Men Will be Boys. Girls Will be Women.
The group chat
I have been paying close attention to politics since Donald Trump first came into power in 2017.
It’s often hard to pay attention to politics these days because Trump’s regime floods the zone with so much information and misinformation and disinformation that it can make your head spin.
I think Steve Bannon called it, “Flooding the zone with shit,”
But some terrible things about the Trump era stick out.
Like tear-gassing peaceful protesters in Washington, D.C. for a photo op. Like taking children from their parents at the border. Like praising foreign dictators while attacking American intelligence. Like sending American troops into American cities. Like inciting an insurrection and then pardoning insurrectionists.
Like a recent AI video posted by the president of the United States showing him releasing shit on U.S. citizens below from a jet high in the sky. A literal interpretation of the Bannon philosophy.
The list could go on for the entire essay. Ad nauseam.
But recently, something else stuck out. The Young Republicans’ leaked group chat.
My god. It was stomach-churning bile expelled in texts by folks who work in the upper echelons of Republican politics…people who know all the players and the ins and outs of the Republican establishment. People who work as staffers to attorneys general, including Kansas’ own Kris Kobach, and legislators across the country.
People who should know better.
The group chat was exposed by Politico, and it was met with almost immediate condemnation. Democrats and even some Republicans came out in opposition to its misogyny and racism and xenophobia.
Politico journalists reported that the discussion consisted of 2,900 pages of chats over seven months. There were at least a dozen “young” Republicans in the chat. The chat included the use of the N-word at least 12 times, and referred to Black folks as “monkeys” and “the watermelon people.”
The messages discussed “loving” Adolf Hitler and placing political opponents in gas chambers. The staffers talked positively about rape and used slurs to describe LGBTQ people and people with disabilities.
It was more terrible than I can say here, but Politico reporters went on to state:
“The dynamic of easy racism and casual cruelty played out in often dark, vivid fashion inside the chats, where campaign talk and party gossip blurred into streams of slurs and violent fantasies..”
And then, the unthinkable.
Vice President JD Vance was asked about the chat. It is something reporters should ask about. Many of the people who made those statements work with and for elected Republicans. One is a state senator. Vance dismissed the story: “I really don’t want to 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,”
The vice president went on to say that critics are “pearl-clutching” over statements made by kids.
Remember that word: “kids.”
JD Vance speaks during a press conference. Oct. 21, 2025. Kiryat Gat, Israel. (Pool/Getty Images/Nathan Howard)
“Young Republicans” is part of the Republican National Federation, and is an organization for Republicans between the ages of 18 and 40.
Vance is 41 years old. He is also the vice president of the United States.
What is most puzzling about Vance’s assertion that the people in the group should be treated as children is that he’s demonstrated that he thinks actual children should be treated as adults.
Strangely, the vice president thinks full-grown men and women shouldn’t face consequences for their racism or misogyny or xenophobia, while also thinking a 12-year-old girl who was sexually assaulted by her uncle should have to bear the consequences of incest.
Vance has stated on numerous occasions that he wants to ban reproductive care nationally. He thinks children should be forced to give birth, no matter how the pregnancy occurred.
Vance holds the simultaneous beliefs that pregnant girls are adults, but GOP men working as staffers, some reaching middle age with full beards and children of their own, are “kids.”
This is exactly how many of the folks who write legislation for the GOP understand the world as well. I have seen this ideology actually show up in legislation.
Men are men until they do something stupid. Women are women from conception.
It is wrong and backward.
JD Vance’s motto? Men will be boys. Girls will be women.
Gross.
~Jess
*I first submitted this essay to The Kansas City Star — it was published on 10/16/25.
Jess, I am 72 old white male, married for 49 years heterosexual, lifelong Texan, evangelical Southern Baptist. I am also a lawyer(now retired) just like our “kid” VP Vance. I sound like I should be right there with the MAGA crowd, right? NOT.
Of all the things that are wrong with our country, and they are legion, in my view what you said is honestly number one. “Men will be boys, girls will be women.”
I have detested the “boys will be boys” mentality and philosophy my entire life. It has always been around to a greater or lesser extent. There are many things over these past ten years that have saddened and truly grieved me to my core, but the open racism and the misogyny of today is the most tragic of all. I thought we were at least getting better, I foolishly did. Vance, Hegseth, Trump, Musk , and don’t forget Thomas and Kavanaugh, have now told these “Young Republicans” this stuff is normal, this is good, this is macho, what a MAN you are. It makes me want to throw up.
Anyway, enough ranting. We are fully and completely morally bankrupt in this country. See Vance comment on this………..
While there are certainly plenty of reprehensible and disgusting women too (see Maxwell, Ghislaine), I know the world and especially the USA would be in a more ethical, moral and decent place if women were in charge. To hear all this perverse talk (as well as justifications and rationalizations of these horrific words and ideas from our “leaders”) is incomprehensible and frankly heartbreaking. We have sold our souls to DJT and frankly evil itself.
A serious issue and one i have noticed more and more with the current regime. Misogyny and racism are the bottom of their program - oh, forgot to mention simple, overwhelming greed.