October 18, 2025 • 27 mins
Our guest this week is Knowa De Baraso… one of the youngest faces of the Democratic Party, one of the sharpest minds covering politics, and one of the rising stars in the podcasting space
In the first half of the show, we discuss the leaked chat messages from young Republican leadership across the country and make connections to historical leaks that have also given insight in to the racist, toxic culture that is often very pronounced in this country’s political right.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Broadcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios. I'd like to
welcome you to another episode of Civic Cipher, where our
mission is to foster allyship empathy and understanding. I am
your host, Ramsey's jaw.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
He is Ramsey's jaw. I am q Ward. You are
once again tuned in to Civic Cipher.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
And we appreciate that we're going to need you to
stick around a little. Later on in the show, we
are going to be talking to a fantastic young political mind,
a political commentator, a thought leader, and a person that
is showing the promise of a bright future in this
(00:37):
country and so far as politics are concerned. He goes
by the name of Noah Ga Barasso. But before we
get to him, we are going to be talking about
some of the rot in young political minds in this country.
We're going to spend the first half of the show
talking about some leaked text messages from young Republican leaders
(01:04):
that we're exposed that kind of give an idea of
what Republican culture has become. And of course we're going
to connect that to some historical examples so people know
that this is not an isolated incident, This isn't just
a group of kids. This isn't just at that level
of leadership, none of those things. There's a lot of
historical examples, and obviously doing the journalistic research that we've done,
(01:27):
we have a lot to draw from, especially when it
comes to Republicans and racism. So we're going to compare
and contrast the two parties using young people as the
basis and the ideology and the culture within those circles
of young folks. So Q and I are well prepared
(01:48):
to have those conversations, and I don't want to say
we're looking forward to them, but we recognize the task
at hand and we are called to meet the moment,
and so we hope that we will do right by you,
our listener. But as always on this show, we like
to start off with some ebony excellence from the Associated Press.
The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation announced a fifty million
(02:11):
dollar donation to Atlanta's historically black colleges and universities on Monday,
aiming to close financial aid gaps that might otherwise prevent
students from completing their degrees. The money will support nearly
ten thousand students with gap scholarships if they are approaching
graduation in good academic standing and have exhausted all other
(02:31):
sources of financial support. The aim is to raise graduation
rates at Clark Atlanta University, Morehouse College, Morris Brown College,
and Spelman College. According to the foundation's announcement, quote, these
grants are a material investment in hope, quote, said Fay Twerski,
the foundation's president. The ten year commitment comes days after
the Trump administration said it would redirect nearly five hundred
(02:54):
million in federal funding toward HBCUs and tribal colleges as
a one time investment. Similar amount would be cut from
colleges with large enrollments of Hispanics and other minorities, amid
other moves to eliminate programs that promote diversity and higher education.
So that's that's something. I mean, fifty million doesn't offset
(03:20):
five hundred million, but it symbolically it matters, and it
shows that the be all and end all is not
Donald Trump, and a lot of people, especially on college campuses,
might have needed that hope. Any thoughts her, cub.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Like you said, and I'm glad that everyone hasn't subscribed
to MAGA, Yeah, right, Like, it's not it's not everything
that we need. It's not enough a but it does
feel good to hear that there is someone who's profited
(04:00):
capitalism that hasn't completely sold their souls, if you will,
all right, So.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
We're gonna spend some time talking about this. I will
do my best not to pontificate too long. But this
is a very disturbing thing. Now that we've had a
chance to kind of get into the weeds of it,
find out who the people were that were saying what
they were saying in this Young Republican Leadership group chat
(04:31):
thread thing, and really break that down a little bit
more so. Some of these articles are quite verbose, but
stick with me. I think there's a lot here. I
think we should start que by painting the picture a
little bit. So we're going to frontload this with a
lot of written word. But again, I promise, if you
(04:55):
stick with me, we're going to make some points that
I think people need to know about. So I'll share
for Politico, 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
(05:16):
their political opponents in gas chambers. They talked about raping
their enemies and driving them to suicide, and lauded Republicans
who believed who they believed support slavery. We're going to
circle back to these gas chambers and these monkeys things.
I think that's really important, all right they William Hendrix,
the Kansas Young Republicans vice chair, used the words these
(05:39):
are just the N word, basically variations of the racial
slur more than a dozen times in the chat. Bobby Walker,
the vice chair of the New York State Young Republicans
at the time, referred to rape as epic. Peter Junta,
who was at the time chair of the same organization,
wrote in a message that was sent in June that
(06:02):
everyone that votes know is going to the gas chamber.
Junta was referring to an upcoming vote on whether he
should become chair of the Young Republican National the National Federation,
the GOP's fifteen thousand member political organization for Republicans between
eighteen and forty years old. Quote. I'm going to create
some of the greatest physiological torture methods known to man.
