This is the future of the GOP!
Dean Obeidallah at The Dean's Report:
The news cycle since Saturday has been all consuming--from the shooting at Brown University, to the anti-Semitic terrorist attack in Australia to Rob Reiner and his wife Michele’s murder. Then came Donald Trump’s despicable smear of the Rob Reiner that rightfully resulted in a backlash. But something occurred Saturday night that demands far more coverage because it confirms that Trump’s vileness does not end when he goes away. Rather, the up-and-coming young Republican leaders are just as dangerous and despicable. The event at issue was the New York Young Republican Club’s annual gala held Saturday in Manhattan at an upscale venue. What took place? Well, this Politico headline summed it up well, “New York Young Republican Club gala draws white nationalist, far-right Germans as elected officials skip out.”
So who were at the event? White nationalist leaders like Jared Taylor, an influencer who went viral recently for wearing blackface on Halloween, a former George Santos’ staffer who had posted a video depicting Jews as cockroaches, a streamer who posts antisemitic content and has said “people are sick of hearing about the Holocaust.” And not content to simply showcase the right wing of America, they even featured as an honored guest, Markus Frohnmaier, a German politician whose political party, AfD, has been designated by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency as a right-wing extremist organization. And Frohnmaier’s party recently came under fire for publishing a statement calling for a “new civic order” in Germany and declaring “AfD über alles,” an adaptation of a phrase associated with the Nazi party. At the dinner, Frohnmaier gave a speech where he urged the young MAGA attendees to join with his far right party. He told them, “Let us reclaim our culture, let us reclaim our nations, and let us make the West whole again.” Yes, he is trying to build a new international alliance where the U.S. joins with the far right—as opposed to fighting against it.
The New York young Republicans leader, Stefano Forte, even mocked the idea of denouncing the Nazi adjacent organization, telling the audience: “You want us to denounce the AfD? You want us to denounce our allies? You want us to denounce those that stand with us?” Stefano instead then ridiculed the “fake news” media. Others at the event included Jared Taylor, who has been described by organizations that monitor extremism as the head of “a self-styled think tank that publishes an online white supremacist journal American Renaissance.” As the Southern Poverty Law Center documented, Taylor’s past comments include declaring that, “Blacks and whites are different. When blacks are left entirely to their own devices, Western civilization — any kind of civilization — disappears.” The young Republican leaders knew the press would be attending—even setting up a table for them. So when you see the guests invited and celebrated, please understand these young Republican leaders are intentionally sending a message about what they stand for. This sold out, swanky event conjured up the rise of right-wing parties in 1930’s Europe headed by aspiring fascist leaders. Adding to that sense was when the young Republican leader Stefano Forte endorsed Trump for a third term during the event despite that being a violation of the US Constitution. But to these anti-democratic movements, the constitution and laws don’t matter—only power.
[...] What we have seen from today’s GOP is that it will not moderate. Instead, it will move further and further to the right. The young Republicans at Saturday’s event simply confirm that very reality. And they warn us of what we must be prepared to defeat.
Last Saturday night, the far-right New York Young Republican Club (NYYRC) held their annual Christmas gala, in which antisemites and white supremacists were given warm welcomes.
