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nazis
'Disgusting': Racist, Homophobic, Antisemitic, and Violent Private Chats of GOP Leaders Exposed
"These are the people who pretend to be offended when called Nazis."
Oct 15, 2025
Is this who they are when not in view of public judgment or recrimination?
That is just one of the questions being widely asked after Politico on Tuesday revealed nearly seven months of grotesque private chats between members of Leaders of Young Republicans, the party's batch of up-and-comers, though already in positions of power within the faction's ranks.
From praising Adolf Hitler to casual use of racial slurs and calls for violence against their opponents, the Telegram chat logs obtained by Politico paint a picture of vile individuals who share a deep loyalty to President Donald Trump and reveled in sadistic contempt for their political enemies, hatred of minorities, and lust for power.
As Politico reports,
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 they believed support slavery.
William Hendrix, the Kansas Young Republicans’ vice chair, used the words “n--ga” and “n--guh,” variations of a 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 Giunta, who at the time was chair of the same organization, wrote in a message sent in June that “everyone that votes no is going to the gas chamber.”
Reaction to the leaked private messages was swift and full of contempt, if not shock.
"Welcome to Trump’s Republican Party," said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) in response to the reporting. "Disgusting."
" Racism, rape, homophobia, antisemitism … Are we greater yet?" asked Maya Wiley, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. "Feel safer?"
According to Politico, "the messages reveal a culture where racist, antisemitic 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."
The members themselves seemed to recognize that if their free-flowing conversations were ever revealed to the public, it would be bad. "If we ever had a leak of this chat, we would be cooked," said one member inside one of the chat threads. But as Politico noted, "they kept typing anyway."
Melanie D'Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health, an advocacy group, said, "These are the people who pretend to be offended when called Nazis. Where’s the GOP leadership outrage?"
Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) came under fire in the wake of Politico's reporting, given her vocal support for the New York members of the group, many of whom were identified and named in the reporting. Just this summer, Stefanik called them the "backbone" of the Republican Party and key to its future.
Some of Stefanik's top young allies in the party, noted Addison Dick, a member of the New York Democrats' communication team, "praised Hitler, called to put opponents in gas chambers, and repeatedly used racist and antisemitic hate speech in leaked chats." Dick was among those chiding Stefanik for characterizing the reporting as a "hit piece" as opposed to more harshly condemning the vile behavior it exposed among her party's core of young leaders.
For his part, Vice President JD Vance said he would not join in the "pearl clutching" over the leaked chat logs and refused to condemn the myriad examples of racist, sexist, antisemitic, and calls to violence by the group of party officials.
New York Gov. Katherine Hochul, a Democrat, was asked about the revelations during a Tuesday afternoon press conference, and whether it was a case of a few "bad apples" or a "deeper toxicity" within the entire Republican Party.
Q: Politico reported on a group chat of young Republicans. Does this just reflect some bad apples?
HOCHUL: Some bad apples? These are the future of the Republican Party. This is so vile it's hard to find the words to put into context that these are people who are part of one of… pic.twitter.com/aDjnmcQTaJ
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 14, 2025
"Some bad apples? These are the future of the Republican Party," Hochul responded. "This was so vile it's hard to find the words to put into context that these are people who are part of one of the two major political parties, and they believe in gas chambers, rape, and discrimination based on the color of people's skin. These are racist, sexist, disgusting remarks."
"And I would say this," Hochul continued, also calling out Stefanik as the highest-ranking elected GOP official in the state for her history of inflammatory and bigoted comments, most notably against New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, a Muslim, whom Stefanik has called a "jihadist" and "terrorist."
Stefanik, said the governor, should do a bit of self-reflection and "reexamination" of her own "inflammatory words" and of her broader role in influencing these young members and "normalizing" such thinking and rhetoric. As for the members exposed in the chats, Hochul said "there's gotta be consequences" for their behavior and that everyone in the party, from Trump on down, should condemn it.
"Kick them out of the party. Take away their official roles. Stop using them as campaign advisers," she advised. "This bullshit has to stop."
