CaliJim, above, re: in-groups & out-groups).
Trumpism is ALL about this. The big trick is blaming immigrants for 'stealing' good working-class jobs. Like most political tricks, there's a grain of truth in it, but the real story is the elimination of the unions which made those jobs pay well enough for working-class Americans to afford the basics of middle-class living.