Supremacism and Priority: Republicans and the American Right Wing

It doesn't help that the shifting Overton Window is partly from the internet driven ethos of everyone competing for attention by trying to amp up the shock value. There's this broad cultural shift towards megaphone discourse and getting clicks for being outrageous. I suspect the most vile comments come from people who are reticent, even cowardly, in real life, and possibly have been abused growing up. The social media give them a place to let out their rage monster and kick whatever vulnerable scapegoats they can locate.
 
It doesn't help that the shifting Overton Window is partly from the internet driven ethos of everyone competing for attention by trying to amp up the shock value. There's this broad cultural shift towards megaphone discourse and getting clicks for being outrageous. I suspect the most vile comments come from people who are reticent, even cowardly, in real life, and possibly have been abused growing up. The social media give them a place to let out their rage monster and kick whatever vulnerable scapegoats they can locate.
You are too kind to humanity. Civilisation is only skin deep. It doesn’t take a lot to strip it away and reveal the barbarous nature of quite ordinary people, especially in the anonymity of a crowd. That anonymity is what the internet provides, and the algorithms of social media do the rest by skewing information towards the provocative and extreme.

I am reading about the Hindu/Muslim riots and massacres around the partition of India. People of different faiths who had lived happily next door to another for decades took up sticks and knives and murdered one another, men, women and children alike. They expressed shock and amazement that this could happen, even as they were doing it.
 
The Epic Epic

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It doesn't help that the shifting Overton Window is partly from the internet driven ethos of everyone competing for attention by trying to amp up the shock value. There's this broad cultural shift towards megaphone discourse and getting clicks for being outrageous. I suspect the most vile comments come from people who are reticent, even cowardly, in real life, and possibly have been abused growing up. The social media give them a place to let out their rage monster and kick whatever vulnerable scapegoats they can locate.

Just to make sure I understand: Are you really going with, ¡Oh, those poor Nazis!

If we think of it like the Rowling question, ¿Why are the bigots the real victims, here? then we have at least a hint at one of the priorities in the juxtaposition of conservative and Republican Party values.

The excuses you're making today are the same ones that empowered Trumpism.

Or, as Fabiola Cineas↗ explained, in the wake of the Wednesday Putsch: "What's evident is that the organizers of Wednesday's rallies were not taken seriously, as white extremists are often infantilized and given room to work out their feelings and blow off steam. We are told we need to listen to them, to try to understand their plight and psychology."

And, well, here you are. And here we go. Again. I guess.

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Alt-take: These Young Republicans include people my age peers would have raised; there is nothing about their conduct that surprises me. And the seeming mockery, this appeal to blaming society in order to mitigate the behavior of rightists when it was conservatives and rightists who have, the whole time, disdained and mocked sociological and psychological discussions of behavior. Once upon a time, it was a smug rhyme, "If you can't do the time, don't do the crime." And that meant as much toward a parent's right to spank a mouthy child as it did a life sentence for petty shoplifting. But when it comes to white supremacism, misogyny, and other traditional prejudice, well, now I guess all those people believe in what they used to deride as blaming everybody else.

And perhaps it might seem subtle to those with only partial learning of an issue, as I have been reminded before, but it's like all the middle roaders more worried about something something liberals always shutting down the discussion. This is what they've been protecting the whole time, and if they really want us to believe they just didn't know, we're long past the point of believing them. They knew damn well what they were supporting.

†​

Related note: Those who wonder why elected Democrats are so often reluctant to bring progressive initiative to bear, this episode is actually an example. American liberals are well aware, from the practical learning of having been through it again and again and again, that as soon as they throw down, out come the middling objections to the point of existential mockery. Knowing this is how the bill fails, with people angry at Democrats for being too mean to villains, they're reflexively reluctant to get voted out of office for a bill their voters don't really want. (The really obvious elephant in the room is the conservative turn against their darling individual mandate, which included Republicans trashing one of their own, Bob Dole, as a Nazi, and there's a reason nobody else remembers.)

