The Rightwing Terrorism Problem

From private 'jokes' about Hitler to a 75-year trail of bodies.

In a private chat, when they thought no one was listening, the next generation of Republican leaders revealed exactly who they are. Leaked messages, published by POLITICO, offer an unfiltered look into the mindset of the GOP’s rising stars:

• A leader of the New York Young Republicans joked about sending his political opponents to the “gas chamber”.

• Another member suggested they “fix the showers” because “gas chambers don’t fit the Hitler aesthetic”.

• When a colleague promised to deliver the “most right wing” voters, a future leader of the group replied, “Great. I love Hitler”.

• Racial slurs appeared more than 251 times , while members also joked about rape being “epic” and their approval for groups that “support slavery”.

These are not the ravings of a few fringe trolls. These are the leaders of Young Republican groups in states across the country—the party’s future. And this horrifying rhetoric is not a bug; it is a feature. It is the unvarnished, inevitable result of a political movement that has spent years cultivating an ideology of dehumanization and violence.

This article will connect the dots. It will show how the violent “jokes” from these private chats are the direct product of an ideology preached by right-wing leaders—an ideology whose bloody consequences are written across 75 years of American history.

The Ideology Behind the ‘Jokes’

The casual cruelty revealed in the private chats of Young Republican leaders—joking about gas chambers and Hitler, rape, and slavery¹—didn’t spring from a vacuum. It is the rotten fruit of a tree planted and watered by the very leaders they idolize. To understand why the GOP’s rising stars sound like this in private, we only need to listen to what their heroes say in public.

Look no further than the late Charlie Kirk, a central figure in their movement. This is a man who built his platform on a foundation of chilling callousness toward human life.

• He openly declared that the thousands of American gun deaths each year were a “prudent deal” and ultimately “worth it” to preserve the Second Amendment.²

• He was “thrilled” to see the U.S. military conduct summary executions of foreigners in international waters, cheering the abandonment of due process.²

• He demanded the “full military occupation” of American cities, calling to unleash a force trained to kill—not police—against his fellow citizens based on a crime wave that data proves is a fiction.²

When the heroes of a movement preach that some American lives are expendable, that due process is an inconvenience, and that the military should be used against political opponents, is it any surprise that their understudies “joke” about gas chambers for their own enemies?

The language of the Young Republicans is not a departure from their movement’s ideology; it is its most honest expression. It’s the unfiltered echo of a worldview that has systematically normalized dehumanization. The private chats are simply the script, written by their leaders, finally being read aloud.

Like many of you, I’ve spent my life wondering how an entire society—a modern, educated society like Germany in the 1930s—could arrive at a place where gas chambers became a tool of state policy. I’ve long hypothesized that the path to such an atrocity wasn’t a sudden leap, but a gradual slide—a descent paved with the normalization of cruelty disguised as “jokes.” Still, a part of you always hopes you’re going too far, that you’re being alarmist.

But reading the leaked chats from the Young Republicans¹, and seeing the pieces click into place alongside the violent public rhetoric of leaders like Charlie Kirk² amidst the violent actions of ICE and the cultural defense of cruelty against minorities from figures like Joe Rogan (though even Rogan has begun recoiling at the ICE violence specifically), that hope evaporates. The hypothesis is confirmed in the most chilling way imaginable.

It doesn’t start with monsters. It starts with ambitious political operatives laughing about “gas chambers” and calling support for slavery “mega based” in what they think is a private chat.¹ It starts when dehumanization becomes a punchline. This is the very process cultural figures like Joe Rogan defend when they champion comedians for “punching down” on marginalized communities. They call it a “joke.” They call it “free speech.” But what they are normalizing is the first, essential step on the path to the unthinkable. It happens when the ideology of your leaders, amplified by the culture, makes violence not just thinkable, but laughable.

This is the path. You don’t get to the camps overnight; you get there one “joke” at a time. And there is no longer any room for doubt. We are watching it happen.

The Data Behind the Ideology

While the right-wing machine works overtime to brand its political opponents as terrorists, the actual data tells a story they refuse to acknowledge. The violent fantasies circulating in their private chats are not just talk; they are the ideological counterpart to a brutal, documented reality. The truth is, the primary source of domestic terrorism in the United States has a consistent political home.

In a previous article, I compiled and analyzed a dataset of every significant act of ideologically motivated political violence where the perpetrator was radicalized in America, stretching back 75 years to the end of World War II.³ The findings are not ambiguous.

U.S.-bred terrorism incidents by decade since 1950. Far-right extremists have consistently carried out more attacks than the far left across nearly every decade, showing a persistent pattern of right-wing violence in America’s modern history.

Totals tell the story: from 1950–2025, far-right terrorism in the U.S. produced over 1,400 victims compared to just 131 from the far left. By incident count, the far right is ~2.6 times more violent, but in terms of deaths and injuries it is more than 10 times as lethal, showing the true cost of their ideology.

Decade after decade, the overwhelming majority of terrorist incidents have been carried out by the far-right.

This pattern of violence stretches from the Ku Klux Klan’s church bombings and assassinations in the 1950s and 60s, to the Oklahoma City bombing in the 1990s, to the string of massacres that have defined the last decade—in Charleston, Pittsburgh, El Paso, and Buffalo.

But the disparity is not just in the number of attacks; it’s in their lethality. When you measure the human cost, the right’s dominance in political violence becomes even more horrifying. While the far-right is responsible for roughly 2.6 times more incidents, their attacks have been more than 10 times as lethal, producing over ten times the number of total victims.

This is not a partisan conclusion. It is a statistical fact, one so undeniable that even Donald Trump’s own administration was forced to admit it. In an October 2020 report, Trump’s Department of Homeland Security concluded that “racially and ethnically motivated violent extremists—specifically white supremacist extremists will remain the most persistent and lethal threat in the Homeland.”³ They knew it then, and they know it now.

The Pattern is the Problem

This is where the pieces lock into place. The poisonous ideology, the “jokes” about mass murder, and the real-world body count are not separate issues. They are a clear, predictable, and repeating pattern—a production line for political violence.

Step 1: First, leaders like Charlie Kirk lay the ideological groundwork. They preach a gospel of acceptable losses and expendable enemies, where American lives are “worth it” and due process is an obstacle to be discarded. They normalize the idea of using military force against their fellow citizens.

Step 2: Next, this ideology filters down and metastasizes. The movement’s rising stars—the ambitious Young Republicans—translate it into the casual language of violence. The leaders’ public dehumanization becomes the next generation’s private “jokes” about “gas chambers,” “rape,” and admiration for Hitler.

Step 3: Finally, this rhetoric finds its ultimate expression in reality. The fantasies in the chats become the body counts in the data. For 75 years, the ideology that excuses violence and the rhetoric that laughs about it have culminated in bombed churches, assassinated leaders, and massacred worshippers at the hands of the far-right.

As I wrote previously in “Warning: We Will Be Decimated,” this is the first stop on a train we have seen before in history. You first brand your opponents as wicked, soulless, and a mortal threat to civilization. That rhetoric inevitably leads to the same destination: extermination.

The POLITICO leak is so important because it exposes the middle step in that process, live and in real-time. It is the missing link that proves the connection between the ideological poison preached by right-wing leaders and the real-world violence that has plagued this country for generations.

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If exposing this pattern of violent ideology is the kind of strategic thinking we need, then join us in executing it. The American Manifesto is more than just analysis—it’s the operations center for a smarter, more disciplined resistance.

Every subscription helps us develop these urgent strategies, expose the lies that fuel this death cult, and arm citizens with the clarity to win this fight for the Republic. Join us, support this work, and let’s build a resistance that is as strategic as our opponents are cynical.

Focus. Amplify. Win. The future depends on it.

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This Isn’t a Debate, It’s a Diagnosis

The evidence is clear. The data is undeniable. The rhetoric is unambiguous. America has a right-wing terrorism problem, and it’s being actively cultivated by the leaders of the conservative movement and embraced by its rising stars.

It is critical to understand what this evidence truly signifies. This is not a normal political disagreement about how to best deliver an economy that works for Americans or provide better healthcare. The chasm between us and them is not about policy. It’s a disagreement over how to best kill political opponents with the casualness of ordering a coffee. What we’re witnessing mirrors a death cult’s hallmarks—violence celebrated as a path to power, fantasized in private and realized in public.

This cult is banking on our civility, our disbelief, and the apathy of those not paying attention. Whether they succeed and gather the power to execute on their fantasies is up to us. Our job is not just to be outraged; it is to become the alarm that cannot be ignored. We must deliver the reality of this threat into the ears and eyes of every person who believes this is still just politics.

• Show them the chats: Let them read the words “gas chamber” and “I love Hitler” from the mouths of the GOP’s future leaders.¹

• Show them the data: Make them see the charts that prove, for 75 years, where the real terrorist threat has come from.³

• Show them the ideology: Remind them of leaders like Kirk who callously declared American deaths “worth it.”²

We must force an exhausted and distracted nation to understand the stakes. This is not a drill. The truth is our weapon. It’s time we use it relentlessly.

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Your Move — Let’s Execute This Strategy Together

The strategy of becoming an “alarm that cannot be ignored” only works if we sharpen it, spread it, and act on it together. We need to hear from you in the comments:

• Does the “Ideology → Rhetoric → Violence” pattern laid out here resonate with what you’re seeing? What’s the biggest obstacle to making the public take this threat seriously?

• Are you seeing this kind of casual violent rhetoric—online, in your community, or from local political figures? How are people reacting? Is it being dismissed as “just jokes”?

• Our core mission is to wake up those who are still tuned out. Which piece of evidence in this article (the chats, the 75-year data, or the leaders’ ideology) do you think is the most powerful tool for doing that, and why?

• Beyond sharing this article, how can we most effectively “show them the data” and “show them the chats”? What are the best platforms or methods to cut through the noise and reach people who don’t follow politics closely?

• What part of this pattern did I miss? Are there other examples of this normalization of cruelty—in media, culture, or politics—that we should be highlighting right now?

1. Jason Beeferman and Emily Ngo, “’I love Hitler’: Leaked messages expose Young Republicans’ racist chat,” POLITICO, October 14, 2025. This article provides the direct evidence of violent, racist, and antisemitic rhetoric from the next generation of GOP leaders, serving as the central catalyst for our analysis. It reveals private messages where Young Republican leaders joke about gas chambers, slavery, rape, and express admiration for Hitler.

2. Lukium, “No Tears Owed,” The American Manifesto, September 11, 2025. This piece documents the public rhetoric of right-wing figure Charlie Kirk, establishing the ideological foundation for violence. It details his calls for military occupation of U.S. cities, his celebration of extrajudicial killings, and his dismissal of American gun deaths as “worth it.”

3. Lukium, “Warning: We Will Be Decimated—Literally—If We Stay Quiet,” The American Manifesto, September 14, 2025. This article provides a data-driven analysis of 75 years of American-bred terrorism, demonstrating that far-right extremists have been responsible for significantly more violent incidents and victims than the far-left. It serves as the statistical backbone for our argument, proving the existence of a persistent right-wing terrorism problem.