"Morning Joe" hosts Mika Brzezinki and Joe Scarborough (YouTube Screenshot)
In an article published by Rolling Stone on Friday, March 13, former CNN anchor John Avlon examined a disturbing trend: young MAGA Republicans flat-out praising Adolf Hitler and other members of their party looking the other way rather than condemning them. Avlon's article had a provocative headline: "The Republican Party's Nazi Problem Is Getting Worse. It Should Care," and the piece is still generating a lot of discussion —including biting comments from former GOP Rep. Joe Scarborough, who warned that the Republican Party is facing a "crisis that could tear conservatism apart."
During a Monday, March 16 broadcast of MS NOW's "Morning Joe," the Never Trump conservative was joined by fellow host Mika Brzezinski and told guest Avlon, "This is something we've been hearing for a very long time from leaders, and it's not just independents like yourself and former Republicans like myself. You have a guy like Rod Dreher. Rod, of course, he's supportive of Donald Trump. He's very supportive of (Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor) Orbán…. He thinks the Enlightenment was a mistake."
Scarborough continued, "This guy is no leftie, but after leaving Hungary to come back and spend some time in Washington, he wrote a post — and he said: You guys don't understand what an unbelievable crisis we have right now. This is a crisis that could tear conservatism apart. The bigotry, the racism, the fascism, the antisemitism — he said it's all over Washington, D.C. with younger Republicans…. This is a massive, massive problem."
Scarborough got no argument from Avlon, an ex-speechwriter for former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani who ran for a U.S. House of Representatives seat in New York's 1st Congressional District in 2024 but lost to incumbent GOP Rep. Nick LaLota.
Avlon told Scarborough and Brzezinski, "This is a massive problem, and it's coming up from the grass roots…. Particularly among young Republicans…. We've got a creeping antisemitism problem galloping, in the horseshoe theory of politics, on the far right and the far left. But the far right is being exposed as having outright Hitler admiration in their own words. And that's dramatically different and dramatically more dangerous, and it needs to be confronted."