 
Just to make sure I understand: Are you really going with, ¡Oh, those poor Nazis!
It's okay, I think several misunderstood my comment, which was more a psychological observation on how people can wear masks on the Web and let out their rage there. Just because some of that comes from their adequacy issues or past abuse does not excuse it morally - it is still vile and such people need to be held accountable for spreading hatred and racism. I know plenty of people who had poison poured in their ears growing up, and then repudiated all that and took a more compassionate path. So I do think we're responsible for our actions and verbal violence.
 
The excuses you're making today are the same ones that empowered Trumpism.
See my above reply. I will just skip psychological observations in future, because it gets misunderstood as excuse making. It's not. It just means I can both call someone out for hate speech....and pity them. There's no law requiring we have only one emotion towards a foe.
 
And I'll just add, FWIW, I thought "Rape is epic," one of the most horrible and callous things I've heard come from a human piehole. Clearly they need to spend some time sharing a prison cell with Big Bubba and be on the receiving end of some "epic" moments in personal violation.
 
See my above reply. I will just skip psychological observations in future, because it gets misunderstood as excuse making. It's not. It just means I can both call someone out for hate speech....and pity them. There's no law requiring we have only one emotion towards a foe.
I can partly understand this, though I tend to regard sympathy and compassion as finite resources--there are so many instances for which I strive to understand the underlying etiology of the pathology, but I just can't be bothered to allocate any sympathy when there are so many who are simply far more deserving.

The Hitler Youth young Charlie Kirk disciples turning on Vivek Ramaswamy (fuck him, of course) is one of those borderline cases. I mean, some of these kids seem pretty young, but still...
 
It's Kind of Like Guns: At Some Point, It's the Goddamned Motherfucking Supremacism

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It's okay, I think several misunderstood my comment, which was more a psychological observation on how people can wear masks on the Web and let out their rage there.

Well, that's the thing. I get it, but it's this thing people do, and the fact of how they do it is significant. It's kind of like the "this is fine" meme; back when some people talked this way, we were wrong to read too much into it, and now that it's actually happening, of course someone's first instinct is to go do that thing that isn't what it looks like but apparently the appearance can't be avoided because maybe somebody has to be the one to stand up for not demonizing the demonizers by making true statements about their behavior.

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Here, two notions of what is described as a suicide pact. That is to say, "the Constitution is not a suicide pact".

What it actually means is that the nation will depart from the Constitution for the sake of certain fear and favor. Famous applications are Jefferson's latter-day justification of the Purchase, when to silence pacifism, and when who needs what right to tamper with which evidence in order to conceal crime. The underlying idea is that society will collapse under the burden of such exacting application. Like See (1967), in which the Constitution dies if you don't give employers time to hide evidence of wrongdoing; the Constitution is not a suicide pact, so going to work must be.

What it does not mean is that the Constitution should not invalidate itself in order to fulfill itself. It's why I ask a certain question about censorship: We must allow certain people an implicitly nonreciprocal empowerment to censor what displeases them or else their free speech is abridged.

In this way, of course it's time to blame society in order to alleviate some of this particular culpability because that same society will collapse if we don't find some way to shift some portion of the blame to other people.

†​

And, of course our consideration must be for those not simply who reject such consideration for others, but also who would reject ongoing societal discourse about increasing peer pressure and the temptations of anonymity. Remember the bleeding hearts, white knights, snowflakes, esjaydubs, pajama boys, &c., i.e., the people they've mocked. Yes, I know their parents' generations. Consider, please:

I suspect the most vile comments come from people who are reticent, even cowardly, in real life, and possibly have been abused growing up. The social media give them a place to let out their rage monster and kick whatever vulnerable scapegoats they can locate.

This is an interesting analysis that even has an applicable context, but do please consider that these reticent, even cowardly in real life, potential victims are also the executive tier of the Young Republicans, people who intend to run campaigns and even seek office; the craven joke about Indian women included a twenty-seven year-old state senator.

