today, i have a lot more commentary about this one than usual. but first, some excerpts.

Earlier this month, the College Republicans of America, one of oldest youth organizations affiliated with the Republican Party, hired Kai Schwemmer as the group’s political director. Schwemmer has past ties to the white supremacist and anti-Semite Nick Fuentes and his Groyper movement

oopsies.

Vice President Vance came to the defense of the Young Republicans, saying that the “reality is that kids do stupid things, especially young boys.” Vance added, “They tell edgy, offensive jokes. Like, that’s what kids do.”

boys will be boys

Several of the worst offenders were in their 30s.

well uh, men will be boys?

A few months later the Miami Herald revealed that leaked chats from a Republican group at Florida International University showed participants using racial slurs, repeatedly expressing a desire to violently attack Black people, and describing women as “whores.” The text messages contained jokes about gas chambers, slavery, and rape. There was also plenty of praise for Adolf Hitler. Such praise appeared so regularly that at one point, the group was renamed “Nazi Heaven.”

it’s just locker room talk bro! it’s just a meme!

but now let’s get into the meat and potatoes

Among the older generations, a ferocious, intra-MAGA civil war is being waged between high-profile media and political personalities, including people such as Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and Matt Walsh on one side and Ben Shapiro and Mark Levin on the other. There’s also Laura Loomer versus Elon Musk, and Musk versus Steve Bannon, and Bannon versus Dinesh D’Souza, and D’Souza versus Carlson.

i remember this was already starting before the 2024 election. but since then, what was a distant echo has become a raging wild fire.

The most recent bitter recriminations center on the Iran war and Israel.

the so-called “no new wars” candidate done duped ya!

i can go on, but i don’t want to freeboot the whole article lol. it’s worth a whole read for yourself. the part about mark levin and megyn kelly is pretty funny, but in summary:

The MAGA movement, like other radical political movements before it, is eating its own.

maga cannibalism is the new hotness for conservatives, and it probably doesn’t even taste good.

the author, peter wehner, goes on to reflect on his past warnings about trump. i found this comment telling:

What we have seen in the decade since is the realization of those worst fears. To be clear, the MAGA movement’s rancidity isn’t due to only Trump. The impulses now on display within MAGA existed long before he entered politics. But those impulses were, for the most part, confined to the fringes. Republican presidents and other political leaders did what they could to keep it that way.

it absolutely did, and the republicans would love to dog whistle and signal that they were allies to those dark instincts, while trying to keep it subtle enough so the rest of civil society doesn’t notice. is where we’re at any better? i have plenty of nostalgia for when republicans tried to be civil, but in all honesty, trump isn’t a long shot from the greed, pro-war, corruption of the old gop. instead, he represents embracing degeneracy with open arms, and succeeding, exposing it all to the surface in the process.

yeah, my bias against wehner is showing here. he’s not exactly one of the good guys imho. i see him as more of the “you’re not supposed to say it out loud like that!” types. and that’s part of why i like this article, because even those guys seem worried now.

…under Trump, the GOP has become a profoundly different, and a far more malicious, party. Within the Republican Party, from top to bottom, Trump has made cruelty and transgressiveness cool. And in the process, he killed American conservatism.

respectfully, i disagree. this started way before trump. we can talk about newt gingrich, richard nixon, the freedom caucus, conservative media in the obama years. the real change now is that trump has awoken a monster and you can’t hide anymore.

Trump has overturned many long-standing public-policy commitments of conservatives—supporting free trade, reforming entitlements, supporting foreign assistance

wrong. with the one exception of free trade. but the rest of it? centrist and liberal leaning positions that the gop didn’t think they could get away with opposing, but wanted to.

the rest of the article is a segment about conservative thinkers. it’s worth reading, but i personally roll my eyes at it. it’s a lot of flowery words that completely contradict the actions of the gop over the past few decades. the outward expression of civility was only there for pure aesthetic. the mask is off, and now actions are in alignment with rhetoric.

i’ll leave you with some excerpts from his conclusion.

At the core of the MAGA project and Trumpism is disruption and destruction, the delegitimization and razing of institutions, and the brutalization of opponents. Its leader, the president, abuses power, hurts the innocent, and mocks the dead before their families have even begun to grieve.

The MAGA ethic celebrates dehumanization. It is lawless, crude, and combative. Its entire ecosystem—social media, podcasts, and talk radio—is committed to spreading lies and conspiracy theories, to stoking rage and resentment. The disciples of the MAGA movement define themselves by what they hate much more than by what they love. They pursue culture wars with revolutionary zeal even as they vandalize our civic culture.

If conservatism is to ever again find a home in the GOP, it will be because the party decides that what is true and good and beautiful is indeed worth conserving. Right now the Republican Party is light-years away from that, and those who cherish conservatism should say so.