The self-serious lecturing that pushes young conservatives into race-obsessed group chats and noxious edgelord irony is needlessly counterproductive. It pours gasoline on a fire rather than persuading anyone.
Why might conservatives in their twenties and thirties, whose formative years came during the height of 2010s cancel culture, now freely toss around ugly Nazi memes in group chats? At some point — maybe around the time corporations were funneling millions into the coffers of an actual racist in the name of anti-racism — it became clear to them that no matter what they said, accusations of bigotry would follow. Anti-left politics were regularly categorized as objective manifestations of virulent hatred by elite people and institutions. That power imbalance was deeply alienating, both psychologically and ideologically.
The lesson many young conservatives took away from those years is that charges of Nazism and white supremacy were so flippant and broad they’d become meaningless. And so they turned those charges into punchlines.
For some, those punchlines bred an ironic detachment, and the irony bred nihilism. These lost souls aren’t a majority of the right, or even the young right, but their numbers are too many. They are not now being served by sanctimonious lectures on their naughtiness because those are the very lectures that sent them spiraling in the first place.
They would also not be served by getting let off the hook entirely. (Which isn’t happening.) If you injure the reputation of your group or your office, you resign. You learn those jokes fall flat when brought out of your weird corner of Signal and into the daylight. And you grow up.
If, however, you’re treated like an actual Nazi — confirming the very predicate of your jokes that Very Serious People are humorless scolds — you’re more likely to keep spiraling into irony-poisoned meme labryinths. And while you’re still entirely to blame for falling into genuine bigotry, your loss likely could have been prevented with a little more persuasion. Most people on the right agree the left’s habit of reflexively classifying conservatives as racists and hatemongers is wrong and pushes some people further toward the fringes. That implies, yes, some people are embracing identitarianism but also that it’s possible to stop this trickle.
It’s not that hard to say someone screwed up and move on. It doesn’t require self-serious lectures, nor does it require ignoring or permitting bad behavior either. Politically incorrect jokes should be protected at all costs, but playacting real hate with such zeal is corrosive to the soul over time. Mediocre meme lords mistake themselves for Dave Chappelle. Like a man who drinks a bit too much and goes after the best-looking woman at the bar, edgelords get drunk on shock value and think their jokes are much funnier than they really are in the harsh light of day.
Christians are called to love their neighbors and “follow God’s example.” James 3 tells us “the tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.” The chapter ends by explaining “the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.”
Racialist shock comedy is often rooted in resentment — resentment over being lectured at and silenced and told what to think and what to say by gatekeepers on the left and the right. That resentment is entirely reasonable, for what it’s worth, but we have too much to be joyful about to let it overtake our tongues and make us miserable.
Technology is bringing us within a second’s reach of every person from every tribe. Just as Christ taught us to fight our lusts for money and power, he also taught us there is no Jew or Greek. It will never be more difficult to live up to that calling than in our immediate future, when social media puts us in instant proximity to people from all different backgrounds. Our kids’ lives will be on the line if we devolve into an era of violent conflict.
Legacy media will elevate stories like Politico’s recent Young Republicans exposé with clear double standards, and then demand conservatives concede that weirdos in group chats are representative of the mainstream right because it affirms their narrative of right-wing bigotry. There’s room between ceding ground to the left that need not be ceded and pretending like the decades-long campaign to alienate and ostracize conservatives is not pushing some people into dark corners.
It’s not an easy balance to strike, but it’s an important one to get right.
Emily Jashinsky is D.C. correspondent at UnHerd. She previously covered politics as a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner. Prior to joining the Examiner, Emily was the spokeswoman for Young America’s Foundation. She’s interviewed leading politicians and entertainers and appeared regularly as a guest on major television news programs, including “Fox News Sunday,” “Media Buzz,” and “Washington Journal.” Her work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, the Telegraph, The Hill, and more. Emily also serves as director of the National Journalism Center, co-host of the news show “Counter Points” on the Breaking Points network and a visiting fellow at Independent Women’s Forum. Originally from Wisconsin, she is a graduate of George Washington University.
