MAGA must assert our noble values                     by DC Larson

Members of the Young Republicans organization posted odious messages they (wrongly) considered funny on that group's internet chat. Contained in posts were racist and antisemitic slurs, as well as - flabbergastingly - praise for megalomaniacal evildoer Adolf Hitler.

Some included in the despicable number, per the New York Post, are Kansas Young Republicans' Chair William Hendrix; Bobby Walker, erstwhile chair of the New York state Young Republicans; former New York Young Republicans Chair Peter Giunta; and Joe Maligno, New York Young Republicans' one-time general counsel. 

"Bro is at a chicken restaurant ordering his food. Would he like some watermelon and Kool-Aid with that?”  asked Hendrix, in a July post. 

Politico cited other comments, allegedly also from the same chat line. These included "I love Hitler," "I'm ready to watch people burn now," "I'd go to the zoo if I wanted to see monkeys play ball," more than one positively referencing "gas chambers," another deriding black American citizens as "watermelon people," and insistence that all Jews are dishonest.

Several repugnant perpetrators have already been booted curbward  by employers. Hopefully, more will follow. I love it when justice lands hard on bad people.

Social media platforms teem with righteous castigations. Mine, sent directly to the vermin at issue via Elon Musk's X, declared simply: "Get the hell out of MAGA! We're better than you, and you're not us!" 

Unfortunately, since persons in consequential stations are asked to pose for photos with thousands, annually, shots exist of Trump partisans together with some of these dirt-charactered reprobates. These must not be assumed as establishing philosophical oneness.

The filth spewed by guilty parties is falsely cast by woke Democrat subversives as representative of the MAGA movement as a whole. That is a lie, of course, levelled by scummy contrivers who surely are themselves cognizant of their rhetoric's perfidiousness.

As contemptible as this matter is, it's a minor one. Trump opponents may exploit it, in attempts to smear him and his backers, but it hardly overshadows successes the president has achieved in economic, trade, and national security. 

Trump has slammed tight the border door. And his crackdown on crime has produced a 250% increase in arrests.

(His firm backing of Israel, and his historic bringing peace to the Mideast, probably brought angry tears to the eyes of scattered venomous weasels who'd infiltrated the Republican Party.)

In a recent, disappointing video message, Tucker Carlson (of whom I've long been an admirer) effectively championed amorality, misrepresented the 20-and-30-something offenders as "boys," and ridiculed those who believe goodness merits standing up.

Of course, Carlson did not quote any of the noxious posts. Doing so would render defenses impossible. Instead, he pooh-poohed them in absentia as "naughty" ones, sent by wayward "boys." 

Vice President Vance (for whom I proudly cast a ballot and still vigorously support) also downplayed the messages.

Politico quoted Vance as saying "The reality is that kids do stupid things, especially young boys. They tell edgy, offensive jokes. That’s what kids do. And 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 cause to ruin their lives.”

Again, grown men are not children. If they were, prison yards would have swing sets.

I understand the thinking that giving attention to isolated internet ravings, rancid though they indisputably are, risks supplying ammunition to foes. And there is merit to that position.

But some things are so egregious, they howl for thunderous excoriation. And giving outrageous moral wrongs kid-glove care comes close to making MAGA critics appear to be onto something - when of course, they are not.

Better to bolster MAGA's hygiene by excommunicating scum. You know what they say about cleanliness.

Carlson and Vance's minimization attempts - that a larger cause not suffer - reminds exactly of monomaniacal no-borders zealots who pretend illegals' rapes and murders are not worth consideration, lest their (foolish) crusade be imperiled.

Wrong is wrong, and saying so is a mark of good character. Calling hate by its rightful name, and publicly distancing oneself from it, is legitimate and laudable.

Not to virtue signal for the benefit of onlookers, but to assert our own values.

Waterloo's DC Larson is the author of That a Man Can Again Stand Up and Ideas Afoot. He counts among freelance credits the Tucker Carlson-founded Daily Caller, The Iowa Standard, American Thinker, and numerous Iowa papers.. His political blog is American Scene Magazine.