Again, per Politico:

"The more the political atmosphere is open and liberating — like it has been with the emergence of Trump and a more right wing GOP even before him — it opens up young people and older people to telling racist jokes, making racist commentaries in private and public," said Joe Feagin, a Texas A&M sociology professor who has studied racism for the last 60 years. He's also concerned the words would be applied to public policy. "It's chilling, of course, because they will act on these views."

The dynamic of easy racism and casual cruelty played out in often dark, vivid fashion inside the chats, where campaign talk and party gossip blurred into streams of slurs and violent fantasies ....

.... Liz Huston, a White House spokesperson, rejected the idea that Trump's rhetoric had anything to do with the chat members' language.

"Only an activist, left-wing reporter would desperately try to tie President Trump into a story about a random groupchat he has no affiliation with, while failing to mention the dangerous smears coming from Democrat politicians who have fantasized about murdering their opponent and called Republicans Nazis and Fascists," she said. "No one has been subjected to more vicious rhetoric and violence than President Trump and his supporters" ....

.... Art Jipson, a professor at the University of Dayton who specializes in white racial extremism, surmised the Young Republicans in the chat were influenced by Trump's language, which he said is often hyperbolic and emotionally charged.

"Trump's persistent use of hostile, often inflammatory language that normalizes aggressive discourse in conservative circles can be incredibly influential on young operatives who are still trying to figure out, 'What is that political discourse?'" Jipson said ....

.... Jipson said the Young Republicans' conversations reminded him of online discussions between members of neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups.

"You say it once or twice, it's a joke, but you say it 251 times, it's no longer a joke," Jipson said. "The more we repeat certain ideas, the more real they become to us."

It's the sort of discussion about virtue signaling and ingroup colloquy that we could have had, and society has been having—and conservatives disdaining—for generations. But even as ingroup ritual colloquy and even competitive socialization, at some point we must look past the pressure to mog on one another in order to consider the values of ritual exchange: Hitler fanboy mogging can be looked at in a couple ways, at least. One looks to the fact of mogging as some manner of mitigator; the other considers the point of Hitler fanboy as the comparative value exchange.

(And this is the point in the discussion where someone steps up to complain about the way liberals force people to adopt conservative values by making people uncomfortable by analyzing the fact of everyone competing for attention, or the virtues and impacts of being outrageous. If the comparative value was actual arson, perhaps the point might seem more apparent. But since they're not trying to one-up each other by burning down buildings, but instead just torch the discourse with malice, well, we need to be careful to not suppress political views. You know, like the political views that would suppress everybody else; shit, we wouldn't want to make those people even slightly uncomfortable by being so judgmental as to suggest their behavior is anything less than admirable, you know, the way the fucking liberals always shut down discussions.)​

I get it: They're young and stupid. Please, though, get this: These are the durable values that raised them. And, yes, some of their parents are quite literally my generational cohort. In that way, this ethos is prevalent pretty much my whole life. So, no, I'm sorry, some guy who has a thing for showing his egalitarianism by pointing to excuses for supremacists isn't going to convince me to look away from that danger. We're not going to set the discussion back fifteen years just to supremacists them another fifteen years to work out their feelings and blow off steam. We already know where this goes.
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Notes:

Beeferman, Jason and Emily Ngo. "'I love Hitler': Leaked messages expose Young Republicans' racist chat". Politico. 14 October 2025. Politico.com. 15 October 2025. https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/14/private-chat-among-young-gop-club-members-00592146
 
It Happened Again

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The Man, No Plan, Raise Your Hand: Donald Trump greets the Republican Jewish Coalition, 2015.

Politico:

Paul Ingrassia, President Donald Trump's embattled nominee to lead the Office of Special Counsel, told a group of fellow Republicans in a text chain the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday should be "tossed into the seventh circle of hell" and said he has "a Nazi streak," according to a text chat viewed by POLITICO.

Ingrassia, who has a Senate confirmation hearing scheduled Thursday, made the remarks in a chain with a half-dozen Republican operatives and influencers, according to the chat.