(06:25):
We only want true believers unquote. He continued. Two members
of the chat responded, quote, can we fix the showers?
Gas chambers don't fit the hitler estheticote. Joe Maligno, who
previously identified himself as the General Council for the New
York State Young Republicans, wrote back, quote, I'm ready to
watch people burn now unquote any kkati. I think that's
(06:51):
how I say that. New York's National Committee member said
the exchange is part of a trove of telegram chats
obtained by political and spanning more than seven months of
messages among young Republican leaders in New York, Kansas, Arizona,
and Vermont. The chat offers an unfiltered look at how
a new generation of GOP activists talk when they think
no one is listening. Since Politico began making inquiries, one
(07:14):
member of the group chat is no longer employed at
their job, and another's job offer was rescinded. Prominent New
York Republicans, including Representative Elise Stefanik and State Senate Minority
Leader Rob Ort, have denounced the chat, and festering resentments
among young Republicans have now turned into public recriminations, including
allegations of character assassination and extortion. The two nine hundred
(07:38):
pages of chats shared among a dozen millennial and gen
Z Republicans between early January and mid August chronicle their
campaign to seize control of the National Young Republican Organization
on a hardline pro Donald Trump platform. Many of the
chat members already work inside the government or play party politics,
and one serves as a state senator. Together, the messages
(07:59):
review culture where racist, anti semitic, 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. Okay, we're going to stop here.
Of course, the rest of this article is up. It's
a political article. It's much longer than that. But I
(08:21):
think this is a good stopping point. I want to
share something that I want you to share something, and
then we'll continue because there's a little bit more. I
knew that some of these things were in this chat.
I just didn't realize how deep it went. I didn't
(08:44):
realize how long it went on. And as opposed to
some off comments that people made ingest, this shows, as
the article says, a culture, a long standing culture where
this was normal, and this gives more insight into how
the people feel.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
Now.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
I said this on a recent episode. I'll say it again.
This is the future of the Republican Party and this
group chat and all the people in the group chat
were participating, even those that were silent, that didn't call
it out, were participating in the group chat. Okay, this
(09:25):
gives insight into the culture of Republicanism around the country.
I don't believe that this is isolated. I don't think
that this is a thing that in fact we're going
to get into something a little bit later on that
shows that this is a long standing sort of approach
to other races, other faiths, et cetera by Republicans. It
(09:47):
goes all the way back. And so for people who
vote Republican, people who you know, feel like conservative is
the way to be, those Bible thumbers, all those folks
that say to us on white Christian heterosexual men who
feel that their thinking is toxic and their policies are
based in toxicity. Instead of saying that we have a
(10:12):
victim complex, instead of saying that we're imagining things, they
have to kind of eat this and maybe they will
push this aside and sweep it aside and say, well,
this is just a small group of kids. It doesn't
represent Republicans. I'm going to make that case in just
a second. I just want to get your reflections on
what we have so far too.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
I think the most difficult part about discovering this story
is that there's a narrative that I believed for a
very long time.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
That I like, that I was excited about, and it
was that this next generation wouldn't be as racist, they'd
be more informed, they'd have more friends who weren't from
their exact cook cut background. They'd go to college, they'd
have roommates, they'd have teammates, they'd have boyfriends, they had girlfriends,
(11:06):
they had neighbors, they'd have friends, they'd connect with people
that were not like them, and they would be more
forward thinking and more evolved and more tolerant and more
accepting and more open.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
And I'm watching that narrative dissolve.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Because those very strong paths down from generation to generation
seeds of hate and racism, othering, misogyny, like all these
things that we've seen for so long that we were
told and I'm sure you heard this too, the next
(11:43):
generation of young people is going to bring forward this
less racist, more accepting world, and we're seeing the very
youngest of them, and those who are next in line
to be the leaders of this country of that party
feel exactly like their forefathers did feel exactly how people
(12:06):
felt sixty seventy eighty years ago, that we haven't made
all this progress, that we are not closer to a
country and a culture in a world that sees people
as people and not just as the social constructs of
race that were designed to keep them separate and fighting.
So yeah, this is very disheartening. But that feeling is
(12:31):
not specific to just this story, but it kind of
shures up the doubts that I had about that dream
place coming true or ever being realized. You know, all
these years later, that party and that group of people,
more specifically because that party was called the Other Party
(12:53):
once upon a time, but the ideals were the same.
It's incredible, discouraging, disheartening, and really heartbreaking. I'm like, I've
been angry for so long that I'm starting to get sad,
you know what I mean, at the idea that the
dream of Martin Luther King Junior will actually never be realized.
