Trump Devoured by Conspiracy Culture He Helped Create

0:00A reverent news talk and opinion without agenda. And, well, you know what? I'm going to stop saying without agenda because I definitely have a both sides agenda that I'm going to be leaning into here. Because from my perspective, both sides absolutely suck. And that's just the way it is. Sometimes a little bit of satire thrown in for good measure. Here's today's top trending headline at Newsweek.com. Full list of young Republicans involved in offensive chats. A number of young Republicans have been implicated in a scandal over racist, anti-Semitic, and misogynistic comments leaked in chat messages.

0:31Politico obtained 2 ,900 pages of exchanges over seven months. Among a dozen young Republican leaders in New York, Kansas, Arizona, and Vermont, many of these young politicians are now facing calls to step down. Some of these chat messages involved young Republicans referring to black people as monkeys, talked about throwing opponents into gas chambers, and spoke about raping their enemies. Yeah, this sounds like new wave MAGA to me. I'm guessing that many of these young folks will be promoted within the ranks rather than purged. I mean, this, after all, is largely just locker room talk to Trumpers, right?

1:04Not all, but a growing chorus of them would just simply write this off. And I'm sure they'll say that these messages were all taken out of context as well. They're just joking around, right? And besides, people on the left say bad things when they think that nobody's watching too, right? Yes, I'm sure that's precisely how they're spinning this already. However, the board of directors of the Young Republicans National Federation has said that it is, quote, Appalled by the vile and inexcusable language revealed in the Politico article, such behavior is disgraceful, unbecoming of any Republican, and stands in direct opposition to the values our movement represents.

1:38Those involved must immediately resign from all positions within their state and local young Republican organizations. Stands in direct opposition to the values our movement represents. Really? I mean, have you seen or heard the kinds of things that Donald Trump himself has said and done over the last, I don't know, 20 years that's been written off largely as locker room talk. I did try and fuck her. She was married. That's huge news there. No, no, Nancy. I moved on her like a bitch. I couldn't get there. And she was married. I don't even know what. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.

2:10Whatever you want. Grab them by the pussy. I mean, good for the Young Republican National Federation for immediately condemning this in such unequivocable terms. But I think we're missing the giant elephant in the room here, which is the rise of the young nihilist conspiracy right. This is language straight out of the online gaming communities, who for decades have continually tried to one-up each other by saying the most insanely offensive things imaginable as casually as possible. That's what this is. That's the culture. And unfortunately, a lot of these young folks are not teenagers anymore, and they're bringing this gamer mindset into their worldview and mashing it together with every conspiracy theory they stumble across as gospel.

2:50I was having this conversation with one of our producers this morning here at Newsweek about the Josh Hammer-Candice Owens situation. And if you're not familiar, Candice Owens is a very popular internet troll who says things that she knows her audience will fall for. So she said out loud on her podcast the other day that Josh Hammer was somehow involved in the assassination of his friend Charlie Kirk. And now a bunch of her people have run with it and apparently believe it to be the truth automatically. And now every single one of them is repeating and resharing this lie as Candace herself doubles down on her accusations as of this morning.

3:24I mean, Josh has publicly said that he's looking into going after her legally, and I hope that he does, because this kind of bullcrap needs to be cut from the conservative movement entirely. Conservatives have done zero housecleaning when it comes to policing their own side over the last 20 years, and now the Alex Jones, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Nick Fuentes factor are damn near the point where they could co-opt or take over MAGA entirely itself when Trump eventually kicks the bucket and they exploit the void that his absence will undoubtedly create. And make no mistake, this nihilist conspiracy right was essential to both of Trump's victories getting into the White House.

3:59Because a guy like Trump would never get anywhere if it wasn't for his uncanny ability to ride this wave of pure conspiracy theory bullshit everywhere he goes. The problem for him is that the wave is now bigger than MAGA itself. You can call it dark maga, call them the groipers, call it the alt-right. It's all around us. You want representative government? This is what you get these days, unfortunately. With legions of young men raised by the darkest corners of the internet? From porn to insanely violent video games and videos with decades of unchecked conspiracy theory echo chambers? What the hell did you expect?

4:32I mean, it was bad enough for people my age who grew up being raised by the television and movies in the 80s. today's young people don't stand a chance in this world war of disinformation. And I'm not making excuses for any of these young Republicans. They should all be fired and learn from their lessons, but there is a much larger sickness that is metastasizing that these people are just a symptom of. And I believe that's the QAnon, Pizzagate, Jewish space lasers crowd. I mean, that and the fact that the Democrats are just not the best at public speaking and the things that they talk about bore regular folks to death, but I'm not even convinced that we have anything close to an actual conservative agenda in the GOP today.

