October 18, 2025 • 27 mins
Hosts Ramses Ja and Q Ward discuss the Young Kansas Republican organization on today's podcast .
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Broadcasting from the Civic Cypher Studios. Welcome to the QR code,
where we share perspective, is seek understanding and shape outcomes.
The man you are about to hear from is a
man who is always willing to take a little bit
of extra time to make sure I understand fully. It
means the world to me and he's such a special
(00:23):
person in my life. He is a Q in the
QR code. He goes by the name of q Ward.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
The voice that you just heard is the person I
would select to have the debate the debate with anyone
opposed to us, because he'd be the most prepared. He
is the north star of the show, My brother. They
are in the QR code. He goes by the name
ramses Jah And we.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Need to stick around. We got a special show in
store for you today. A little later on in the show,
we're going to be talking to a bright young mind
in the political space. He is a content creator and
a political pundit. He's thirteen years old. He goes by
the name of Noah. Dave barasso Q actually introduced me
to him, and he is doing some big things and
(01:10):
we're gonna tap in with him a bit later to
get his thoughts on young people's role in politics, even
if they're not voting age yet, and how politics does
involve young people and that you know, those of us
in a position to vote and shape the world can
account for young people a little bit better. So really
(01:34):
excited to talk to him. And then we're going to
contrast that with the first part of the show, where
we spend a good amount of time talking about young
Republican leadership. We kind of touched on it a bit yesterday.
I suspect I'm gonna be talking about a little bit more.
But the short of it is a group chat leaked
and it exposed how Republican leadership behaves and it's very set.
(02:00):
But before we get there, as always, we'd like to
start off the show with a feel good feature. In
today's feel good feature comes from the Associated Press. The
Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation announced a fifty million 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
(02:24):
ten thousand students with gap scholarships if they are approaching
graduation in good academic standing and have exhausted all other
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, unquote, said Fee Twerski,
(02:47):
the foundation's president. The ten year commitment comes days after
the Trump administration said it would redirect nearly five hundred
million in federal funding toward HBCUs and tribal colleges as
a one time investment. A 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
(03:08):
higher education. So that's that's something. I mean, fifty million
doesn't offset five hundred million, but it symbolically it matters,
and it shows that the be all and end all
(03:28):
is not Donald Trump, and a lot of people, especially
on college campuses, might have needed that hope.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
Any thoughts her, cub Like you said, and I'm glad
that everyone.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Hasn't subscribed to MAGA, Yeah, right, Like it's not it's
not everything that we need.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
It's not enough, a.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
But it does feel good to hear that there is
someone who's profited from capitalism that hasn't completely sold their souls,
if you will, all.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
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.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Some of these.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
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 frontlad this with a lot of written word. But again,
I promise, if you 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
(05:04):
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 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.
(05:27):
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 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
(05:48):
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 everyone that votes know is going
to the gas chamber. Junta was referring to an upcoming
(06:09):
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. We only want true believers unquote,
he continued. Two members of the chat responded, quote, can
(06:31):
we fix the showers? Gas chambers don't fit the hitler estheticote.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
Joe Maligno, who.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
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 kkatie, I think that's
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
(06:59):
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
member of the group chat is no longer employed at
their job, and another's job offer was rescinded. Prominent New
(07:19):
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
pages of chats shared among a dozen millennial and gen
(07:41):
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
review culture where racist, anti semitic, and violent rhetoric circulate freely,
(08:04):
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
think this is a good stopping point. I want to
(08:26):
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
realize how long it went on. And as opposed to
(08:47):
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. Now. I said this on a recent episode.
I'll say it again. This is the future of the
(09:08):
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 gives insight into the culture of Republicanism around the country.
(09:30):
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
goes all the way back. And so for people who
vote Republican, people who you know, feel like conservative is
(09:54):
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
victim complex, instead of saying that we're imagining things, they
(10:18):
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.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
QO. 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):
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 cookie cut background. They'd go to college, they'd have roommates,
they'd have teammates, they'd have boyfriends, they had girlfriends, they
(11:06):
had neighbors, they'd have friends, they 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. And I'm watching that narrative dissolve because
those very strong paths down from generation to generation, seeds
(11:29):
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 generation
of young people is going to bring forward this less racist,
more accepting world, and we're seeing the very youngest of
(11:56):
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 felt sixty
seventy eighty years ago, that we haven't made all this progress,
that we are not closer to a country and a
(12:16):
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 not specific to
just this story, but it kind of shures up the
(12:37):
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 once upon a time,
but the ideals were the same. It's incredible discouraging, disheartening,
(13:01):
and really heartbreaking.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
I'm like, I've been.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
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 it's not that it's happening slowly and that 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,
(13:28):
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 we have a prep sheet that we work
(13:57):
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.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
He made the.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Comment in a nineteen seventy one telephone call with then
President Richard Nixon. By the way, I heard this phone call, Ramses,
I heard it with these ears. I heard them say
all this 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,
(14:45):
who was governor of California at the time, 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. He said,
(15:10):
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 right now. If
you want to hear the rest of it, it's recorded.
