Will Kaback (12:40)
Here's what the right is Most on the right condemn the messages in the leaked chats. Some argue that the messages are not meaningfully worse than what elected Democrats have said, and others say the Ingrazia leaks are a lesson for other young Republicans. In the New York Post, Ricky Schlott said the Young Republican group chat is part of the right's new vice signaling bonding ritual. It's apparently supposed to be funny. You guys are in on the joke, right? And meant to prove loyalty. If you're one of us, they're implying you'd never rat. But it's abhorrent and fits right into a concerning mounting trend on the right, Schlott wrote. Vice signaling is a backlash response to the left's smug virtue signaling a performative and exclusionary trend of going to fashionable protests, using overly genuflecting lingo and shaming anyone to the right of the far left. It's not just a matter of rejecting political correctness. It's about being actively and aggressively politically incorrect. Yes, it's all free speech, but there's also an expectation of civility and basic respect for others, especially from up and coming political leaders. There's humor and there's taking a joke so far that it's vile, schlott said. The right has to rethink whether being anti PC is really the best glue to hold together a community. Tasteless and rude isn't a flex, and performatively standing against something isn't a coherent ideology. In the Daily Caller, Jeffrey Ingersoll wrote, these leaked chats won't get a rise out of me. The leaked chat from a group of young Republican leaders mostly came off like a bunch of cringe prepubescent idiots who recently discovered curse words. Except it was 20 somethings LARPing as edgy 4chan racists, Ingersoll said. Do I think all this is bad? Yes. Condemning it is easy. I don't even need to hit the brakes. I can do a drive by condemnation. But do I believe they need to be rapidly unpersoned? Absolutely not. Jay Jones, the potential top law enforcement officer of the most historic state in the Union, fantasized about shooting a former state House speaker in the head. He said he'd love to do it not once but twice, ingersoll wrote. As far as I can tell, not a single sitting Democrat has called for him to drop out. Abigail Spanberger is running for governor to actually work with the man, and she hasn't either. Until a higher percentage of the fiery but mostly peaceful crowd stops thinking it's totally justified to assault and kill us a, I won't be getting mad about these leaked chats. The Wall Street Journal editorial board called the Ingrazia scandal a lesson for young MAGA beyond the failure of vetting. It would be useful if President Trump made clear that this kind of garbage isn't wanted in his MAGA political movement, the board said. A lawyer for Mr. Ingrazia told the news outlet Politico he didn't concede the veracity of the leaked messages. Quote, even if the texts are authentic, they clearly read as self deprecating and satirical humor, making fun of the fact that liberals outlandishly and routine call MAGA supporters Nazis, end quote. It's impossible to know what's in Mr. Ingrazia's heart, but if his explanation is that he acted like an Internet troll, it isn't much of a defense. Other participants in the chat offered warnings, quote, paul, you are coming across as a white nationalist, one reportedly said, quote, you're going to be in private practice one day and this shit will be around forever, end quote. The same advice could have been given to all of those Young Republican leaders whose chat threads were leaked recently, the board wrote. Mr. Ingrazia's nomination is dead, a sign that the GOP won't tolerate his brand of extremist political behavior and rhetoric. It is also a potent lesson for mega youth in what not to do. All right, here's what the left is saying. The left is appalled by the messages and alarmed by some prominent Republicans refusal to condemn them. Some commend Senate Republicans for pulling their support for Ingracia. Others say the attitude shown in the group chats has already spread to mainstream Republican circles in the Atlantic. Jonathan Chait asked, why is Vance defending that racist group chat? When a political ally does something controversial, there are three ways to respond defend it, repudiate it, or deflect attention away from it. Defense is the obvious option if you think the action is acceptable enough to the public. Repudiation makes sense if the matter is so toxic that you can't afford to keep the guilty party in your coalition, chait wrote. Deflection is the response of choice only when the behavior of an ally is too toxic to defend but so widespread within your coalition that you cannot afford to criticize it. That a group of ambitious, professional Republicans can spread nakedly racist messages without rebuke signifies the transformation of conservative political norms in the Trump era, chait said. The vice president apparently grasps that openly defending references to black people as, quote, watermelon eaters and quips about sending political rivals to the gas chamber would hurt his political standing. But he also clearly needs these young Republican leaders if he hopes to consolidate the Trump base behind him. Deflection is a calculated response. The Washington Post editorial board wrote about Republicans drawing a line on Paul and Gracia. One of the differences between President Donald Trump's first and second terms is the meekness of Senate Republicans. But it's good to know that there's still a limit somewhere. After Senate Majority Leader John Thune warned Monday night that his conference would reject the nomination of Paul in Grazia, the board said it was always clear that Ingrazia was a puerile troll with no business serving as an officer of the United States. But it took Senate Republicans five months to say as much. Presidents deserve significant deference in filling most executive branch posts, but the Senate plays an important role enforcing certain boundaries. Thune's majority mostly abdicated that responsibility by approving figures such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. As health and Human services secretary and Kash Patel as FBI director, the board wrote. Republican and Democratic senators are too enthralled to presidents of their parties, and it's damaging the constitutional system. In Politico, Katherine Kim and Caulder McHugh called the leaked chat a sign of where we could be headed. As the leaked Young Republicans chat reveals, the hateful troll like way in which these people communicate has also found its way into the mainstream gop. It's a trend that could become more visible as a generation of chronically online young people on the right age into higher positions of power and are embraced by the party, Kim and McHugh said. What begins in far right corners of the Internet seeps into right leaning spaces offline, even within Republican politics. Several members of the Young Republicans group Chat are in official positions in the party. One works for the Trump administration. Government agencies under the Trump administration have also demonstrated their fluency in this kind of radical online humor and provocation. The Public X accounts of the White House and the Department of Homeland Security are now sharing content that would be at home on groiper message boards, though without explicit Nazi reference, Kim and McHugh wrote. The transgressive nature of these kinds of posts is likely the point. It's supposed to make the poster's enemies mad and push the boundaries of acceptable discourse. All right, that is it for what the right and left are saying, so I will pass it back over to Isaac for his take. Isaac, over to you.