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Political Sadism and Defying the Power of Cruelty
While cruelty can be contagious, tyrants fall not just because people oppose them, but because, deep down, most of us long for a world where respect is earned through decency, not domination.
Mar 17, 2025
When I was 10 or 11, I joined up with a group of girls at summer camp to single out a tall, gawky campmate who had reached puberty much earlier than the rest of us. Ganging up on Ilene was a way to bond with the other girls, to reassure myself that I wasn’t an undesirable outsider like her. There was a brief, intoxicating sense of power in it that quickly curdled into guilt when her mom came to speak to the camp counselor about her daughter’s misery.
While I’m embarrassed by this memory, I think under the right circumstances almost all of us are capable of being cruel. It often arises when we’re repulsed by our own insecurity or weakness. We then project it onto others so we can avoid feeling bad about ourselves.
Cruelty is also a tool of power. From authoritarian rulers to internet trolls, cruelty is often disguised as strength, when instead it reveals a profound weakness—an inability to engage with others in good faith. Right now we see it playing out in the White House, as U.S. President Donald Trump tries to assert his control through fear, modeling the dictators he coddles. “Trump is acting like a king because he is too weak to govern like a president,” explains journalist Ezra Klein. Terrorists use terror because they know it’s the only tool they have.
When cruelty becomes fashionable—when it is seen as strength rather than a moral failing—societies descend into darkness.
As a child of Holocaust survivors, the president’s public displays of callousness chill me. His proud, unapologetic heartlessness reminds me how humans are capable of unspeakable brutality. Yale University psychology professor Paul Bloom describes cruelty as even worse than dehumanization. Dehumanization is what enables soldiers to enter into battle and kill without moral paralysis. By contrast, Bloom writes, “Cruelty is when you act fully aware of the humanity of the persons you are mistreating or humiliating. In fact, that’s the whole point.”
This sadistic streak was fully evident when Trump and Vice President JD Vance ganged up on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, making him grovel for an empty deal and publicly humiliating him for being insufficiently submissive. That the meeting was even televised made it feel like a gladiator fight in the Colosseum. Red meat for the masses. A signal that cruelty is not only acceptable, but to be celebrated. “This is going to be great television,” said Trump, smiling at the cameras as the meeting ended.
And that's what really makes this so dangerous. Because history shows us that cruelty has a seductive pull. The Nazis weren’t an anomaly; they were an extreme manifestation of a tendency that has existed throughout human history. When cruelty becomes fashionable—when it is seen as strength rather than a moral failing—societies descend into darkness. And cruelty, when normalized, begets more cruelty. One sees it in how families often pass down abusive behavior over generations or how everyday Germans behaved under Hitler during World War II. “If you and I were in Nazi Germany,” says Bloom, “we’d like to think we’d be the righteous ones, we’d be the heroes. But we might just be regular old Nazis.”
Ultimately though, while cruelty can be contagious, tyrants fall not just because people oppose them, but because, deep down, most of us long for a world where respect is earned through decency, not domination. Through every dark time in history, there is always a counterforce—a fundamental human longing for justice and decency—that helps bring down oppressive regimes. In the end, cruelty is a learned behavior, but it’s also a choice. It’s easy to be an asshole, especially under duress, while compassion takes practice and intention. If we recognize our own capacity to be cruel, we can opt to counter it or at least refuse to nourish it.
But it’s not that easy. When I hear about the slashing of programs that will result in the death and suffering of millions or how trans people and immigrants are being scapegoated to serve as distractions from billionaire plunder or when Musk says that “empathy will be the downfall of western civilization,” I feel murderous. It makes me feel cruel and stirs a desire for retribution. Yet, if I let the rage take over, I have fallen right into Elon’s trap.
Recently, I was talking with my best friend from high school about Israel when she told me that Muslims aren’t like us, that you couldn’t think of them as people. My gut response was to berate and shame her. But instead, I chose to hold back until I could give more thought to my response. Two days later she called me to tell me that her partner was gravely ill. We still haven't been able to talk about her troubling words, but now I have a better idea of what I will say. I will ask her to share the pain behind her anger. I’m not sure what made her utter the words she used, but I’m pretty sure it had nothing to do with Muslims.