(13:17):
It's not that it's happening slowly and then we'll get
there one day. We're never going to get there. We're
not closer at all. And in the last ten years,
in the last nine months, we've taken sixty years of
steps backward. It's just incredibly, incredibly disheartening.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Man. Well, I think this next segment is going to
bring that even more into focus for our listeners. We've
talked about this before, and so this will be as
this will come as no surprise to you, Q. We
didn't even sin we have a prep sheet that we
(13:57):
work from when we do our show. I didn't even
send it to Q because he doesn't need it.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Hmm.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
I'm gonna just get into it and I'll make my connections,
all right. This from the BBC. Former US President Ronald
Reagan described African delegates to the UN as monkeys in
newly unearthed tapes published by a US magazine. He made
the comment in a nineteen seventy one telephone call with
(14:27):
then President Richard Nixon. By the way, I heard this
phone call, Ramses, I heard it with these ears. I
heard them say all the stuff I'm about to read
to you, so you can fact check it all you want.
But I actually heard this. Okay, let me continue, all right.
Mister Reagan, who was governor of California at the time,
(14:47):
was angered that African delegates at the UN cided against
the US in a vote. Members of the Tanzanian delegation
started dancing after the UN voted to recognize China and
expel Taiwan. Mister Reagan, who was a supporter of Taiwan,
called the president the following day to express his apparent frustration.
(15:09):
He said, to see those monkeys from those African countries,
Explotive deleted them. They're still uncomfortable wearing shoes. Mister Nixon,
who quit as president in nineteen seventy four, can be
heard laughing. Now that's all I'm going to share from
(15:29):
right now. If you want to hear the rest of it,
it's recorded. I think it's like part of the National
Archives now, right, this didn't get released until way late.
This is like a modern thing that was covered. But
the telephone call took place in nineteen seventy one. So
all the people back in the seventies that were saying, hey, look,
these people are racist people. Nixon is a racist person.
(15:50):
Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, you know, all these the racist peoples,
strom Thurman, all these folks. I guess he was like
outwardly racist, but people trying to say that back then,
and then people saying, no, they're not racist. You know,
you are reading too much into things, blah blah blah.
This clearly is racist language. They're talking about black people
(16:12):
being monkeys and whatever and surprise wearing shoes or whatever.
It's one of the things that Republicans kind of rely
on to maintain their fidelity to that party while still
(16:35):
feeling like they are not racist, nor are they supporting
racist people or policies. And this lays bear the fact
that they have been the whole time. And the connection
I want to make is, remember I just said, I
just quoted what was it, Ronald Reagan calling African delegates monkeys.
(16:57):
Ronald Reagan. That was the president, So was Richard Nixon, who,
by the way, set his own nonsense in this call.
But Ronald Reagan, the person who black people he had
in the modern era prior to Trump, had the most
pronounced negative impact on Black Americans by a long way
prior to Donald Trump. Donald Trump beat that by a
long way. Donald Trump or sorry, Ronald Reagan is calling
(17:23):
black people monkeys. Okay, that's Republican leadership from you know,
the late seventies, early eighties. Okay, let's scroll back up,
because Ronald Reagan called them monkeys. Let me go back
up in this article. 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
(17:46):
to black people as monkeys and the watermelon people, and
mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers. I'm
gonna circle back to the gas chambers thing in a second. Okay,
so we see the through line Ronald Reagan calling the monkeys,
and now these young Republicans calling them monkeys the other day. Okay.
(18:08):
So for us that say, yo, Republican policies, Republican leadership,
these Republican people, they don't care about black people. For
us to say that these people are racist, everything that
they do is based in racism. Racism is the only
thing that answers all of the questions. It checks every box.
It's not just you know, their fiscal conservative whatever their
(18:33):
you know, every issue that we have. If we just say, okay,
well it's based in racism. It checks every box. It
satisfies every question that a person might have as to
why are they doing this racism? That's the answer. Okay,
Now Republicans don't like that answer because they don't like to,
or at least once upon a time, they did not
(18:55):
like to be associated with racism. They wanted the veneer
and the shine of being you know, welcoming and a
loving person, law abiding, you know, god fearing. They wanted
all of that. But underneath it all is this nonsense
that we've been talking about all along, and it typically
doesn't get exposed until somebody exposes it. Imagine what we
(19:18):
don't see that is reflected in the policies. And they
use crafty language, and they use you know, Q and
I were having a conversation before we started recording. They
use different ways of targeting people so that it while
it has a most pronounced effect on black and brown
and marginalized people, it cannot be legally determined to only
(19:47):
negatively impact black and brown and marginalized people. So they
use these political language in this legalese or whatever to
get this stuff off, and we don't get a chance
to see what they really feel about their fellow human beings,
their fellow countrymen until someone exposes them and it's laid bare.
(20:08):
I'm going to say one last thing, and I want
to give the rest of the time to UQ, but
I just want to make sure that I include this.
So JD. Vance mounted a defense of these young Republican leaders.
