University Of Florida Young Republicans Group Banned Over Viral Nazi Salute
It seems like every couple of weeks at most, I’m presented with an opportunity to ask this question: If the Republican Party isn’t currently the party of racists and Nazis, why is it so many Republicans, young and old, self-identify as racists and Nazis?
Let’s take, for example, Florida’s Nazi problem.
Earlier this month, we reported that the secretary of Miami-Dade County’s Republican Party started a group chat primarily for conservative college students at Florida International University, and the threads on that chat were soon flooded with racial slurs, including usage of the N-word that appeared more than 400 times, comments detailing numerous ways to kill or inflict harm against Black people, gleeful confessions of Nazism, and other statements of pure hatred and bigotry. Well, it hasn’t even been a full two weeks since we reported that story, and already there’s a new group of young Republican college students making headlines for throwing up Nazi salutes at the University of Florida.
According to the New York Times, the University of Florida College Republicans organization has been barred by the university from operating on campus after a photo showing two people giving a Nazi salute was posted online and shared by a pro-Israel activist, prompting accusations of antisemitism. The student-led group could also lose access to campus spaces and funds as a result of the decision.
The university was reportedly informed about the photo by what has been described as a more moderate group of young conservatives, the Florida Federation of College Republicans. Along with the Nazi salute photo, the federation reportedly posted screenshots of a campus group chat in which one person said Hitler “didn’t do enough.”
Donald W. Landry, the university’s interim president, said in a statement that the group had violated the rules of a state umbrella group for Republican campus chapters, and that the university “has emphatically supported its Jewish community and remains committed to preventing and addressing antisemitism and other forms of discrimination and harassment.”
Meanwhile, the group of young Republicans is claiming to have suffered a violation of its own, and has filed a federal lawsuit against Landry, accusing him of infringing on their First Amendment rights.
Specifically, the group is claiming it is being punished for protected, off-campus speech, ignoring that, generally speaking, constitutional rights protect against government persecution, not that of privately owned entities like colleges and universities. (Or maybe they just don’t teach that at the University of Florida.)
On social media, the group suggested it was also targeted because it hosted an event with a far-right Republican candidate for governor of Florida, James Fishback, a candidate who is popular among young conservatives, basically because he’s known for running on rage-bait, which is absolutely one of young right-wingers’ love languages.
Another love language shared among conservatives, young and old, is the rejection of common sense in favor of conspiracy theories formed out of thin air and defended as common sense. That’s why a group of young Republicans in the red-ass, right-wing-friendly, woke-averse state of Florida think they’re being “terminated” over its support of a conservative Republican candidate, not because they put a spotlight on the school by giving it up for the Gestapo in a viral photo.
And, of course, all of this comes months after leaders of Young Republican groups across the country were exposed in a leaked Telegram chat where they called Black people N-words, monkeys and “the watermelon people,” mused about raping female political rivals, made disparaging remarks about Jewish people, and talked about throwing people in “gas chambers.” Less than a week after that, Republican Paul Ingrassia was caught in a chat with fellow Republicans, using anti-Black racial slurs, calling Martin Luther King Jr. “the 1960s George Floyd,” saying, “his ‘holiday’ should be ended and tossed into the seventh circle of hell where it belongs,” and describing himself as a person with a “Nazi streak.”
So, basically, neo-Nazis and Neo-Klan members are routinely using online forums to bring neo-white supremacy to the mainstream.
But it’s still the same old white supremacy, and it appears Republicans’ struggle to distance the Party from that ideology isn’t going to end once the old heads die off or retire, and the new school is ushered in.
Sad.
SEE ALSO:
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Young Republican Leaders Exposed In Racist Group Chat
Racist Trump Nominee Paul Ingrassia Exposed In Group Chat
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