College Republicans Cry Free Speech After Chapter Gets Shut Down for Nazi Salutes 

Not even a year and a half into the second Trump administration, and we can almost set our watches by how often male college Republicans are revealed to be Nazis. Or how often they double down and defend their Nazism. Or how often the administration defends them for being Nazis. I’d joke that “Thank God America is great again,” but at this point, who knows who’d take that literally.

In October, when Politico published 2,900 pages of the “I Love Hitler” group chat from the Young Republican Federation, Vice President JD Vance said it was just “kids being kids”—even though the (overwhelmingly male) members of the chat ranged in age from 21 to 31, and some already held elected office. Less than three weeks ago, the Miami Herald revealed another college Nazi group chat, this one run by the secretary of the county Republican Party in Miami-Dade County, who’s a law student at Florida International University in Miami. And with the latest Nazi news out of the University of Florida, this makes Florida 2-for-2 when it comes to college Republicans being Nazis. Congrats to the Sunshine State. 

Over the weekend, the state leaders for College Republicans in Florida said it disbanded UF’s chapter for “a pattern of conduct that violated its rules and values, including a recent antisemitic gesture.” The “gesture” being Nazi salutes, a photo of which they fully posted on social media. UF followed up by saying it blocked the chapter’s campus operations. The chapter hit back by filing a free speech lawsuit against UF on Monday, accusing the university of attacking its First Amendment rights because the Nazi salutes took place off campus. They also accused UF of retaliating against them for hosting an event with James Fishback, the 31-year-old extreme far-right and anti-immigration Florida gubernatorial candidate who thinks abortion is “a genocide against the next generation” and “a holocaust against the pre-born.” He wrote on Twitter that UF’s decision was “a disgusting attack on the first amendment.” Damn—the United States of yore that sent its men to die fighting Nazis in 1941 had no idea how simple they had it. 

“These guys are … more hard-edged, what I would call the true right, and they [UF] wanted to punish them for that,” the chapter’s attorney, former GOP state rep Anthony Sabatini, told the Herald, accusing UF of targeting the group because they’re promoting an “aggressive America First agenda.” Now we’re calling Nazis hard-edged and “America First.” Sick. 

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