Okay this from PBS dot org. Vance forty one said
he grew up in a different era where most of
what I the stupid things that I did as a
(20:28):
teenager and as a young adult, they're not on the Internet.
The father of three said he would caution his own children,
especially as boys, did not put things on the Internet
and be careful with what they post. If you put
something in a group chat, assume that some scumbag is
going to leak it in an effort to try to
cause you harm or cause your family harm. So he's
saying that the person leaking it is the scumbag. Okay,
so he's clearly going to be an apologist here. But
(20:49):
watch where I go with this. He says, I really
don't want us to grow up in a country where
a kid telling a stupid joke, telling a very offensive
stupid joke is caused to ruin their lives. Okay, he's
ignoring the fact that these people will get in leadership
positions and enact policies that ruin the lives of marginalized
people and have done for at least fifty years, according
(21:10):
to this conversation that you and I have had, and
then of course we can make other arguments going back further.
But another thing that I don't have here, but I
know from Jade Vance's comments is that he tried to
compare a democratic like an elected democratic official. If I'm
not mistaken, he made a comment saying, I wish that
(21:32):
someone would put two bullets in the head of a
Republican person, right, gross disgusting on its face. That's political violence,
calling for political violence, even though itse behind closed doors. Okay,
so jd Vance says, well, as long as they're not
talking like that, you know, then I think we need
to be focusing on the Democrats, because Democrats are the
(21:52):
ones calling for violence. He used that one example to
say it. Okay, calling for the two bullets in the
hit political violence is wrong. Calling for political or violence
is wrong. Totally. We'll see that. But watch this, let
me go back up. They revert to black people as
monkeys and the watermelon people, and am used about putting
their political opponents in gas chambers. Does that not sound
(22:13):
like political violence that JD evans? All right, I got
a couple more notes here, but I don't need to
get to them. Cute. I want to make sure that
you have a long runway here, so your thoughts.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Not sure how long my runway is, but I would
try to communicate some things, especially with regards to Ronald
Reagan and Republicans in general. You said they were they
used to not want to be associated with racism. They've
always not cared about being associated with racism. They do
overtly racist things. They just don't like being called racist. Okay,
(22:47):
that's what I'm trying, and that's still true today. They
still don't like being labeled that way, even though they've
gotten more and more overt at the racist things that
they do and say. Ronald Reagan is a great example
to use of what old Republicans used to do. So
Ronald Reagan issued executive orders to enhance federal support for HBCUs.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
Hey, look, I'm not racist, you know.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
He signed legislation like the Excellence in Minority Health, Education
and Care Act, which supported predominantly black health professions and students. However,
he cut actual funding to higher education, increased cost of
higher education, and took grants and turned them into loans,
(23:34):
which created barriers to access higher education for black people.
So it's like, hey, look, I have a black friend.
I couldn't be racist while doing incredibly racist things. So
he was one of the pioneers right of making sure
we didn't become a socialist country because black people would
(23:57):
benefit from such programs. So, as you said, a veneer
of goodness, a veneer of benevolence. But the underbelly and
the internal combustion engine that drove policies for Republicans forever
(24:18):
has been based on the oppression of black and poor people.
But racism was the vehicle, because that's how you convince
poor white people to vote against their own best interests,
if you make them other and hate their neighbors that
are black and blame their conditions on their neighbors that
are black, and then later hispanic. So it's really really
(24:41):
interesting that you brought up Ronald Reagan, my least favorite
president of all time, because I understand almost fully that
he's the reason why we don't have greater.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
Access to education and healthcare. He literally.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Created policy to make those things less accessible to everyone,
to make sure they were less accessible to us.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Yeah, and I want to add one more thing here,
because I know that people that listen to this that
disagree are going to say Republicans are simply just not racist.
This is just a small group of whatever, however they
explain it. And then they're going to push back and
say it's the Democrats who are racist. Right, Democrats were
(25:28):
the party of slavery. Conservatives were the party of slavery.
Once upon a time, the Conservatives called themselves the Democrats. Okay,
it's the Conservatives that wanted to conserve slavery. I want
to make sure that that's stated well stated. And you know,
the two parties of the two party system, they've been
(25:48):
called by a number of names throughout the years in
this country, this country's existence, but they switched platforms. The
beginning of that started around the time of the Great Depression,
kind of solidified the time of the Civil Rights movement
just after that, when black people kind of put their
support behind the newly minted Democratic Party using that term.
(26:11):
The other thing that I want to say is that
people will say, well, it's not Democrats, it's their failed policies.
You know. The Democrats themselves might, you know, try to
smile all in your face, but really they do racist stuff.
They're racist policies, look at inner cities, blah blah blah.
They have all those conversations. But I could argue successfully
against anybody that Republican policies are far more damaging in
(26:35):
the material world that we all share, the reality that
we all live in for black, brown, and marginalized people,
than Democratic parties policies. Democratic policies at least are based
in the idea that something good might happen, and Republican
policies don't even account for that. And that is a
distinction I think everybody needs to come to terms with
(26:57):
in order for us to have a functioning conversation.
Broadcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios. I'd like to
welcome you to another episode of Civic Cipher, where our
mission is to foster allyship empathy and understanding. I am
your host, Ramsey's jaw.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
He is Ramsey's jaw. I am q Ward. You are
once again tuned in to Civic Cipher.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
And we appreciate that we're going to need you to
stick around a little. Later on in the show, we
are going to be talking to a fantastic young political mind,
a political commentator, a thought leader, and a person that
is showing the promise of a bright future in this
(00:37):
country and so far as politics are concerned. He goes
by the name of Noah Ga Barasso. But before we
get to him, we are going to be talking about
some of the rot in young political minds in this country.
We're going to spend the first half of the show
talking about some leaked text messages from young Republican leaders
(01:04):
that we're exposed that kind of give an idea of
what Republican culture has become. And of course we're going
to connect that to some historical examples so people know
that this is not an isolated incident, This isn't just
a group of kids. This isn't just at that level
of leadership, none of those things. There's a lot of
historical examples, and obviously doing the journalistic research that we've done,
(01:27):
we have a lot to draw from, especially when it
comes to Republicans and racism. So we're going to compare
and contrast the two parties using young people as the
basis and the ideology and the culture within those circles
of young folks. So Q and I are well prepared
(01:48):
to have those conversations, and I don't want to say
we're looking forward to them, but we recognize the task
at hand and we are called to meet the moment,
and so we hope that we will do right by you,
our listener. But as always on this show, we like
to start off with some ebony excellence from the Associated Press.
The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation announced a fifty million
(02:11):
dollar donation to Atlanta's historically black colleges and universities on Monday,
aiming to close financial aid gaps that might otherwise prevent
students from completing their degrees. The money will support nearly
ten thousand students with gap scholarships if they are approaching
graduation in good academic standing and have exhausted all other
(02:31):
sources of financial support. The aim is to raise graduation
rates at Clark Atlanta University, Morehouse College, Morris Brown College,
and Spelman College. According to the foundation's announcement, quote, these
grants are a material investment in hope, quote, said Fay Twerski,
the foundation's president. The ten year commitment comes days after
the Trump administration said it would redirect nearly five hundred
(02:54):
million in federal funding toward HBCUs and tribal colleges as
a one time investment. Similar amount would be cut from
colleges with large enrollments of Hispanics and other minorities, amid
other moves to eliminate programs that promote diversity and higher education.
So that's that's something. I mean, fifty million doesn't offset
(03:20):
five hundred million, but it symbolically it matters, and it
shows that the be all and end all is not
Donald Trump, and a lot of people, especially on college campuses,
might have needed that hope. Any thoughts her, cub.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Like you said, and I'm glad that everyone hasn't subscribed
to MAGA, Yeah, right, Like, it's not it's not everything
that we need. It's not enough a but it does
feel good to hear that there is someone who's profited
(04:00):
capitalism that hasn't completely sold their souls, if you will,
all right, So.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
We're gonna spend some time talking about this. I will
do my best not to pontificate too long. But this
is a very disturbing thing. Now that we've had a
chance to kind of get into the weeds of it,
find out who the people were that were saying what
they were saying in this Young Republican Leadership group chat
(04:31):
thread thing, and really break that down a little bit
more so. Some of these articles are quite verbose, but
stick with me. I think there's a lot here. I
think we should start que by painting the picture a
little bit. So we're going to frontload this with a
lot of written word. But again, I promise, if you
(04:55):
stick with me, we're going to make some points that
I think people need to know about. So I'll share
for Politico, 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
(05:16):
their political opponents in gas chambers. They talked about raping
their enemies and driving them to suicide, and lauded Republicans
who believed who they believed support slavery. We're going to
circle back to these gas chambers and these monkeys things.
I think that's really important, all right they William Hendrix,
the Kansas Young Republicans vice chair, used the words these
(05:39):
are just the N word, basically variations of the racial
slur more than a dozen times in the chat. Bobby Walker,
the vice chair of the New York State Young Republicans
at the time, referred to rape as epic. Peter Junta,
who was at the time chair of the same organization,
wrote in a message that was sent in June that
(06:02):
everyone that votes know is going to the gas chamber.
Junta was referring to an upcoming vote on whether he
should become chair of the Young Republican National the National Federation,
the GOP's fifteen thousand member political organization for Republicans between
eighteen and forty years old. Quote. I'm going to create
some of the greatest physiological torture methods known to man.
(06:25):
We only want true believers unquote. He continued. Two members
of the chat responded, quote, can we fix the showers?
