NEW YORK — 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 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.


I'd love to say this surprises me, but it does not in the slightest.

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[–] 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I appreciate your capacity for giving people the benefit of the doubt. It is an honorable quality...but you have some context - these are the private chats of conservative staffers communicating in private. I can tell you, as someone who has been in private work chats, that there is room for irony but these chats are not using gas chamber imagery because they really believe in the intrinsic dignity of minority groups.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

    well no, obviously not. They're privately mocking people.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Right, and private mockery contains the verisimilitude of their intent. They may not be ready to spin up a gas chamber but their chats are fully representative of their attitudes about millions of americans and fully serves as a legitimate basis of criticism and derision.

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