On Tuesday, October 14, Politico released exclusive messages from private group chats among members of the Young Leaders Republican organizations. The leaked messages revealed horrifying racial slurs, antisemitic comments, and even references to genocidal violence, all exchanged by individuals pledging loyalty to Donald Trump. While shocking, this behavior is not unprecedented in today’s political climate. Still, there is never any justification for such vile, dehumanizing rhetoric.
This chat, created by Peter Giunta, the former chair of the New York State Young Republicans (NYRS), was originally intended to rally support for his campaign for chair of the National Young Republicans organization. Yet, it quickly devolved into 2,900 pages worth of hateful, extremist content entitled the “Restoyer War Room.”
In one exchange, Giunta declared “I love Hitler” after Kansas Chair Alex Dwyer commented that a Michigan member planned to vote for “the most right-wing person” in the race. Giunta also threatened that anyone who voted against him would be “going to the gas chamber,” to which others replied, “I’m ready to watch people burn now,” and “When do we bring that side out?” Not one participant appeared to object to the grotesque references to the Holocaust, an atrocity that claimed the lives of six million Jewish people.
The hate didn’t stop there. Group members used racist slurs and tropes to describe Black people, calling them “monkeys,” “the watermelon people,” and repeatedly using the n-word, and boasted that a teenage chapter “supports slavery and all that sh-t.” They celebrated being in a hotel room numbered 1488, a white supremacist code combining “14 Words” (“We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children”) and “88,” shorthand for “Heil Hitler.”
What began as a campaign chat became, as Politico put it, “a blur of slurs and violent fantasies.” Members joked about the rape of Indigenous women by colonial settlers, used homophobic and transphobic slurs against opponents, and even encouraged sexual violence and suicide.
The Young Republican National Federation has publicly condemned the racism, antisemitism, and hate expressed in the chats. But condemnation after exposure does not erase the fact that these messages came from individuals who hold, or aspire to hold, positions of power in Republican politics. Since the Trump era, the line between extremist rhetoric and mainstream politics has blurred, with many young conservatives embracing hate speech as a way to prove their loyalty and avoid being labeled “RINOs.”
Let’s be clear: racism and white supremacy never disappeared, they’ve even become bolder in recent years. Many of the individuals in this chat hold government or party roles. Across the country, white nationalist movements are growing; in Arkansas, one group is building a “segregated community” to promote “European ancestry.” Simultaneously, state governments are banning the teaching of history about genocide and slavery, and restricting access to abortion, contraception, and gender-affirming care.
America was founded on the claim that “all men are created equal,” yet it codified slavery, denied women’s citizenship, and forced Indigenous people off their lands. Equality in this country has always been something people have had to fight for, not something freely granted. The “Restoyer War Room” is not an anomaly; it is a mirror reflecting the unfinished work of justice in America.
If we are still fighting for equality today, it’s because that fight is far from over.