Gas chambers don't fit the hitler estheticote. Joe Maligno, who
previously identified himself as the General Council for the New
York State Young Republicans, wrote back, quote, I'm ready to
watch people burn now unquote any kkati. I think that's
(06:51):
how I say that. New York's National Committee member said
the exchange is part of a trove of telegram chats
obtained by political and spanning more than seven months of
messages among young Republican leaders in New York, Kansas, Arizona,
and Vermont. The chat offers an unfiltered look at how
a new generation of GOP activists talk when they think
no one is listening. Since Politico began making inquiries, one
(07:14):
member of the group chat is no longer employed at
their job, and another's job offer was rescinded. Prominent New
York Republicans, including Representative Elise Stefanik and State Senate Minority
Leader Rob Ort, have denounced the chat, and festering resentments
among young Republicans have now turned into public recriminations, including
allegations of character assassination and extortion. The two nine hundred
(07:38):
pages of chats shared among a dozen millennial and gen
Z Republicans between early January and mid August chronicle their
campaign to seize control of the National Young Republican Organization
on a hardline pro Donald Trump platform. Many of the
chat members already work inside the government or play party politics,
and one serves as a state senator. Together, the messages
(07:59):
review culture where racist, anti semitic, 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. Okay, we're going to stop here.
Of course, the rest of this article is up. It's
a political article. It's much longer than that. But I
(08:21):
think this is a good stopping point. I want to
share something that I want you to share something, and
then we'll continue because there's a little bit more. I
knew that some of these things were in this chat.
I just didn't realize how deep it went. I didn't
(08:44):
realize how long it went on. And as opposed to
some off comments that people made ingest, this shows, as
the article says, a culture, a long standing culture where
this was normal, and this gives more insight into how
the people feel.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
Now.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
I said this on a recent episode. I'll say it again.
This is the future of the Republican Party and this
group chat and all the people in the group chat
were participating, even those that were silent, that didn't call
it out, were participating in the group chat. Okay, this
(09:25):
gives insight into the culture of Republicanism around the country.
I don't believe that this is isolated. I don't think
that this is a thing that in fact we're going
to get into something a little bit later on that
shows that this is a long standing sort of approach
to other races, other faiths, et cetera by Republicans. It
(09:47):
goes all the way back. And so for people who
vote Republican, people who you know, feel like conservative is
the way to be, those Bible thumbers, all those folks
that say to us on white Christian heterosexual men who
feel that their thinking is toxic and their policies are
based in toxicity. Instead of saying that we have a
(10:12):
victim complex, instead of saying that we're imagining things, they
have to kind of eat this and maybe they will
push this aside and sweep it aside and say, well,
this is just a small group of kids. It doesn't
represent Republicans. I'm going to make that case in just
a second. I just want to get your reflections on
what we have so far too.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
I think the most difficult part about discovering this story
is that there's a narrative that I believed for a
very long time.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
That I like, that I was excited about, and it
was that this next generation wouldn't be as racist, they'd
be more informed, they'd have more friends who weren't from
their exact cook cut background. They'd go to college, they'd
have roommates, they'd have teammates, they'd have boyfriends, they had girlfriends,
(11:06):
they had neighbors, they'd have friends, they'd connect with people
that were not like them, and they would be more
forward thinking and more evolved and more tolerant and more
accepting and more open.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
And I'm watching that narrative dissolve.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Because those very strong paths down from generation to generation
seeds of hate and racism, othering, misogyny, like all these
things that we've seen for so long that we were
told and I'm sure you heard this too, the next
(11:43):
generation of young people is going to bring forward this
less racist, more accepting world, and we're seeing the very
youngest of them, and those who are next in line
to be the leaders of this country of that party
feel exactly like their forefathers did feel exactly how people
(12:06):
felt sixty seventy eighty years ago, that we haven't made
all this progress, that we are not closer to a
country and a culture in a world that sees people
as people and not just as the social constructs of
race that were designed to keep them separate and fighting.
So yeah, this is very disheartening. But that feeling is
(12:31):
not specific to just this story, but it kind of
shures up the doubts that I had about that dream
place coming true or ever being realized. You know, all
these years later, that party and that group of people,
more specifically because that party was called the Other Party
(12:53):
once upon a time, but the ideals were the same.
It's incredible, discouraging, disheartening, and really heartbreaking. I'm like, I've
been angry for so long that I'm starting to get sad,
you know what I mean, at the idea that the
dream of Martin Luther King Junior will actually never be realized.
