Last week, the online Trump camp engaged the DeSantis camp in a game of hot potato with an exposed bigot in their midst. Pedro Gonzalez, an editor of Chronicles and a contributor to the American Greatness website, was a Donald Trump supporter who jumped ship for Ron DeSantis. So the pro-Trump site Breitbart retaliated by releasing a trove of racist and anti-Semitic chat messages Gonzalez had sent in 2019 and 2020. Screenshots show Gonzalez endorsing the views of Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes, sharing anti-Semitic cartoons, and saying things like “the only tactical considertation [sic] of Jews is screening them for movements” and “I am at the point where I can respect Jews as individuals and like them as individuals, but as a group I see them as problematic.” The leak was intended to link Gonzalez’s views to DeSantis.

New right social-media influencers quickly decried the released messages as right-wing cancel culture and a smear job. Gonzalez offered his own defense/apology on Twitter. As a defense or apology, his words are meaningless. But as a window into the phenomenon of the new right, they’re valuable.

First, let’s get this out of the way: The whole business of making bigots apologize is a farce. My policy on supposedly remorseful racists and anti-Semites is simple: Go away and spare me your soul searching. Bigots apologize because it’s useful to them—step one in rehabbing their public image. If racists and Jew-haters genuinely change their ways, we’ll know from their actions over the long term. Their insta-confessions are simple damage control, not opportunities for good people to open their hearts to hate-spewing fanatics. This doesn’t mean cancelling them; it means ignoring them, which hurts these blowhards even more. And the accepted apology goes hand in hand with another silly tendency, especially regarding anti-Semites: to treat them as if they are misinformed children who just need to be educated out of their ignorance. But consider Gonzalez’s anti-Semitism; it’s layered and detailed and puffed up with historical and political references. His hatred is as studied as it is vicious. He’s not unschooled in prejudice—he took the full course load and graduated top of the class.

But what’s interesting is his take on plunging into the new-right swamp. “I got into politics largely because of Trump,” he writes. “Before that, I had spent most of my life enmeshed in generic liberalism.” In other words, he wasn’t clueless about hatred; he was clueless about conservatism. Which is perfectly acceptable—in fact, preferable—for those seeking membership in the Trump cult. Conservatism is considered, restrained, and patient. Trumpism is easy and thrilling. So Gonzalez dove in: “I do not know what exactly triggered the descent that happened next,” he writes. “Part of it, I think, stems from a desire to transgress the boundaries of politically acceptable discourse. There is a human impulse to stalk and break taboos, and anger with the status quo leads some of us to seek answers outside the mainstream at a time when trust in traditional sources of information has collapsed.”

Gonzalez saw Trump and just assumed that being on the right meant giving voice to his resentments. As a former liberal, he already developed a taste for the thrill of grievance. But as a bigot, he needed a new political home, one where his prejudices counted as causes.

He’s a useful example of a certain new-right type: The ponderous neophyte. Every pre-Trump conservative has dealt with someone like Gonzalez, a former progressive turned right winger who once called you a fascist and now calls you a liberal. They’re not all bigots, but they’re all exhilarated by their newfound license to offend.

And then there’s the other new-right type: The pre-Trump conservative who understood conservatism but gave it up for the cheap thrill of impropriety. Many of these types stood up earlier for Gonzalez when it was already clear that he was a hate-monger. People like Newsweek’s senior editor at large Josh Hammer and Claremont Institute fellow David Reaboi, for example, excused Gonzalez’s use of terms such as “Rothschild physiognomy.” Transgression is a powerful drug. As with all powerful drugs, you pay a price for indulging. Gonzalez’s defenders forfeited their credibility.

Gonzalez says that his hateful messages are from a “dumb season in my life.” For the new right, that season is nowhere near over.