I added (some) to the thread title, even though the original headline did not. I think it is an important distinction, as the headline seems to believe that all Republicans are 'on edge' over this bigotry, while I believe many support it and even encourage it, either overtly, or through dog whistle messaging.
PHOENIX — Twenty-three-year-old Alec Beaton has the résumé of a model GOP foot soldier. He’s a former precinct delegate and county Republican youth chair who ran a small Michigan field office for Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign.
He’s also a self-described Holocaust “revisionist” who views praise for Adolf Hitler as a way to “mess with people.”
“We don’t think Hitler is, like, the worst person ever,” Beaton explained as he roamed a national conference for young conservatives with his friends, joined at one point by an acquaintance on the event staff for the host group, Turning Point USA.
Many Republicans dismiss young people such as Beaton as fringe actors, unrepresentative of the GOP. But there’s a growing unease in the party at their presence among the rank and file. Leaks of offensive group chats and infighting over the bounds of acceptable political discourse are fanning anxiety in the party: Maybe the kids are not all right.
At a conference on antisemitism this month in Washington, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) warned that he has seen more prejudice against Jewish people “in the last 18 months on the right than at any point in my lifetime,” and that “it is gaining real purchase, especially with young people.”
The fight against antisemitism is winning with “folks in this room with some gray or salt-and-pepper in their hair,” Cruz said.
“But in the college classroom,” he added, “I’m a lot less certain.”
Concern has flared with one scandal after another. In one group chat, Young Republican leaders from several states used racial slurs, casually referenced Hitler and described rape as “epic.” In another meant for GOP students in Miami, participants called for grisly violence against Black people and discussed “Nazi heaven”; a leak prompted the resignation of a Turning Point chapter president who wrote, “I would def not marry a Jew.” At the University of Florida, a statewide conservative group just disbanded a College Republicans chapter after allegations that students gave a Nazi salute.
And online, Republicans have fretted about the rise of white-supremacist influencer Nick Fuentes, who courts disaffected young men and has summed up his views as, “Jews are running society, women need to shut the f--- up, Blacks need to be imprisoned for the most part, and we would live in paradise.” The College Republicans of America this month appointed a longtime fan of Fuentes as their political director.
Radicalization on the young right has set off a bitter debate in the GOP about how much Republicans should police their movement and how serious a threat its most extreme elements pose. Some dismiss Fuentes and like-minded commentators as online agitators with little real influence — infiltrators trying to hurt the Republican Party. Others are alarmed at the traction they have gotten and say the party needs to push them more forcefully out of the GOP tent.
Fuentes’s young fans, who call themselves “groypers,” didn’t seem like pariahs as they strolled around the Turning Point conference late last year. They said hi to friends they had met at other conservative meetups. They got compliments on their bright-blue hats that helped identify them as Fuentes followers. They crashed at an Airbnb hosting dozens of groypers — a cardboard cutout of Fuentes in the backyard, the words “Splash house” emblazoned on a wall.
WaPo
PHOENIX — Twenty-three-year-old Alec Beaton has the résumé of a model GOP foot soldier. He’s a former precinct delegate and county Republican youth chair who ran a small Michigan field office for Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign.
He’s also a self-described Holocaust “revisionist” who views praise for Adolf Hitler as a way to “mess with people.”
“We don’t think Hitler is, like, the worst person ever,” Beaton explained as he roamed a national conference for young conservatives with his friends, joined at one point by an acquaintance on the event staff for the host group, Turning Point USA.
Many Republicans dismiss young people such as Beaton as fringe actors, unrepresentative of the GOP. But there’s a growing unease in the party at their presence among the rank and file. Leaks of offensive group chats and infighting over the bounds of acceptable political discourse are fanning anxiety in the party: Maybe the kids are not all right.
At a conference on antisemitism this month in Washington, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) warned that he has seen more prejudice against Jewish people “in the last 18 months on the right than at any point in my lifetime,” and that “it is gaining real purchase, especially with young people.”
The fight against antisemitism is winning with “folks in this room with some gray or salt-and-pepper in their hair,” Cruz said.
“But in the college classroom,” he added, “I’m a lot less certain.”
Concern has flared with one scandal after another. In one group chat, Young Republican leaders from several states used racial slurs, casually referenced Hitler and described rape as “epic.” In another meant for GOP students in Miami, participants called for grisly violence against Black people and discussed “Nazi heaven”; a leak prompted the resignation of a Turning Point chapter president who wrote, “I would def not marry a Jew.” At the University of Florida, a statewide conservative group just disbanded a College Republicans chapter after allegations that students gave a Nazi salute.
And online, Republicans have fretted about the rise of white-supremacist influencer Nick Fuentes, who courts disaffected young men and has summed up his views as, “Jews are running society, women need to shut the f--- up, Blacks need to be imprisoned for the most part, and we would live in paradise.” The College Republicans of America this month appointed a longtime fan of Fuentes as their political director.
Radicalization on the young right has set off a bitter debate in the GOP about how much Republicans should police their movement and how serious a threat its most extreme elements pose. Some dismiss Fuentes and like-minded commentators as online agitators with little real influence — infiltrators trying to hurt the Republican Party. Others are alarmed at the traction they have gotten and say the party needs to push them more forcefully out of the GOP tent.
Fuentes’s young fans, who call themselves “groypers,” didn’t seem like pariahs as they strolled around the Turning Point conference late last year. They said hi to friends they had met at other conservative meetups. They got compliments on their bright-blue hats that helped identify them as Fuentes followers. They crashed at an Airbnb hosting dozens of groypers — a cardboard cutout of Fuentes in the backyard, the words “Splash house” emblazoned on a wall.
WaPo
