On October 14th, disparaging text messages leaked to the public from the GOP organization “Young Republicans,” leading to some distressing reveals. Throughout the country, major group leaders, including New York chairman Peter Giunta and vice chairman Bobby Walker, exchanged derogatory slurs and disturbing comments. Fantasizing about violence and “gassing” their opponents, the members of the “Restore YR War Room” group chat casually reference a “Hitler aesthetic,” and descriptive torture methods.
POLITICO obtained this information, alongside over a half a year’s worth of hateful chat logs, through Telegram, a messaging app. As always, the moral ambiguity of the digital age is brought into question. Do these men and women deserve to lose their positions because of private conversations they had online? Vice president JD Vance doesn’t seem to think so. The VP warned, “If you put something in a group chat, assume that some scumbag is going to leak it in an effort to try to cause you harm or cause your family harm.” Addressing the leakers as “scumbags,” Vance immediately pardons the negatively charged words of the group chat members, reframing these people as the victims of the situation.
Additionally, Vance said “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.” The shockingly proactive watchdog era we live in is scary. People can have it all and lose it all in a matter of seconds. However, Vance’s troubled comparison of these 25-32 year-olds to “just some kids joking around” equally endangers society. Privacy is an apparent issue in America, but the presence of Nazi idolization and casual violence is disturbing as well. This debate of privacy vs accountability goes beyond this single event, and only time will tell just how much the digital world will seep into politics in the future.