Republicans have received so much bad press about racists and Nazis in their ranks that you’d think they’d learn and try to avoid more controversial members, but they can’t. Look at who was appointed as director of the College Republicans.

The newly appointed College Republicans of America political director Kai Schwemmer has made racist, antisemitic, homophobic and sexist statements while espousing extremist rightwing views on abortion, a Guardian review of livestream recordings can reveal.

Schwemmer said he would accept a world in which slavery was legal if abortion was criminalised, describes himself as “very much an anti universal suffrage guy” and accepts a supporter’s description of him as “our Mormon Nick Fuentes” – referring to the white nationalist influencer whose platform he streamed on for years.

Somehow, I am not surprised — we have a chapter of the College Republicans on our campus, and they occasionally get in the news for being assholes. You’d think, though, that they’d at least try to present themselves as sober, serious conservatives. That’s not what a modern Republican is anymore though. The Republican Party is a hate group. This appointment was not a mistake, it’s who they are.

One thing I wonder, though, is who appointed this jerk? The stories don’t say. All the attention is focussed on this stupid hateful young man, but I imagine there’s some wealthy, cigar-smoking bigwig somewhere in the works that thought appointing a misogynistic racist to run a student organization was a fine idea.