The Far Right Isn’t Just “Edgy” Anymore (Part 1 of 3)
The Mask Comes Off
📍 Series Navigation: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
TL;DR: In October 2025, leaked messages showed Young Republican leaders celebrating Hitler and calling for genocide. Tucker Carlson platformed Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes in a friendly interview, triggering a crisis at the Heritage Foundation that resulted in mass resignations and the collapse of its antisemitism initiative. This isn’t theoretical anymore—and as you’ll see in Parts 2 and 3, these aren’t isolated incidents. They’re symptoms of a movement being captured by genuine extremism.
“I love Hitler.”
Those three words appeared in a private Telegram group chat among Young Republican leaders in 2025, surrounded by enthusiastic agreement, Nazi memes, and calls to “gas them, all of them.” When one member objected to the Holocaust jokes, others mocked him with slurs. This wasn’t a one-time shock post—it was the culture. Routine. Normal. Just another Tuesday in the party’s leadership pipeline.
For years, many mainstream Republicans have dismissed concerns about extremism on the right as overblown—the work of a few Internet trolls, edgy teenagers seeking attention, or partisan Democrats crying wolf. “It’s just jokes,” they say. “Don’t take it so seriously.” But in 2025, the evidence has become impossible to ignore. What once lurked in the darkest corners of the Internet has moved into party leadership pipelines, policy blueprints, and mainstream conservative media.
The question is no longer whether radicalization is happening, but whether normie Republicans will continue to provide cover for it through willful blindness.
When the Mask Slips: The Young Republican Group Chat Scandal
In October 2025, investigative journalists obtained thousands of Telegram messages from private group chats among prominent Young Republican leaders spanning state and national chapters. What they revealed wasn’t youthful indiscretion or political incorrectness—it was explicit, unambiguous hate.
The messages included celebrations of Hitler (”I love Hitler”), calls for genocide (”Gas them, all of them”), Holocaust jokes treated as casual banter, and a steady stream of racist and antisemitic memes. Members who objected were mocked with slurs or dismissed as “weak.” Only after major news outlets published the contents did resignations follow, accompanied by the predictable excuses: “taken out of context,” “dark humor,” “not representative of who we really are.”
But here’s what makes this scandal different from a simple case of bad actors: the scale and normalization. These weren’t fringe nobodies—they were rising leaders in state and national Young Republican organizations, the party’s farm team for future officials and activists. And despite JD Vance’s dismissive characterization of them as “kids,” at least eight of the participants were between ages 24 and 34, according to multiple reports. Peter Giunta, the New York State Young Republicans chair who wrote “I love Hitler,” is 31 years old. The Young Republican National Federation includes members aged 18-40, with many participants holding serious professional positions.
The chats showed a culture where expressing Nazi sympathies became routine, where the Overton window had shifted so far that genocide jokes were met with laughter rather than horror.
Real-World Consequences
Several chat participants held official positions—state chapter presidents, national committee members, and campus Republican organization leaders. They organized voter registration drives, ran campaign events, and recruited new members. One participant was interning for a sitting congressman when the messages leaked.
These weren’t anonymous trolls or immature teenagers—they were adults in their late 20s and 30s with established careers:
Samuel Douglass, a Vermont state senator, participated in the chats
Michael Bartels, a senior adviser in the U.S. Small Business Administration under Trump, was in the group chat
William Hendrix worked as communications assistant for Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach
Joseph Maligno was a lawyer for the New York Young Republicans
These were the people showing up at county GOP meetings, running campus Republican clubs, working in state legislatures and federal agencies, and building resumes for higher political office.
As JD Vance’s dismissive response to the scandal demonstrated, even when confronted with explicit evidence, some party leaders choose minimization over accountability. Vance repeatedly called the participants “kids” making “stupid jokes,” claiming “I really don’t want us to grow up in a country where a kid telling a stupid joke…is cause to ruin their lives.”
But as PBS News pointed out:
“We’re not talking about kids here. We’re talking about a membership that is as old as 40, so, by and large, could be the vice president’s peers and peers to a lot of folks who are working on the Hill in Congress.”
