By Matt Underwood Kansas Young Republicans shut down after Politico report on racist, violent encrypted chat. This is a sentence that really cuts to the chase, doesn’t it? It sums up a pretty shocking situation: a group, the Kansas Young Republicans, imploded after a report detailed the disturbing content of their private, encrypted conversations.
Republicans in the company of strangers: *”Democrats call everyone they disagree with a Nazi.”* But as the saying goes, actions speak louder than words. The irony isn’t lost on anyone, the report revealed just how far from civil their internal dialogue had drifted. The messages were filled with things like violent threats and racist slurs, and references to white supremacy. It was a nasty stew of hate, and now that it’s been exposed, it’s going to be interesting to see where this goes.
“Shut down ” = “moved to Signal” probably. The initial reaction, as one might expect, seems to be damage control. The immediate response was, as mentioned, the shutting down of the organization. However, it’s worth noting that “shutting down” in this context likely means a move to a more secure, private platform, as opposed to a complete cessation of communication. It’s almost predictable; change the name, move to a new platform, and keep the same garbage.
Reading the level of racism in those texts, made me understand what Republicans were saying when they called Charlie Kirk a “moderate.” This is the reality of the situation. The report gives insight into what seems to be the current Republican mindset. The level of racism and antisemitism is something that would have been dismissed as a joke. The problem is that they are not jokes. It is the reality of their lives. And that should scare us all. It is important to have conversations about what is going on and call it out when it happens.
This is a culture of hatred and degeneracy. It is hard to ignore that this isn’t just an isolated incident. The individuals involved, the rhetoric used, the values expressed – it all paints a grim picture of the culture in which this occurred. It’s a breeding ground for this type of hate. The people in charge of this behavior need to be investigated.
They will relocate, and scurry, come up with defenses of how “that isn’t them” or how they have grown….and blah, blah, blah. We all heard it before. We will hear it, again and again. Unfortunately, history tells us that these groups rarely disappear entirely. They’ll likely rebrand, find new ways to communicate, and try to weather the storm. But we can’t let them. They need to know that we will be ready when they try.
This is **bipartisan**. It should not be one side’s role exclusively. This behavior, and the ideas that fuel it, are a direct threat to our society. It’s on all of us, regardless of our political leanings, to condemn it.
If you want to have any hope of clawing any semblance of a country out of this, you must remember this, moving forward. We can’t afford to forget what happened. The danger is real, and it’s essential that we remain vigilant and actively push back against this type of behavior.
They think themselves bold and invincible to the consequences of holding repulsive views, under the allure of “jokes” and “trolling”, but you can no longer give them the benefit of the doubt. Period. You can affect things at the micro level, and those pay dividends in the macro, in time. Their whole attitude, the “it’s just a joke” defense, can’t be tolerated anymore. We need to call it out for what it is: dangerous and unacceptable. We can’t let them hide behind their memes and their “irony”.
This is what Republicans are. This is Kansas. Imagine Alabama, Mississippi and other more southern states. It’s important to recognize that this isn’t just a Kansas problem. It’s likely a reflection of a larger, nationwide trend. Other states, other organizations, might be harboring similar sentiments. The problem is not isolated.
They will learn nothing, and won’t change. Despite the outrage and the consequences, it’s likely that these individuals, and others like them, won’t fundamentally change their views. They may go underground, they may try to be more careful, but the underlying attitudes are unlikely to shift. And we have to stay on them.
They’re just gonna reopen somewhere else, under a new name. Given their history, it wouldn’t be a surprise if they resurfaced under a new banner. This isn’t just about a specific organization; it’s about the ideologies and the culture that allowed this to flourish in the first place. And, sadly, it’s highly probable that this is happening in other groups across the country, just hidden from view. It is a common tale, and a predictable strategy, for these types of groups to simply rebrand themselves and continue their work under a new name or banner.
Thank Trump, Charlie Kirk, Jim Jordan, etc. These leaders have created a space for extremist behavior. In the current political climate, leaders who stoke division and hatred make it worse. It is hard to ignore their role in this, considering their influence on their followers.
But also, I guess we’ve found what happened to the fat people hate sub. They moved into the last place it’s acceptable: /r/politics. It is so critical to note that these spaces are being populated by people with extreme views, and these views have consequences. We have to make sure they are never allowed to just hide in the shadows.