This Is the Culture Donald Trump and JD Vance Built
None of this is random. It’s learned behavior.
Politico dropped nearly 2,900 pages of leaked messages this week from national Republican operatives — not trolls, not 4chan randos, but actual aides, campaign staffers, and elected officials. And the shit in those messages? Predictably disgusting. They called Black people “monkeys” and “the watermelon people.” They joked about rape. They fantasized about gas chambers. One guy praised Hitler.
And that’s not even the whole of it.
This week, we also learned that a Republican staffer had a literal swastika in the background of his Zoom calls — hanging inside a sitting GOP congressman’s office. Congressman Taylor’s response? He claimed he was “just made aware.” Oh, you just noticed there’s a giant swastika in your office? How the fuck did you — or no one else on your staff — see that until now? How long has it been there?
If Republicans don’t want to be called Nazis, maybe they should stop hiring people who decorate their workspaces with Nazi paraphernalia. Just a thought.
And I can’t wait to hear JD Vance’s defense of that one.
Because here’s the thing: this isn’t just about a few “bad apples” getting caught. It’s a culture. What does it say about the environment the GOP has created — that a staffer felt completely comfortable putting a swastika on display, in a congressional office, on camera?
No, Congressman Taylor may not have approved that himself. But he sure as hell built a culture where it felt acceptable. Just like Trump built it. Just like JD Vance helps preserve it.
If that ever happened in my office, I’d be thinking long and hard about how I contributed to something like that. I’d try to be better. They won’t.
And what does JD Vance, the Vice President of the United States and the frontrunner for the GOP nomination in 2028, do when asked about all this?
He shrugs. He deflects. He lies. Says it’s “nothing compared” to old texts from Jay Jones — the Democratic nominee for Attorney General in Virginia — which, to be clear, were also bad. (See how easy that is? You just say it.)
That’s why I’m furious. Not shocked. Not confused. Just pissed. Because instead of condemning the toxicity coming from his own political machine, the second-highest official in the country defended it. Minimized it. Excused it. Spun it into a partisan gotcha.
He called Democrats “pearl clutchers,” brushing off Nazi jokes, racial slurs, and rape fantasies by framing these operatives as “kids” instead of what they are: professionals in their 20s, 30s, and, yes, 40s.
How many times have they lectured us about not calling them fascists when they act like fascists? How many times have they lectured us about not calling them Nazis when they refuse to fire people who have Nazi paraphernalia in the background of their conference calls?
I’m done not calling a spade a spade. This is who these people are. The Republican Party has a choice: they can either kick these people out, or they can keep having the Vice President of the United States defend them. And if they choose the latter — if they keep excusing, minimizing, and defending this filth — then they’re telling us exactly what they are, too.
That tells you everything you need to know about the moral collapse of this JD Vance — and the party he and Donald Trump lead. This is the same guy who once compared Trump to Hitler... then pivoted from calling him Hitler to calling him boss. The self-styled “family man” who defends hate and calls it leadership. The guy who lectures Democrats about language but has nothing to say about Stephen Miller calling us domestic terrorists. The same jackass who’s spent half his vice presidency on vacation — and had the Army Corps literally raise a river so his family could go kayaking. The system bends for him while the rest of us tread water.
And none of this is random. It’s learned behavior. For nearly a decade, Trump has trained a generation of conservatives to believe cruelty is strength, empathy is weakness, and saying the quiet part out loud makes you “authentic.”
These Republican operatives didn’t invent this filth. They watched their party leaders — Vance, Bannon, Miller — sneer, mock, lie, and win. And they learned: this is how power works.
As a father — and as someone who still believes character should matter — I keep asking:
Would you be proud if your kids grew up talking like that?
Would you want your daughter bringing one of these guys home?
Would you hire them?
Because if the answer’s yes (and for JD Vance we know it is), that says a hell of a lot more about you than it ever will about them.
Because JD Vance isn’t just making bad policy. He’s setting a bad example. He’s teaching men of all ages that decency is optional — and cruelty is the point.
And yeah, Jay Jones said something horrible. He apologized. He’ll face accountability at the ballot box, and voters will decide. But here’s the difference: Jones owned it. Vance weaponized it. He used one man’s mistake to excuse a culture of hate inside his own party.
The MAGA crowd has spent years teaching kids that empathy is weakness and hate is branding. They’ve built an entire movement on rage performance and grievance. And now, those kids are grown. They’re campaign managers, congressional aides, “policy guys.” And this is what they produce.
Even the Young Republican National Federation condemned the messages. Called them vile. Disgraceful. “Unbecoming of any Republican.” They demanded resignations. Even they understood this crossed every damn line.
But not the Vice President. He saw Nazis, slurs, and rape jokes — and his first instinct was to defend them. That’s not leadership. I don’t know what is.
So yeah, I’m pissed off. Because I’m raising my son in this country. I’m trying to teach him empathy, honesty, decency — the stuff that used to be baseline American values — while the second-highest office in the land is modeling the exact opposite.
I’m trying to teach him that being a man means taking responsibility, not deflecting it. That leadership means protecting people, not demeaning them. That you can fight hard without losing your humanity.
But how do you explain to a kid that the Vice President of the United States looked at a pile of racist, Nazi-loving garbage — and called outrage over it “pearl clutching”? How do you tell him that’s not who we are, when so many adults in power act like it is?
This isn’t politics. It’s moral decay. And if we don’t call it out — loudly, relentlessly, every damn time — we let it win.
With urgency,
—Mike
Kids? Kids?? KIDS!!!
Vance, go to hell. What if these “kids” called your wife a Towel-headed terrorist? You cowardly whore.
Vance is a manipulator who seeks power above all else. He has long been a major venture capitalist, making his fortune from big pharma and tech. His nomination came because of these ties. Yet he aligns himself with the MAGA ideology, which criticizes Big Pharma and tech as left-leaning. Sure, the intellectual minds creating innovative products may lean left, but the CEOs and those holding real power are often MAGA-aligned—once they’ve secured their gains from pharma and tech.
A prime example is Vance’s own statements. He once said he was a “never-Trump” guy and didn’t like him, yet now he praises Trump. It seemed sincere before, but now he bends to Trump ... until Trump is no longer a threat. After that, he will likely manipulate people toward his side while eventually vilifying Trump again.
Trump himself operates on ego and a unique level of sociopathy and psychopathy. It’s not just privilege—he’s exceptional at the extreme end of this spectrum. He speaks of what he perceives as strong or "manly", but has little understanding of what strength is or the consequences. In reality, he’s often a puppet for others, lacking the intellect to execute even 10% of what’s happening around him. The only policy truly driven by him is tariffs.