The young Republicans Donald Trump built spill sickness into the open | Opinion
If ever there were an example of just how awful the young and awful can be, the Young Republicans Telegram chat exposed by Politico this week has to be it. Open praise for Hitler and comments about African Americans portrayed as basketball-playing monkeys who eat watermelon were on the tamer side of the racist, sexist, homophobic and just generally inhuman talk among a couple dozen young Donald Trump-aligned leaders.
Just consequences have come quickly for some of the group’s members on the chat from Kansas, New York, Arizona and Vermont. They served in positions as high as a junior Trump political appointee and a state senator. In Kansas, a communications aide to Attorney General Kris Kobach, William Hendrix, has been fired for insulting comments about gay and Black people. Michael Bartels, who wrote “I love Hitler,” still has a job in the Trump administration.
The right’s chattering class online, on TV and in the White House have widely responded by pointing out that these gross comments were made by low-level nobodies, but that just last week Democrats mostly refrained from saying anything about Jay Jones, a candidate for Attorney General in Virginia who texted about a political opponent deserving “two bullets.”
“This is far worse than anything said in a college group chat, and the guy who said it could become the AG of Virginia,” Vice President JD Vance said in an X post, referring to Jones. “I refuse to join the pearl clutching (about the Young Republicans) when powerful people call for political violence.”
“Only an activist, left-wing reporter would desperately try to tie President Trump into a story about a random group chat he has no affiliation with, while failing to mention the dangerous smears coming from Democrat politicians who have fantasized about murdering their opponent and called Republicans Nazis and Fascists,” Liz Huston a White House spokeswoman said.
It is true that Democrats have utterly failed to police their own in a high stakes political campaign when turning on one of their own would likely cost them a powerful state-wide office in a purple state. It is particularly appalling coming just weeks after the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Democrats, most outrageously Jones’ running mate, Virginia gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger, should be embarrassed by their unprincipled stand. But Republicans shouldn’t be patting themselves on the back. Firing young staffers doesn’t cost them anything. They won’t even fire Small Business Administration flunky Bartels for his sickening comments.
Destruction of social norms
Moreover, there is a deeper problem for Republicans than a one-off petty political scandal. The very young and very online right is too often a festering cesspool that combines the dehumanization of political opponents common to both parties with the Trump-inspired wholesale destruction of social norms that had been built over 2 1/2 centuries of democracy.
There is not a national problem of Democratic political candidates talking about killing political opponents. There is a national problem of young conservatives being led down a whole panoply of dark destructive internet rabbit holes.
Whether it is the influential Bronze Age Pervert and the often sexist manosphere appealing to young men let down by dating culture, or slick racist influencer Nick Fuentes and a whole nest of anti-semitic imitators fueling other hatreds, there’s an evil flavor targeted at every young person’s particular grievance. In more widely circulated filth, a Daily Caller editor pushing for Republicans to respond to Kirk’s assassination with violence of their own found an eager audience. All reveal a problem with too many young people on the right. The kids, and the adults who are leading them, are not alright.
Trump has shattered civility in our politics, calling for violence against Democrats, protestors and journalists alike while targeting people for abuse based on their race, nationality, disability and sex. In online hothouses like the chat exposed by Politico, young people signal their loyalty to Trump by going even further than he has. That’s why the Young Republicans were speaking positively about gas chambers.
To be sure, such things existed before Trump, but the Donald’s antics have given such hate broader purchase in the online culture. Trump is every bit as responsible as the Young Republicans themselves for where his callow followers find themselves.
Voters used to know that a president who has been found liable for sexual assault and feloniously manipulating business records after serial bankruptcies, affairs and divorces would be a bad influence on the young people who come to admire him. Those days are past, and today we see the young people that we created.
We haven’t seen the last of this because one thing is for sure: Such sickness can’t be confined to Telegram.
David Mastio is a national columnist for McClatchy and the Kansas City Star.
This story was originally published October 16, 2025 at 7:47 AM.