(15:32):
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. Ronald Reagan,
Richard Nixon. You know, all these the racist people, strom Thurman,
(15:54):
all these folks. I guess he was like outwardly racist,
but people were 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 being
monkeys and whatever and surprise wearing shoes or whatever. It's
(16:24):
one of the things that Republicans kind of rely on
to maintain their fidelity to that party while still 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
(16:45):
want to make is, remember I just said, I just
quoted what was it, Ronald Reagan calling African delegates monkeys?
Ronald Reagan. That was the president. So it was Richard Nixon, who,
by the way, set his own nonsense in this call.
But Ronald Reagan, the person who black people, he had
(17:07):
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
black people monkeys. Okay, that's Republican leadership from you know,
(17:28):
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 to
black people as monkeys and the watermelon people, and mused
(17:53):
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 them monkeys,
and now these young Republicans calling them monkeys.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
The other day. Okay.
Speaker 1 (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?
Speaker 3 (18:47):
That's the answer.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Okay, Now, Republicans don't like that answer because they don't
like to, or at least once upon a time, they
did not 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
(19:09):
this nonsense that we've been talking about all along, and
it typically doesn't get exposed until somebody exposes it. Imagine
what we 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
(19:32):
while it has a most pronounced effect on black and
brown and marginalized people, it cannot be legally determined to
only negatively impact black and brown and marginalized people. So
they use this political language, in this legalese or whatever
(19:55):
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. 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
(20:18):
these young Republican leaders. Okay this from PBS dot org.
Vans forty one said he grew up in a different
era where most of what the stupid things that I
did as a 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,
(20:39):
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 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
(20:59):
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 to this conversation that you and
I have han 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
(21:20):
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 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 vidence,
(21:41):
even though 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 ones calling for violence. He
used that one example to say it. Okay, calling for
the two bullets in the head political violence is wrong.
Calling for political violence is wrong.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Totally. We'll see that. But watch this. Let me go
back up.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
They're revert to black people as monkeys and the watermelon people,
and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers.
Does that not sound like political violence that JD evans?
All right, I got a couple more notes here, but
I don't need to get to them.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
Cute.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
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 will
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 access to
education and healthcare.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
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 at
the beginning of that started around the time of the
Great Depression, kind of solidified on the time of the
Civil Rights movement, and just after that when black people
kind of put their support behind the newly minted Democratic Party.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
Using that term.
Speaker 1 (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 Civic Cypher Studios. Welcome to the QR code,
where we share perspective, is seek understanding and shape outcomes.
The man you are about to hear from is a
man who is always willing to take a little bit
of extra time to make sure I understand fully. It
means the world to me and he's such a special
(00:23):
person in my life. He is a Q in the
QR code. He goes by the name of q Ward.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
The voice that you just heard is the person I
would select to have the debate the debate with anyone
opposed to us, because he'd be the most prepared. He
is the north star of the show, My brother. They
are in the QR code. He goes by the name
ramses Jah And we.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Need to stick around. We got a special show in
store for you today. A little later on in the show,
we're going to be talking to a bright young mind
in the political space. He is a content creator and
a political pundit. He's thirteen years old. He goes by
the name of Noah. Dave barasso Q actually introduced me
to him, and he is doing some big things and
(01:10):
we're gonna tap in with him a bit later to
get his thoughts on young people's role in politics, even
if they're not voting age yet, and how politics does
involve young people and that you know, those of us
in a position to vote and shape the world can
account for young people a little bit better. So really
(01:34):
excited to talk to him. And then we're going to
contrast that with the first part of the show, where
we spend a good amount of time talking about young
Republican leadership. We kind of touched on it a bit yesterday.
I suspect I'm gonna be talking about a little bit more.
But the short of it is a group chat leaked
and it exposed how Republican leadership behaves and it's very set.
(02:00):
But before we get there, as always, we'd like to
start off the show with a feel good feature. In
today's feel good feature comes from the Associated Press. The
Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation announced a fifty million 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
(02:24):
ten thousand students with gap scholarships if they are approaching
graduation in good academic standing and have exhausted all other
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, unquote, said Fee Twerski,
(02:47):
the foundation's president. The ten year commitment comes days after
the Trump administration said it would redirect nearly five hundred
million in federal funding toward HBCUs and tribal colleges as
a one time investment. A 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
(03:08):
higher education. So that's that's something. I mean, fifty million
doesn't offset five hundred million, but it symbolically it matters,
and it shows that the be all and end all
(03:28):
is not Donald Trump, and a lot of people, especially
on college campuses, might have needed that hope.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
Any thoughts her, cub Like you said, and I'm glad
that everyone.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Hasn't subscribed to MAGA, Yeah, right, Like it's not it's
not everything that we need.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
It's not enough, a.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
But it does feel good to hear that there is
someone who's profited from capitalism that hasn't completely sold their souls,
if you will, all.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
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.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Some of these.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
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 frontlad this with a lot of written word. But again,
I promise, if you 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
(05:04):
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 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.
