When students invited a self-described “white advocate” to a Maryland campus last month, it opened a rift among college Republicans in the state.
The state’s college Republican group welcomed the speaker, Jared Taylor, to Salisbury University, where he warned that white people face extinction.
College Republicans elsewhere were appalled.
Blake Ruszala, the finance chair for the University of Maryland’s college Republicans chapter, said his organization was damaged by the association with Mr. Taylor.
“It’s going to hurt all of us,” Mr. Ruszala said. “We’ve lost people wanting to affiliate with us.”
The conflict in Maryland is the latest in a debate that has been dividing college Republicans everywhere: whether to avoid or embrace the far right.
Groups at several campuses across the country, including Harvard, Georgetown, the University of Illinois, and the University of Florida, have been tied to racist speakers, rhetoric or social media postings. The nation’s fastest-growing college Republican group, the College Republicans of America, recently named a political director, Kai Schwemmer, who is known for his past ties to the white nationalist Nick Fuentes.
Riley McArdle, chairman of the College Republican Federation of Alabama, said his group had been considering affiliating with the College Republicans of America but had been unsettled by Mr. Schwemmer’s appointment.
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As midterms approach, the conflicts have become more intense, and also more worrisome for some Republicans. Mr. McArdle is concerned that disagreements among college Republicans nationally will weaken their effectiveness in advancing the party in a year when getting out the vote of young people, particularly men, is essential to success.
The College Republican National Committee was once a cohesive national organization with headquarters on Washington’s K Street, known as the center of the nation’s lobbying industry. It had more than 250,000 student members and spawned dozens of political stars. Among its alumni were Rick Santorum, the former senator from Pennsylvania; Paul D. Ryan, the former House speaker; and Bobby Jindal, the former governor of Louisiana.
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There have been stirrings of concern among others in the party.
In Maryland, Shannon Wright, a candidate for governor, objected to the invitation of the white nationalist to a state campus. “This is not representative of the Republican Party,” she said.
Others criticism has been indirect. In February, the California Republican Party circulated a memo internally urging vigilance against a divisive movement working to take over the party from within, although it did not mention the college groups.
The memo, which was leaked to the media, characterized the movement as white nationalist, critical of MAGA and President Trump, opposing the civil rights of women, gays and racial minorities and promoting the idea that America should be “reorganized around an ethnically and culturally identity-based order, modeled closely after Nazi Germany.”
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A year later, the growing coalition looks shakier.
Maryland was one of the nine states whose college Republicans joined the C.R.A. last year. Even as some members at other campuses in the state objected, the Maryland College Republicans invited Mr. Taylor to Salisbury University, a public school in the state’s eastern shore region, in April. The university had denounced Mr. Taylor’s viewpoints as “extremist” but said it had no choice but to let the event proceed on First Amendment grounds.
The head of Maryland College Republicans, Colin McEvers, a Salisbury student, introduced Mr. Taylor as someone who might have the key to “save our country, to keep it from becoming a non-English-speaking hellscape where white people are spit at, despised and persecuted.”
Under heavy security, Mr. Taylor spoke to the mostly male audience of fewer than 100 people. A group of several dozen protesters had gathered outside.
“Our habitat is diminishing as more and more nonwhites push into white society,” Mr. Taylor said, even as some in the audience quietly walked out to the waiting protesters.
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