The message this sends is clear: extremism will be tolerated as long as it’s politically inconvenient to address it, and even grown adults in positions of power can hide behind claims of youthful indiscretion.
Consider what this means for the future. These young activists aren’t learning that authoritarian violence and bigotry are beyond the pale—they’re learning that such views are acceptable as long as you maintain plausible deniability. They’re being conditioned to see hate as just another political tool, one that can be wielded with a wink and a “just kidding” when challenged.
The Battle for Conservatism’s Soul: Shapiro vs. Carlson and Fuentes
While private chats radicalize the party’s next generation, the conservative media ecosystem is undergoing its own reckoning. After Tucker Carlson conducted a lengthy, softball interview with Nick Fuentes—an open Holocaust denier, white nationalist, and leader of the “Groyper” movement—Ben Shapiro issued one of the strongest rebukes of his career.
Shapiro didn’t mince words. He accused Carlson and Heritage Foundation leadership of “normalizing Nazism,” argued that opposing Fuentes isn’t “cancel culture” but necessary boundary-setting, and meticulously listed Fuentes’s extremist record. This wasn’t a progressive activist making accusations—this was one of conservatism’s most prominent voices drawing a bright line and demanding others do the same.
Why Nick Fuentes Matters
For years, Fuentes operated on the fringes, building an audience of disaffected young men through a toxic blend of white nationalism, misogyny, and antisemitism, all wrapped in layers of irony and “edgy” humor. His followers, the Groypers, became experts at infiltrating mainstream Republican events, asking “innocent” questions designed to push racial boundaries, then crying foul when ejected.
Now, Fuentes gets platformed on major conservative media outlets. He’s treated as just another voice in the discourse rather than what he is: a genuine extremist working to pull the movement toward explicit white nationalism. And when someone like Shapiro objects, he faces accusations of being a “gatekeeper” or “dividing the movement.”
The Heritage Foundation’s equivocal response to the controversy revealed deep internal conflict. Should conservatism maintain a big tent that includes open racists? Or should it enforce boundaries that exclude those who celebrate Nazism? That this is even a debate shows how far things have deteriorated.
The Heritage Foundation Crisis: A Timeline
October 27, 2025: Tucker Carlson conducts a lengthy, largely uncritical interview with Nick Fuentes on his streaming platform, giving the white nationalist leader access to millions of mainstream Republican viewers. During the interview, Fuentes attacks “organized Jewry,” claims he’s a “fan” of Stalin, and discusses white identity politics. Carlson himself declares there’s nobody he dislikes more than “Christian Zionists.”
October 30, 2025: Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts posts a video statement defending Carlson and attacking his critics as a “venomous coalition of globalists” who are “sowing division.” Roberts refuses to distance Heritage from Carlson, calling him a “close friend” and arguing that criticizing Carlson amounts to “cancel culture.”
November 1-2, 2025: Multiple Heritage Foundation staff members publicly criticize Roberts on social media. Heritage trustee Robert P. George issues statement: “I will not—I cannot—accept the idea that we have ‘no enemies to the right.’ The white supremacists, the antisemites, the eugenicists, the bigots, must not be welcomed into our movement.” Florida State Senator Randy Fine cancels planned event with Heritage, saying “I don’t work with antisemites.”
November 3, 2025: Ben Shapiro devotes his entire show to the controversy, calling Carlson “the main agent in normalizing Nazism within the Republican Party” and an “intellectual coward.” Multiple Jewish organizations begin withdrawing from Heritage’s “Project Esther” antisemitism task force. Ryan Neuhaus, Roberts’s chief of staff, resigns after being demoted.
November 4, 2025: Coalition for Jewish Values formally severs ties with Heritage Foundation. Task force chairs send Roberts a list of demands including removing his original video, apologizing to conservative Jews, and condemning Carlson’s antisemitism.
November 6, 2025 (Morning): National Review obtains recording of heated Heritage all-hands meeting where Roberts apologizes to staff. “I made a mistake and I let you down and I let down this institution. Period. Full stop,” Roberts says. However, he also admits: “I didn’t know much about this Fuentes guy. Still don’t — Which underscores the mistake.” Roberts reveals Heritage had a paid partnership with Carlson that ended this summer. In the meeting, one staff member compares leakers to “Judas,” prompting outrage about invoking Biblical Jewish betrayal in an antisemitism crisis.