"MLK Jr. was the 1960s George Floyd and his 'holiday' should be ended and tossed into the seventh circle of hell where it belongs," Ingrassia wrote in January 2024, according to the chat.

"Jesus Christ," one participant responded.

Using an Italian slur for Black people, Ingrassia wrote a month earlier in the group chat seen by POLITICO: "No moulignon holidays … From kwanza [sic] to mlk jr day to black history month to Juneteenth," then added: "Every single one needs to be eviscerated."

Maybe we should have paid attention to them before, when they were telling us who they were. Politico claims two participants verfied the content of the discussion, including one who "retained the messages and showed the text chain in its entirety". Ingrassia's attorney both downplayed the messages and doubted them:

A lawyer for Ingrassia, Edward Andrew Paltzik, initially suggested that some of the texts were intended to be poking fun at liberals, though he didn't confirm they were authentic.

"Looks like these texts could be manipulated or are being provided with material context omitted. However, arguendo, even if the texts are authentic, they clearly read as self-deprecating and satirical humor making fun of the fact that liberals outlandishly and routinely call MAGA supporters 'Nazis,'" he wrote in a statement.

Paltzik also claimed, "In reality, Mr. Ingrassia has incredible support from the Jewish community because Jews know that Mr. Ingrassia is the furthest thing from a Nazi."

But this is also the party of the Southern Strategy, since the time of Goldwater; the ironic humor explanation describes an extraordinary accident of history.

If the difference between murder and manslaughter is whoopsie, how many bodies do we need before we can wonder about the whoopsie; that is, maybe once upon a time there was some some rough-hewn ignorance or insensitivity, but these years later, it's probably not unreasonable to expect at least a little bit of effort to guard against (¡ahem!) accidentally piling on even more. Remember, it wasn't Nazi flirtation that wrecked Milo. So, yeah, it's worth recalling how Milo tried to fuel a comeback by releasing audio of an American Nazi↱ doing his Nazi thing, but nobody really cared because Richard Spencer was a known Nazi, and the general expectation was that people would mitigate the Nazi intersection with the right wing of Republican politics by pretending it was fringe irony, and thus not important. Worrying about that kind of stuff was long considered, by conservatives and libertarians alike, what makes liberals so condescending, paternalistic, and thus evil.

Because it's just an accident. It's always an accident. No matter how many times it happens. Nobody has to notice, but no, those dirty liberals just have to make a big deal out of nothing.

(Hint: It's not an accident. This is who they are.)
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Notes:

Lippman, Daniel. "Trump nominee says MLK Jr. holiday belongs in 'hell' and that he has ‘Nazi streak,’ according to texts". Politico. 20 October 2025. Politico.com. 21 October 2025. https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/20/paul-ingrassia-racist-text-messages-nazi-00613608
 
Maybe we should have paid attention to them before, when they were telling us who they were.
One problem people seem to have in maintenance of attention (aside from the mindnumbing banality of their spew) on this sort of "it's just self-deprecation, it's just ironic trollery, it's just an OTT joke" crap is that these sorts of trolls can resemble that American staple: the drunken barstool shithead. There's a conditioned reflex to ignore DBSHs and go join the darts game, or trivia contest, or whatever.

Problem is, the web version is sometimes sober, sometimes has influence, and their venom can spray far and wide. So, as Willy Loman's wife said, "attention must be paid." Albeit, for a different reason.

I lived for a couple years in an Italian-American neighborhood, so I know this guy is secreting some serious bile when he used "moulignon" as a slur. Which is actually a misspelled Calabrian (or Sicilian) variant of the Italian slur melanzane. (It's eggplant, in Italian) A few GOP senators appear to not be fooled by all the RW apologia, and are saying they will vote against his appointment. So there's that.
 
… the drunken barstool shithead. There's a conditioned reflex to ignore DBSHs and go join the darts game, or trivia contest, or whatever.

And to the point that, while we would have derisively compared them to old-school tinfoilers and fluoride conspiracists, it kind of turns out to have been a more direct comparison than that.

It's like that line I come back to now and then↑, how they are often infantilized and given room to work out their feelings and blow off steam. And it is, to recall Sartre↗, an example of how, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors, for it is their adversaries who are obliged to use words responsibly. After all, if it's the critics who are wrong, as such, they are discredited. And as articles of faith go, I don't know if you've ever been in a bar where it's just unwise to have certain discussions because you're going to be wrong no matter what, but as the seriousness of discourse goes, that's about where they're at, the bar full of drunken bigots.

There's nothing an American conservative can do that isn't better blamed on liberals.
 
And it is, to recall Sartre↗, an example of how, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors, for it is their adversaries who are obliged to use words responsibly.

I never properly conveyed that I agree with Sartre, even as you rapped my knuckles with him in another thread. I actually don't doubt that you mostly use words responsibly - I think my Chomsky reference was towards a perceived lack of clarity you displayed in a couple posts. That's no disrespect for most of your well written and insightful posts. (And my perceptions are always open to doubt) A sentence which should convey my greater acceptance of your discursive style. I would as soon we leave a scene of mutual frustration behind, and that you can see me as an ally on the Left who shares a belief in serious discourse and all parties obliged to use words responsibly and with precision.

And yes, I've been in a bar where it's "unwise to have certain discussions because [I'm] going to be wrong no matter what." Just try telling anyone Marx is misunderstood in many an American drinking establishment. ;)
 
These Are the Days of Our Lives

It's easy enough to agree with Alex Cole that there is something "hilarious" in "watching MAGAs lose their minds over a Muslim mayor, like Muslims aren’t already our neighbors, teachers, doctors, cops, and firefighters".

But the history of this period will include literary icon Joyce Carol Oates↱, whose persistent social media presence in the former twitterverse will eventually be curated for its extraordinary historical and literary value:

they are not angry because a New Yorker who is Muslim was elected mayor but because rightwing propaganda has told them to be angry about it just as rightwing propaganda has told them to be angry about transgender persons, Haitians eating cats in Ohio, "illegal immigrants," & something about Christmas.

It's like I said before↗, Will you hear it from the eighty-seven year-old woman?

She's had plenty to say the whole time, but the last year has seen Oates, one of the nation's foremost masters of story, increasingly pointed in political discussions, and in no small part because the algorithm brought the magatude to her feed.

 
She's had plenty to say the whole time, but the last year has seen Oates, one of the nation's foremost masters of story, increasingly pointed in political discussions, and in no small part because the algorithm brought the magatude to her feed.
I have liked seeing her join the likes of George Takei, both having this late in life surge of incisive social media commentary. George is 88.

Also funny that Mamdani gets somehow linked in the slimier feeds to radical Islamic ideology, in spite of his mother being Hindu, his father being mainstream Muslim, and him mostly growing up in the very liberal and secular Upper West Side (Morningside Heights).
 
A major problem with tamping down on hate and vile speech is that its' form is unacceptable, but it does contain some elements of truth at times. Separating the truth from the form does require some sharp discriminating ability.
 
A major problem with tamping down on hate and vile speech is that its' form is unacceptable, but it does contain some elements of truth at times. Separating the truth from the form does require some sharp discriminating ability.
Differentiating hate speech from the merely unpleasant is possible with a well-crafted law and good, impartial judges. (In today’s US the latter does not seem to be a given, I grant you.) There is a discussion of the evolution of UK law in this area here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_in_the_United_Kingdom

You will see there has been a series of amendments since 1986 to delineate the distinction between criticism, e.g. of a religion, and the expression of hatred towards individuals and groups.

However when it comes to some of the attacks on Mamdani, there are simple defamatory lies being spread. It is not rocket science to identify these.
 
However when it comes to some of the attacks on Mamdani, there are simple defamatory lies being spread. It is not rocket science to identify these.

One thing we should remember, though, when addressing issues such as our neighbor has presented, is a question of purpose:

A major problem with tamping down on hate and vile speech is that its' form is unacceptable, but it does contain some elements of truth at times. Separating the truth from the form does require some sharp discriminating ability.

There are two elements in that post, and one is a manner of disposable rhetoric that pretty much defines his posting style¹: "Separating the truth from the form does require some sharp discriminating ability." The other element, though, is infamous: Perhaps it's vile, "but it does contain some elements of truth at times".

That's what such rhetoric intends to preserve, a belief in justification of, what, hatred? discrimination? segregation? vile superstition? fevered fantasy?

So, on this occasion, what emerges is a straightforward counterpoint: Consider what happens if we treat everyone that way.

Just, for instance, do white cishet males want to go there? How about Christians? Compared to antitrans bathroom harassment superstition, we could probably scrape up enough poor behavior by people who happen to be atheist to match or exceed proportions, but why should we? Oh, right, tescreality. Anyway, yeah, should people hold atheists in general responsible for all that? I mean, sure, maybe it's possible that you're definitely a tescrealist or whatever², but what would that mean for all the other people in any of your classifications? Our would-be wizard's "elements of truth" is a dangerous application of a different discussion. And in its way, this, too, is precisely stylistically on point.

Perhaps it's easier to simply wonder what "sharp" means. How sharp does one have to be in order to not fail to discern the difference between, "I don't think his policies are financially workable", and, "Muslim terrorism!" It seems a low standard, so, oh, wow, how unsurprising, we're back to "elements of truth".
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Notes:

¹ "Meanwhile, here's a different drinking game: Take a drink every time our neighbor says something that doesn't read like generated writing. Or, if you're not a teetotaler, you can get pretty hammered if you drink every time someone else inadvisably takes him seriously." (#3773492↗)

² I still think it's important, for instance, to pay attention to the fact that at least one of the major AIs in the marketplace has already declared itself longtermist.​

 
One thing we should remember, though, when addressing issues such as our neighbor has presented, is a question of purpose:



There are two elements in that post, and one is a manner of disposable rhetoric that pretty much defines his posting style¹: "Separating the truth from the form does require some sharp discriminating ability." The other element, though, is infamous: Perhaps it's vile, "but it does contain some elements of truth at times".

That's what such rhetoric intends to preserve, a belief in justification of, what, hatred? discrimination? segregation? vile superstition? fevered fantasy?

So, on this occasion, what emerges is a straightforward counterpoint: Consider what happens if we treat everyone that way.

Just, for instance, do white cishet males want to go there? How about Christians? Compared to antitrans bathroom harassment superstition, we could probably scrape up enough poor behavior by people who happen to be atheist to match or exceed proportions, but why should we? Oh, right, tescreality. Anyway, yeah, should people hold atheists in general responsible for all that? I mean, sure, maybe it's possible that you're definitely a tescrealist or whatever², but what would that mean for all the other people in any of your classifications? Our would-be wizard's "elements of truth" is a dangerous application of a different discussion. And in its way, this, too, is precisely stylistically on point.

Perhaps it's easier to simply wonder what "sharp" means. How sharp does one have to be in order to not fail to discern the difference between, "I don't think his policies are financially workable", and, "Muslim terrorism!" It seems a low standard, so, oh, wow, how unsurprising, we're back to "elements of truth".
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Notes:

¹ "Meanwhile, here's a different drinking game: Take a drink every time our neighbor says something that doesn't read like generated writing. Or, if you're not a teetotaler, you can get pretty hammered if you drink every time someone else inadvisably takes him seriously." (#3773492↗)


² I still think it's important, for instance, to pay attention to the fact that at least one of the major AIs in the marketplace has already declared itself longtermist.

Buggered if I know what all that means, but if you are suggesting WoW may be looking for a way to excuse defamatory attacks on Trump’s political opponents then I would not take issue with that.
 
Buggered if I know what all that means, but if you are suggesting WoW may be looking for a way to excuse defamatory attacks on Trump’s political opponents then I would not take issue with that.
Bullshit. I am not trying to excuse anything. I am saying you have to look closely into attacks on anyone to discern if there is any truth there hidden behind inflammatory language.
 
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