Kids These Days

According to Jimmy Durante Vance, the “reality is that kids do stupid things, especially young boys.” The "Vice" President made this suggestion during a guest appearance on The Charlie Kirk Show. “They tell edgy, offensive jokes, like, that’s what kids do,” he continued. “And I really don’t want us to grow up in a country where a kid telling a stupid joke — telling a very offensive, stupid joke — is cause to ruin their lives. And at some point we’re all going to have to say enough of this BS, we’re not going to allow the worst moment in a twenty-one-year-old’s group chat to ruin a kid’s life for the rest of time. That’s just not OK.”

If you missed the part where Politico shared a flurry of texts generated by Young Republicans on the Telegram app. These included racial slurs about Black and Latino people, praise of Adolf Hitler and jokes about sending opponents to gas chambers. Many of these "kids" were in line for jobs in the public sector. One of them lost out on a job working on a plan to work on a congressional campaign. 

Plenty of older Republicans have seen fit to condemn the hate speech, but since the demographic for this particular group of "young" Republicans range from eighteen to forty years. So none of these were minors, and the handwringing among the Young Republican National Federation contrasts mightily with the "what about?" messages coming from those who want to suggest that "boys will be boys" and it's no worse than a few texts from the account of one Jay Jones, Democratic candidate for Attorney General of Virginia. Mister Jones suggested the former Speaker of the House of Delegates ought to be shot in the head. 

For the record, I am fine with Jay Jones losing his election after letting loose with that sort of ugly sentiment. Is there a difference between pointing your hate gun at one particular person instead of entire races of people? I don't get to make that determination. But I can say that John Deere Vance is in no position to make judgements about decorum. Especially since it was not too many years ago when he referred to his current boss as "America's Hitler," He's also the guy who said back in 2021 that the country was being run by "a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives." No regrets, just the insistence that people didn't understand what he meant. 

John Dillinger Vance isn't probably going to lose his job anytime soon, since he is being kept around as the comic relief in an administration comprised of some of the creepiest characters and morally bankrupt individuals assembled in recent history. 

So the bad boys of the Young Republicans will have to spend a few minutes in the time-out chair before they get back to fomenting hate and division. Even within their own ranks. Which is the problem with these ghouls. They keep coming back.