November 6, 2025 (Afternoon): Washington Post publishes major investigative piece reporting Heritage is in “open revolt” against Roberts. Multiple current and former employees describe morale as “lowest in years.” A major donor contributing over $500,000 annually threatens to withdraw funding if Roberts remains. The article reveals the crisis has “accelerated donor unease and internal turnover.”
November 6-7, 2025: Heritage has removed references to Carlson from its website, at least five task force members have resigned, Roberts’s chief of staff has departed, major donors are threatening to pull funding, and staff morale is described as the “lowest in years.” Roberts’s original video defending Carlson remains on his X profile. Roberts’s future at the organization remains deeply uncertain.
What This Reveals
Shapiro’s stand matters because it demonstrates that leadership—when it accepts unpopularity for principle—can still draw meaningful lines. But such stands are becoming rarer, and the Heritage crisis shows the institutional cost of failing to draw those lines. Too many Republican leaders have decided that unity, coalition-building, and “owning the libs” matter more than excluding those who would destroy conservatism’s moral foundation.
The controversy remains ongoing. As of November 7, 2025, Heritage’s antisemitism initiative is unraveling, major donors are threatening to leave, and one of conservatism’s flagship institutions is in crisis—all because its president chose to defend a man who platformed a Holocaust denier rather than condemn the platforming itself.
The Mechanics of Radicalization: How Plausible Deniability Enables Hate
Throughout both scandals runs a common thread: the strategic use of coded language, irony, and plausible deniability to mainstream extremism while evading accountability.
The far right has become expert at this game. Dog whistles and “edgy” memes spread hateful ideas while maintaining cover. When challenged, extremists retreat to “we’re just joking” or demand “context,” forcing critics into exhausting debates about intent versus impact. The ambiguity is the point—it allows recruitment of new followers through “ironic” content while providing escape routes when confronted.
NPR’s reporting on how extremists weaponize irony documented this dynamic in detail. The same meme can serve as genuine Nazi propaganda to those in the know while appearing to outsiders as mere dark humor. This dual-purpose communication builds in-group solidarity, desensitizes audiences to extremism, and paralyzes opposition through endless arguments about interpretation.
Plausible deniability isn’t a bug in the system—it’s the key feature. It allows hate to fester and spread while shielding leaders from consequences. It lets mainstream Republicans dismiss concerns as overreaction, providing cover that extremists exploit to gain ground.
Decoding the Dog Whistles
To help readers recognize manipulation, here are common coded phrases from far-right spaces:
“Ironic” Hitler memes → Genuine admiration with plausible deniability
“Globalists” → Antisemitic code for Jewish people
“Cultural Marxism” → Conspiracy theory about Jewish plot to destroy Western civilization
“Defending Western civilization” → White nationalist preservation rhetoric
“Just asking questions” → Introducing extremist ideas while claiming innocence
“Demographic change” → White replacement anxiety and opposition to non-white immigration
The genius of this approach is how it weaponizes good faith. Normie Republicans, projecting their own decency onto the broader movement, assume nobody on their side could really be racist, antisemitic, or authoritarian. They hear the coded language, see the ironic memes, and interpret them through the lens of their own non-hateful worldview. Meanwhile, the extremists understand the code perfectly.
Coming Next: From Rhetoric to Policy
These scandals reveal how extremism spreads through coded language and institutional protection. But what happens when these ideas move from group chats and media appearances into actual policy?
In Part 2, we’ll examine Stephen Miller’s transformation of extremist rhetoric into concrete immigration enforcement—including the militarized Chicago raids that have killed one person, detained over 170 U.S. citizens, and created detention conditions a federal judge just condemned as unconstitutional. We’ll also look at the Trump administration’s historic refugee cap that explicitly prioritizes white South African farmers over Afghan allies and genocide survivors.
The pipeline from “edgy jokes” to state-sanctioned violence is shorter than you think.
Continue to Part 2: From Rhetoric to Policy →
Key Sources for Part 1
Young Republican Scandal:
Heritage Foundation Crisis:
Understanding Radicalization: