A Politico article published on Oct. 14 revealed hundreds of racist and otherwise hateful messages sent among leaders of the Young Republican chapters in a private group chat. In response, many on the right were quick to denounce the vile messages, including the Young Republican National Federation.

However, others, including the vice president of the United States, seem more worried about throwing Young Republicans under the bus than they are about what this could do to the Republican Party. I understand that “no enemies to the right” has been a common Republican sentiment for years, but it has become more accepted since the fatal shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk on Sept. 10.

Conservatism ought to have standards that help advance conservative issues and policies. Choosing not to prune our ranks of unacceptable behavior will only deteriorate and reset those standards.

Republican tent is big, but it should exclude racists and antisemites

“I will unite with anyone on the Right,” conservative commentator Matt Walsh said in an X post following Kirk’s assassination. “I hereby discard any grudge or personal feud I may have had with anyone on my side. Maybe we will pick up those arguments some time in the future. Now we have to stand together.”

Walsh has since referenced this specific olive branch in light of the Politico story on Republican racist texts, emphasizing the need for unity on the right.

I agree with Walsh in the sense that I want the right to be open to all who are pursuing conservative ends. I have always been supportive of a big-tent approach to handling our internal disagreements on the right. I take issue with the methods some want to use in order to reach conservative outcomes, but I think that is where the range of discourse ought to lie.

However, the right has no business welcoming those who are not interested in pursuing conservative ends or simply have character issues more generally.

There are, in fact, political enemies of mine on the right. People like Nick Fuentes, Candace Owens and the Tate brothers are all examples of people on “the right” that are clearly antithetical to reaching my vision of what conservatism ought to look like, and should be against any vision that Walsh believes in as well. Allowing issues like hate to fester within party networks will only lead to increasingly worse instances at higher levels of leadership.

Even Vice President JD Vance expressed a willingness to look past such actions, defaulting to whataboutism. Vance highlighted that leaked messages from a Democratic Virginia attorney general nominee, who called for violence against his opponents and their children, were worse than the leaked texts from the young Republicans. Both are horrible, and everybody involved needs to go.

Having standards for public and private conduct is not going to weaken the conservative moment. It will strengthen it.

The willingness to send racist messages privately also indicates poor judgment. In the best-case scenario, even if you chalk up all the statements in that Politico article to just dumb kids making jokes, it still reveals exceedingly poor judgment. The worst case is that these are outright hateful people who are showing their true colors in private. Either way, they ought to be condemned and removed.

Winning for winning's sake does us no good

“The Left will keep up the united front and defend their guys no matter what while we keep throwing each other to the wolves at every opportunity,” Walsh said in a tweet, responding to sentiments similar to mine.

I'm not really sure where this narrative that the left is a united front has come from, but it's untrue. The left is a mess and has been since Donald Trump won the presidency the first time.

Even so, Walsh raises a valuable argument: If we refuse to embrace everyone remotely on the right, we risk losing to the left.

My response? I don’t really care.

I’m not all that interested in winning for winning's sake. I am interested in winning to achieve conservative outcomes. If we have to sacrifice everything we are in order to win, then what's the point?

If I have to choose between winning while giving up the American right to antisemites and racists or losing as conservatives, losing is a pretty easy choice for me.

The future of the Republican Party leadership cannot afford to be compromised by people who lack principles or even just the ability to conduct themselves properly. We should not drop our standard of whom we allow within our ranks just because we think the left does it. Why would we want to implode in the way they have over the past five years?

I am not going to defend things that are indefensible simply because people from “my team” did it.

Dace Potas is an opinion columnist for USA TODAY and a graduate of DePaul University with a degree in political science.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: JD Vance is wrong. I don't want racists and antisemites in my Republican Party. | Opinion

Reporting by Dace Potas, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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