5:11This is nothing more than anarchy and chaos, and bowing to Trump's nonsensical whims on a dime, which rarely, if ever, consistently fall into the category of conservative to begin with. That's the point that nobody on the right seems to be willing to say out loud, that Donald Trump isn't a conservative. He's not a liberal either, he's whatever benefits him the most at any given moment. If hugging the flag gets applause, he'll do it. And if mocking the Constitution gets more airtime, he'll do that too. There's no philosophy behind it, it's just the art of the deal dressed as populism. He talks about saving America, but what he's really saving is his brand, his ego, and his myth.

5:45Traditional conservatism used to mean restraint and principle and humility before the law, even reverence for institutions that held society together. But Trump doesn't conserve anything, he consumes everything. Just look at his record, ballooning deficits and tariffs that punish small business, loyalty tests that replaced competence. Foreign policy built on coercing world leaders to kiss his ass. I'm telling you, these countries are calling us up, kissing my ass. Nothing more than transactional narcissism. He doesn't care if the mechanism of government works as long as it works for him. True conservatism would seek order and continuity, respect for precedent.

6:20Trump just brings the opposite with chaos and revenge and exploitation. Instead of preserving American values, Trump has weaponized them. He's taken the vocabulary of conservatism, freedom, patriotism, and faith and emptied it out, leaving only a hollow slogan that echoes back his own reflection. And the sad part is, the party went along with it. The GOP traded principle for proximity. So while the left is out there building its future around new cultural orthodoxy, the right has built its entire identity around one man's fragile ego. This is a hostage situation. And now Marjorie Taylor Greene's become the first disciple to deny that she knew the GOP Christ figure Trump, as she sheds her reptilian MAGA red skin and replaces it with a more purple tone that's more appealing to a wider audience than she's familiar with.

7:05In just the last two weeks alone, she's called Republican men in Congress weak, accused Trump's inner circle of being corrupted by crypto donors. She's even trashed his trade policies for hurting American manufacturers. She's suddenly talking about extending Obamacare subsidies, defending lower income families from insurance hikes, and painting herself as some kind of independent populist savior, something between Trumpism and Bernie Sanders. Not exactly a conversion, so much as it is her molting her exoskeleton. And like any good opportunist, Green seems to sense that Trump's power is waning, so she's already crawling towards the next warm rock.

7:40Yeah, watch out for those Jewish space lasers there, Marjorie. You don't get a blue roof installed on top of your house, the Benjamin Netanyahu is going to burn it down. No, I'm not kidding, that's what these people think happened in places like Maui and California. For anybody wondering what the hell I'm talking about. The blue roof conspiracy comes from the same fever swamp that birthed the Jewish space laser idea. You remember after the devastating wildfires in Maui and California, online conspiracy theorists started circulating photos of homes or cars that appeared untouched while nearby buildings were destroyed, many of which just happened to have blue tarps, blue paint, or blue metal roofs.

8:14From there, the internet did what the internet does best and invented a sci-fi narrative claiming that so-called directed energy weapons, or giant lasers from satellites or government aircraft, were targeting everything except the color blue. When the face hits the microphone, that's kind of like a facepalm kind of moment for broadcasters. So in this bizarre worldview, blue equals safety. People started posting advice like paint your house blue or buy a blue car before the next government firestorm. Some even claimed that elites were painting their own houses blue, I guess in an effort to protect themselves from their own attacks.

8:51And the explanation is painfully simple because blue objects reflect differently on infrared photos. And most of those viral images were either misrepresented or taken from unrelated files or completely doctored in the first place. But the irony is a bit rich considering that the same people screaming about government mind control are the same ones running out to Home Depot to buy blue paint because of something they saw on TikTok. Why do I find the need to explain all of this to you? Good question. It's because these people are out there, there are a god awful lot of them, and they are allowed to vote.

9:20If ever there were an argument for requiring some sort of basic civics testing and licensing to vote, I would say that the right-wing conspiracy crowd is right up there. Maybe I'll tell you about how I had a front row seat at the birth of the conspiracy riot another time, because right now we are out of time. And until we can do it again, it's Newsweek Radio. I'm Jesse Edwards. Catch you next time by... And we say bye-bye! Newsweek Radio is a member of The Trust Project.