When we do talk, I hope she can acknowledge her misplaced resentment and that we can repair our relationship. I hope I’m able to extend her some compassion and not lash out. I will remind myself that the world won’t get better by giving in to my worst instincts. If we are to defy the power of cruelty, we must choose—again and again—to respond with something better.
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February Strike of 1941: When Citizens Took to the Streets Against the Nazis
Remembering how Amsterdam's working class stood up against Adolf Hitler's extermination of the Jews.
Feb 15, 2025
In three days, Amsterdam organized the only general strike in Europe to protest the first roundup of Jews. People poured into the streets on February 25, 1941—an estimated 300,000 of the 800,000 total who lived in the city.
The first to march were the tram and dock workers. The civil servants followed and word spread through the whole city, even to the small sewing workshop where a woman named Mientje Meijer worked. She and her husband had talked about it, and he came to the window to let her know it was really happening. She stopped her treadle, rose to her feet, and said, “Ladies, all of Amsterdam has come to a standstill because they’ve been rounding up Jews and taking them away. We’ve got to join in.”
The ladies poured out, even the boss, and joined the multitudes: teachers, metal workers, factory employees, shop clerks, people from across the political spectrum. Some were furious that their fellow citizens’ rights had been violated, some wanted to protest the Nazi occupation, and some just hated the Germans. Whatever their motives, they stopped the city in its tracks.
How did they organize so fast? A road builder and a street sweeper who belonged to the banned but well-organized Communist Party decided to call a meeting and take action. They had heard that hundreds of Jewish men had been rounded up on the square between the immense Portuguese Synagogue and the four smaller Ashkenazi ones. The communists gathered with trade union representatives and others at the Noorderkerk in the workers’ part of the city. They enlisted political and moral allies. Soon, a mimeographed leaflet urged everyone to “Strike! Strike! Strike! Shut down all of Amsterdam for a day!” And they did. The Strike even reached a few other cities before the German occupiers reacted with force.
Only limited public protest was heard the year before, at the time when Jews were fired from the civil service, including professors from the universities. Therefore, the Germans were dumbfounded in February 1941 when the Dutch, their Aryan brothers and sisters, took to the streets en masse. But the Nazis recovered fast and ordered the use of rifles and hand grenades to stop the strike.
By the time it was over a few days later, about 200 people had been arrested, nine had been killed, and 50 injured. For the rest of the war, the February Strike remained the only general strike in Europe to protest the roundups. Tragically, it was futile: about 75% of the Dutch Jewish population was mass murdered. Yet the strike remains in our memories as one of the few times ordinary people stood together against the deportation of their Jewish neighbors. It meant something to many Dutch survivors as long as they lived.
I learned about the Strike at the time of its 60th commemoration in 2001. Every year, people gather to remember, right where the first roundups took place. They stand around the statue of the Dockworker who is the symbolic figure of the Strike. Sculpted by a resistance worker who survived, the hefty figure wears a worker’s cap, looking not at us but beyond us, his hands at his sides, open but ready to form fists.
In 2001, the square was crammed with people, some old enough to have been alive at the time, others young families, others men of all ages with yarmulkes, and individuals formally dressed in black who proved to be diplomats. Everyone was quiet, even little children. The commemoration began with a few short speeches and a poem, but the main event was this: people were invited, a few at a time, to approach the Dockworker, stand for a moment, and lay flowers.
The elders approached first, those who might have been present at the Strike. Next the Jewish organizations placed their big wreaths, often laid by children. Similar offerings came from the European Trade Union Federation, from the people of Sweden and the United States, and others. But the vast majority of the flowers were small bouquets tied with ribbons, like a dozen red tulips bound by aluminum foil with a bit of wet paper inside. Some were accompanied by a personal note written in ink in a scrawly hand.
It took an hour and a half on that frigid afternoon to lay all the flowers, and they stayed there unmolested for days. The flowers remained until they were all dead and had to be carried away.
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