(13:17):
It's not that it's happening slowly and then we'll get
there one day. We're never going to get there. We're
not closer at all. And in the last ten years,
in the last nine months, we've taken sixty years of
steps backward. It's just incredibly, incredibly disheartening.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Man. Well, I think this next segment is going to
bring that even more into focus for our listeners. We've
talked about this before, and so this will be as
this will come as no surprise to you, Q. We
didn't even sin we have a prep sheet that we
(13:57):
work from when we do our show. I didn't even
send it to Q because he doesn't need it.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Hmm.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
I'm gonna just get into it and I'll make my connections,
all right. This from the BBC. Former US President Ronald
Reagan described African delegates to the UN as monkeys in
newly unearthed tapes published by a US magazine. He made
the comment in a nineteen seventy one telephone call with
(14:27):
then President Richard Nixon. By the way, I heard this
phone call, Ramses, I heard it with these ears. I
heard them say all the stuff I'm about to read
to you, so you can fact check it all you want.
But I actually heard this. Okay, let me continue, all right.
Mister Reagan, who was governor of California at the time,
(14:47):
was angered that African delegates at the UN cided against
the US in a vote. Members of the Tanzanian delegation
started dancing after the UN voted to recognize China and
expel Taiwan. Mister Reagan, who was a supporter of Taiwan,
called the president the following day to express his apparent frustration.
(15:09):
He said, to see those monkeys from those African countries,
Explotive deleted them. They're still uncomfortable wearing shoes. Mister Nixon,
who quit as president in nineteen seventy four, can be
heard laughing. Now that's all I'm going to share from
(15:29):
right now. If you want to hear the rest of it,
it's recorded. I think it's like part of the National
Archives now, right, this didn't get released until way late.
This is like a modern thing that was covered. But
the telephone call took place in nineteen seventy one. So
all the people back in the seventies that were saying, hey, look,
these people are racist people. Nixon is a racist person.
(15:50):
Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, you know, all these the racist peoples,
strom Thurman, all these folks. I guess he was like
outwardly racist, but people trying to say that back then,
and then people saying, no, they're not racist. You know,
you are reading too much into things, blah blah blah.
This clearly is racist language. They're talking about black people
(16:12):
being monkeys and whatever and surprise wearing shoes or whatever.
It's one of the things that Republicans kind of rely
on to maintain their fidelity to that party while still
(16:35):
feeling like they are not racist, nor are they supporting
racist people or policies. And this lays bear the fact
that they have been the whole time. And the connection
I want to make is, remember I just said, I
just quoted what was it, Ronald Reagan calling African delegates monkeys.
(16:57):
Ronald Reagan. That was the president, So was Richard Nixon, who,
by the way, set his own nonsense in this call.
But Ronald Reagan, the person who black people he had
in the modern era prior to Trump, had the most
pronounced negative impact on Black Americans by a long way
prior to Donald Trump. Donald Trump beat that by a
long way. Donald Trump or sorry, Ronald Reagan is calling
(17:23):
black people monkeys. Okay, that's Republican leadership from you know,
the late seventies, early eighties. Okay, let's scroll back up,
because Ronald Reagan called them monkeys. Let me go back
up in this article. 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
(17:46):
to black people as monkeys and the watermelon people, and
mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers. I'm
gonna circle back to the gas chambers thing in a second. Okay,
so we see the through line Ronald Reagan calling the monkeys,
and now these young Republicans calling them monkeys the other day. Okay.
(18:08):
So for us that say, yo, Republican policies, Republican leadership,
these Republican people, they don't care about black people. For
us to say that these people are racist, everything that
they do is based in racism. Racism is the only
thing that answers all of the questions. It checks every box.
It's not just you know, their fiscal conservative whatever their
(18:33):
you know, every issue that we have. If we just say, okay,
well it's based in racism. It checks every box. It
satisfies every question that a person might have as to
why are they doing this racism? That's the answer. Okay,
Now Republicans don't like that answer because they don't like to,
or at least once upon a time, they did not
(18:55):
like to be associated with racism. They wanted the veneer
and the shine of being you know, welcoming and a
loving person, law abiding, you know, god fearing. They wanted
all of that. But underneath it all is this nonsense
that we've been talking about all along, and it typically
doesn't get exposed until somebody exposes it. Imagine what we
(19:18):
don't see that is reflected in the policies. And they
use crafty language, and they use you know, Q and
I were having a conversation before we started recording. They
use different ways of targeting people so that it while
it has a most pronounced effect on black and brown
and marginalized people, it cannot be legally determined to only
(19:47):
negatively impact black and brown and marginalized people. So they
use these political language in this legalese or whatever to
get this stuff off, and we don't get a chance
to see what they really feel about their fellow human beings,
their fellow countrymen until someone exposes them and it's laid bare.
(20:08):
I'm going to say one last thing, and I want
to give the rest of the time to UQ, but
I just want to make sure that I include this.
So JD. Vance mounted a defense of these young Republican leaders.
Okay this from PBS dot org. Vance forty one said
he grew up in a different era where most of
what I the stupid things that I did as a
(20:28):
teenager and as a young adult, they're not on the Internet.
