Framing
Words often determine the “structure” of debate. In the argument over abortion; the anti-abortion crowd won the framing battle with “pro-life”. Those that favor allowing abortions are “pro-choice”, but that doesn’t have the same power. What’s the obvious opposite of “pro-life”, well, “pro-death” of course. Winning the label battle is a huge step towards winning the political debate.
The same is true with our current debate over migrants. One side speaks of “undocumented”, migrants in the United States, or to use the old ethnic insult, those “without papers”. The other side uses the term “illegals”, describing those that violated border policies to enter the country. Both of those are loaded terms. “Undocumented” are folks who failed to file paperwork, something most Americans can understand. “Illegals”, as Stephen Miller would be the first to say, are criminals. And that’s how they choose to frame the debate.
Apparatchiks
We are in an unprecedented time of “transparency”. So much of what we say, publicly and privately, is now “codified” on digital memory. What used to be an actual conversation, my mouth to your ears, is now an email, or a text, or a video recorded for posterity. We used to know what was “in public”, and what could be whispered quietly for only the few to hear. Now, those whispers tend to be texts in the dark of night. While your phone screen may be on “nighttime” mode, those texts remain in a record. The fact that you were in bed in pajamas, makes no difference.
That’s what the Young Republicans just discovered. To step back for just a second, both the Republican and Democratic Parties have a “youth division”. Young has a little different meaning in the political world, since the minimum age to vote is eighteen. “Youth” politicians, are described as those from eighteen to forty years old (which doesn’t sound that “young” to me, even at my advanced age). In both political parties, these “young up-and-comers” represent the future leadership. They may not be the candidates out in front of the electorate, but often are the future precinct or county chairmen, or the staffers who work for elected officials. In the old Soviet world there was a great word for them: “apparatchiks”.
For Real
Even forty is young enough to “live” in the text and social media world. And since everyone does it, it’s easy to fall into a false sense of privacy. Telegram, supposedly a more secure texting app, still has it weaknesses. But the Young Republican leaders of New York, Kansas, Arizona and Vermont didn’t realize the risk until it was too late. The web-based journal Politico, got their entire text chain. Here are some samples.
- – Everyone that votes no is going to the gas chamber
- – You’re giving nationals to much credit and expecting the Jew to be honest
- – Great. I love Hitler
- – I’m ready to watch people burn now
- – I’d go to the zoo if I wanted to watch monkey ball
- – When do we start bullying dude?
- – He also hates the Jews
- – They love watermelon people
- – If we ever has a leak of this chat we would be cooked fr fr
- (translation: for real, for real)
- And many, many more (Politico.)
Conversation Frame
So what is the structure of their internal discussion? Well, it’s about anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, Nazism, and about pure old fashioned American racism. They are using these terms of hate and historic massacre, to describe what they hope to do to their political opponents. And, in this case, not the members of the other political party, but their internal political rivals.
Do I think the “Young Republicans” are not-so closeted Nazis? I don’t know. But they cavalierly use the events of the Holocaust to describe their own actions. That, at the minimum, desensitizing them to the very real historic impacts of the era. And that framework is also clearly accepted by the members of the “Club”, at least the several involved in the text chat. As we saying goes: “If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck”.
And members of the larger Republican “club” accept them as well. Vice President Vance “poo-pooed” their words, calling them “kids”. Vance implied that no one should be blamed for the mistakes of their youth (NBC). But they aren’t kids. They are, as my son would so bluntly put it, “Grown Ass Men”.
What About
And in true MAGA fashion, Vance then pivoted to a “what-about”. What about Virginia Democratic Attorney General candidate Jay Jones? A few years ago, he sent some ill-advised texts, one saying about the Republican Virginia House Speaker, “(He) should get two bullets”. The comment were in the heat of a legislative battle over gun control. But they were stupid. Jones was a “Grown Ass Man”. And he took complete responsibility for them, apologized, and acknowledged his own stupidity.
No one in the Democratic Party is saying, “He was just a kid”. But that’s exactly what the Vice President of the United States is saying. Anti-Semitism, Nazi admiration, direct and disgusting racism: just kids. Kind of like the “locker room talk” we started with back in 2016, when the Republican candidate for President talked about “grabbing them in the…”. We all remember the rest.
