by Wayne Besen • March 7, 2026 • Opinion, Politics, Uncategorized, Weekly Column • Comments (0) • 179

FIU Scandal Reveals How Republicans Ruined a Generation

Vile Bigotry Spewed in College Chats Show What Conservatives Value

A couple of weeks ago, I reported on the radicalism of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI), which is connected to Project 2025. After examining their extremist programming, which targets impressionable college Republicans, I expressed alarm: “I shudder to contemplate what radicalized conservative youth…will mean for the future of our country.” What I didn’t expect were the rotten chickens to come home to roost so quickly.

The Miami Herald released a series of vile conversations that occurred in a private college Republican chat group, which was created by Abel Alexander Carvajal, secretary of the Miami Dade County Republican Party. The shocking chats took place in 2025, during a two-and-a-half-week period in September and October.

The chat group participants included some of the Florida International University campus’ top conservative leaders: the county GOP secretary, FIU’s Turning Point USA chapter president and the former College Republicans recruitment chair.

The text group quickly degenerated into ugly racial slurs against Black people, vile antisemitism, caveman-level misogyny, glorification of Nazis and an open sewer of homophobia. Variations of the N-word were spewed more than 400 times.

Of all the bile hurled in the chat group, what stood out was the reaction to the hate by Dariel Gonzalez, then the College Republicans’ recruitment chair. He responded to multiple calls for violence against black people by saying: “How edgy.”

When I was in college, if we wanted to be edgy, we’d dye our hairdo, find some retro clothes at the thrift store or discover a cool new underground band. Apparently, for many of today’s college Republicans, “edgy” is regurgitating Ku Klux Klan tropes.

The Miami Herald reported that William Bejerano, who tried to start a pro-life group at Miami Dade College, “posted a block of text calling for dozens of acts of extreme violence against Black people, who he referred to using the n-word, including crucifying, beheading and dissecting people.”

How Cool. So Edgy.