The father of three said he would caution his own children,
especially as boys, did not put things on the Internet
and be careful with what they post. If you put
something in a group chat, assume that some scumbag is
going to leak it in an effort to try to
cause you harm or cause your family harm. So he's
saying that the person leaking it is the scumbag. Okay,
so he's clearly going to be an apologist here. But
(20:49):
watch where I go with this. He says, I really
don't want us to grow up in a country where
a kid telling a stupid joke, telling a very offensive
stupid joke is caused to ruin their lives. Okay, he's
ignoring the fact that these people will get in leadership
positions and enact policies that ruin the lives of marginalized
people and have done for at least fifty years, according
(21:10):
to this conversation that you and I have had, and
then of course we can make other arguments going back further.
But another thing that I don't have here, but I
know from Jade Vance's comments is that he tried to
compare a democratic like an elected democratic official. If I'm
not mistaken, he made a comment saying, I wish that
(21:32):
someone would put two bullets in the head of a
Republican person, right, gross disgusting on its face. That's political violence,
calling for political violence, even though itse behind closed doors. Okay,
so jd Vance says, well, as long as they're not
talking like that, you know, then I think we need
to be focusing on the Democrats, because Democrats are the
(21:52):
ones calling for violence. He used that one example to
say it. Okay, calling for the two bullets in the
hit political violence is wrong. Calling for political or violence
is wrong. Totally. We'll see that. But watch this, let
me go back up. They revert to black people as
monkeys and the watermelon people, and am used about putting
their political opponents in gas chambers. Does that not sound
(22:13):
like political violence that JD evans? All right, I got
a couple more notes here, but I don't need to
get to them. Cute. I want to make sure that
you have a long runway here, so your thoughts.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Not sure how long my runway is, but I would
try to communicate some things, especially with regards to Ronald
Reagan and Republicans in general. You said they were they
used to not want to be associated with racism. They've
always not cared about being associated with racism. They do
overtly racist things. They just don't like being called racist. Okay,
(22:47):
that's what I'm trying, and that's still true today. They
still don't like being labeled that way, even though they've
gotten more and more overt at the racist things that
they do and say. Ronald Reagan is a great example
to use of what old Republicans used to do. So
Ronald Reagan issued executive orders to enhance federal support for HBCUs.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
Hey, look, I'm not racist, you know.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
He signed legislation like the Excellence in Minority Health, Education
and Care Act, which supported predominantly black health professions and students. However,
he cut actual funding to higher education, increased cost of
higher education, and took grants and turned them into loans,
(23:34):
which created barriers to access higher education for black people.
So it's like, hey, look, I have a black friend.
I couldn't be racist while doing incredibly racist things. So
he was one of the pioneers right of making sure
we didn't become a socialist country because black people would
(23:57):
benefit from such programs. So, as you said, a veneer
of goodness, a veneer of benevolence. But the underbelly and
the internal combustion engine that drove policies for Republicans forever
(24:18):
has been based on the oppression of black and poor people.
But racism was the vehicle, because that's how you convince
poor white people to vote against their own best interests,
if you make them other and hate their neighbors that
are black and blame their conditions on their neighbors that
are black, and then later hispanic. So it's really really
(24:41):
interesting that you brought up Ronald Reagan, my least favorite
president of all time, because I understand almost fully that
he's the reason why we don't have greater.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
Access to education and healthcare. He literally.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Created policy to make those things less accessible to everyone,
to make sure they were less accessible to us.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Yeah, and I want to add one more thing here,
because I know that people that listen to this that
disagree are going to say Republicans are simply just not racist.
This is just a small group of whatever, however they
explain it. And then they're going to push back and
say it's the Democrats who are racist. Right, Democrats were
(25:28):
the party of slavery. Conservatives were the party of slavery.
Once upon a time, the Conservatives called themselves the Democrats. Okay,
it's the Conservatives that wanted to conserve slavery. I want
to make sure that that's stated well stated. And you know,
the two parties of the two party system, they've been
(25:48):
called by a number of names throughout the years in
this country, this country's existence, but they switched platforms. The
beginning of that started around the time of the Great Depression,
kind of solidified the time of the Civil Rights movement
just after that, when black people kind of put their
support behind the newly minted Democratic Party using that term.
(26:11):
The other thing that I want to say is that
people will say, well, it's not Democrats, it's their failed policies.
You know. The Democrats themselves might, you know, try to
smile all in your face, but really they do racist stuff.
They're racist policies, look at inner cities, blah blah blah.
They have all those conversations. But I could argue successfully
against anybody that Republican policies are far more damaging in
(26:35):
the material world that we all share, the reality that
we all live in for black, brown, and marginalized people,
than Democratic parties policies. Democratic policies at least are based
in the idea that something good might happen, and Republican
policies don't even account for that. And that is a
distinction I think everybody needs to come to terms with
(26:57):
in order for us to have a functioning conversation.
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