In a recently leaked group chat, it was revealed that a Republican operative named Paul Ingrassia referred to himself as having a “Nazi streak.”

The leak is just one among many recent signs that this kind of radical and incendiary rhetoric has become increasingly normalized among some up-and-coming Republican staffers.

But Ingrassia isn’t just any other MAGA edgelord; he is President Donald Trump’s nominee to head the Office of Special Counsel. And though it seems increasingly unlikely that Ingrassia will win Senate confirmation to that post, he has already been serving as a de facto “loyalty enforcer” within the administration all year.

Already under scrutiny for his associations with antisemitic figures and extreme public commentary, the group chat leaked to Politico this week revealed several other nasty comments Ingrassia made, including: “Never trust a chinaman or Indian,” musings about the “natural state” of “Blacks,” and a demand that Martin Luther King Jr Day should “be eviscerated.” Ingrassia also used an Italian slur to refer to Black people, went so far as to declare that “the founding fathers were wrong that all men are created equal,” and said: “I do have a Nazi streak in me from time to time, I will admit it.”

Several Republican senators have said they

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