Illini Republicans at play

From The Daily Illini, the student newspaper of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign:

In a post that included a stylized graphic matching a clip of a federal agent shooting and killing Alex Pretti, Illini Republicans stated that they “stand with ICE” amid the killings of Renee Nicole Good and Pretti in Minnesota.

The RSO referred to Pretti and Good, two United States citizens who were both killed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in the past month, as “traitors.”

As of Sunday, the group removed the graphic but kept the larger post, which garnered more than a thousand comments on their Instagram account. The post continues to state that “it is, has, and always will be the mandate of our brave public servants, domestic and abroad, to fell the enemies of the United States of America.”

The caption accompanying the graphic reads “Only Traitors Help Invaders.” The text of the post trades in white nationalist rhetoric, describing an invasion by “the masses of the third world and those incompatible with Western civilization.”

A page for the UIUC College Republicans shows the group as having twenty members and a leadership team of three: Reese Hogan, membership director; Ethan Rivera, treasurer; and Ben McKenzie, vice president. The group’s president, if there was one, has gone missing.

Hogan is a student ambassador for the UIUC School of Labor and Employment Relations. McKenzie is the Membership Chair for the UIUC chapter of Turning Point USA. Rivera is a student in the UIUC Gies College of Business. It looks as if virtually everything but these three names and Rivera’s photograph has been removed from the group’s page. And there’s nothing more to be found at archive.org.

Thanks to Daughter Number Three, who linked to the Daily Illini story last night.

*

Later in the day: The page for the UIUC College Republicans is now down to one officer (Ethan Rivera, still with a photograph) and eighteen members.

*

Later still: Ethan Rivera’s name remains, but his photograph has been removed.

*

February 4: The president of the UIUC College Republicans, quoted in this Illinois Public Media report, is one Finlay McIntosh (nickname: Finn). His name may have been the first to disappear from the organization’s UIUC page.

Here are some more details about this group’s online posts. One sample: “Jews might say Happy Hanukkah, Hindus might say Happy Diwali, Africans might say Happy Kwanzaa, but Americans say Merry Christmas.”

*

One more find: Reese Hogan, the Illini Republicans’ membership director, is scheduled to appear at an event with Mary Miller this Friday. Yes, that Mary Miller.