NEW YORK — Leaders of Young Republican groups throughout the country worried what would happen if their Telegram chat ever got leaked, but they kept typing anyway.
They referred to Black people as monkeys and “the watermelon people” and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers. They talked about raping their enemies and driving them to suicide and lauded Republicans who they believed support slavery.
I’d love to say this surprises me, but it does not in the slightest.
On it’s own, nothing really? As long as you don’t let that nihilism justify making life worse for others.
Combined with racism and the rest of the bigotry on display in these leaked exchanges, I think it’s useful to distinguish between someone whose ignorance has allowed them to be co-opted by bigotry against their own interests, and someone who justifies their bigotry because “nothing really matters”. I also think it’s useful to accuse them of not actually believing in anything when they’re running a political movement. Especially if the target audience for that movement does have a belief that some things intrinsically matter (be it democracy or, more likely here, the christian faith).
I’ll readily admit I was mainly trying to go for more than just “racist pieces of shit”, while having a clear impression from the tone and content of the leaked exchanges that there is an undercurrent of nihilism that is, if not fueling them, then at least lubricating them. If you have a better suggestion I would love to hear it.