(05:27):
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 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
(05:48):
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 everyone that votes know is going
to the gas chamber. Junta was referring to an upcoming
(06:09):
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. We only want true believers unquote,
he continued. Two members of the chat responded, quote, can
(06:31):
we fix the showers? Gas chambers don't fit the hitler estheticote.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
Joe Maligno, who.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
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 kkatie, I think that's
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
(06:59):
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
member of the group chat is no longer employed at
their job, and another's job offer was rescinded. Prominent New
(07:19):
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
pages of chats shared among a dozen millennial and gen
(07:41):
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
review culture where racist, anti semitic, and violent rhetoric circulate freely,
(08:04):
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
think this is a good stopping point. I want to
(08:26):
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
realize how long it went on. And as opposed to
(08:47):
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. Now. I said this on a recent episode.
I'll say it again. This is the future of the
(09:08):
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 gives insight into the culture of Republicanism around the country.
(09:30):
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
goes all the way back. And so for people who
vote Republican, people who you know, feel like conservative is
(09:54):
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
victim complex, instead of saying that we're imagining things, they
(10:18):
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.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
QO. 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):
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 cookie cut background. They'd go to college, they'd have roommates,
they'd have teammates, they'd have boyfriends, they had girlfriends, they
(11:06):
had neighbors, they'd have friends, they 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. And I'm watching that narrative dissolve because
those very strong paths down from generation to generation, seeds
(11:29):
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 generation
of young people is going to bring forward this less racist,
more accepting world, and we're seeing the very youngest of
(11:56):
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 felt sixty
seventy eighty years ago, that we haven't made all this progress,
that we are not closer to a country and a
(12:16):
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 not specific to
just this story, but it kind of shures up the
(12:37):
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 once upon a time,
but the ideals were the same. It's incredible discouraging, disheartening,
(13:01):
and really heartbreaking.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
I'm like, I've been.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
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 it's not that it's happening slowly and that 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,
(13:28):
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 we have a prep sheet that we work
(13:57):
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.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
He made the.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Comment in a nineteen seventy one telephone call with then
President Richard Nixon. By the way, I heard this phone call, Ramses,
I heard it with these ears. I heard them say
all this 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,
(14:45):
who was governor of California at the time, 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. He said,
(15:10):
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 right now. If
you want to hear the rest of it, it's recorded.
(15:32):
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. Ronald Reagan,
Richard Nixon. You know, all these the racist people, strom Thurman,
(15:54):
all these folks. I guess he was like outwardly racist,
but people were 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 being
monkeys and whatever and surprise wearing shoes or whatever. It's
(16:24):
one of the things that Republicans kind of rely on
to maintain their fidelity to that party while still 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
(16:45):
want to make is, remember I just said, I just
quoted what was it, Ronald Reagan calling African delegates monkeys?
Ronald Reagan. That was the president. So it was Richard Nixon, who,
by the way, set his own nonsense in this call.
But Ronald Reagan, the person who black people, he had
(17:07):
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
black people monkeys. Okay, that's Republican leadership from you know,
(17:28):
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 to
black people as monkeys and the watermelon people, and mused
(17:53):
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 them monkeys,
and now these young Republicans calling them monkeys.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
The other day. Okay.
Speaker 1 (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?
Speaker 3 (18:47):
That's the answer.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Okay, Now, Republicans don't like that answer because they don't
like to, or at least once upon a time, they
did not 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
(19:09):
this nonsense that we've been talking about all along, and
it typically doesn't get exposed until somebody exposes it. Imagine
what we 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
(19:32):
while it has a most pronounced effect on black and
brown and marginalized people, it cannot be legally determined to
only negatively impact black and brown and marginalized people. So
they use this political language, in this legalese or whatever
(19:55):
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. 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
(20:18):
these young Republican leaders. Okay this from PBS dot org.
Vans forty one said he grew up in a different
era where most of what the stupid things that I
did as a 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,
(20:39):
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 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
(20:59):
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 to this conversation that you and
I have han 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
(21:20):
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 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 vidence,
(21:41):
even though 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 ones calling for violence. He
used that one example to say it. Okay, calling for
the two bullets in the head political violence is wrong.
Calling for political violence is wrong.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Totally. We'll see that. But watch this. Let me go
back up.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
They're revert to black people as monkeys and the watermelon people,
and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers.
Does that not sound like political violence that JD evans?
All right, I got a couple more notes here, but
I don't need to get to them.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
Cute.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
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 will
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 access to
education and healthcare.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
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 at
the beginning of that started around the time of the
Great Depression, kind of solidified on the time of the
Civil Rights movement, and just after that when black people
kind of put their support behind the newly minted Democratic Party.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
Using that term.
Speaker 1 (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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