On a rainy morning in May, 26-year-old Emery Washington, a deputy press secretary in the US Department of Energy, turns on Soulja Boy and skims through the messages in her group chat, the Black Republican Mafia, the text thread of cool kids in the Trump administration—all in their 20s with a visible presence in the conservative scene. On any day, conversation can veer from Jasmine Crockett to Chris Brown ’s mug shot, to the latest gossip on the Hill. And, unlike the older run Republican Party group chats, there is absolutely no way anyone’s getting added by accident. Washington puts on cowboy boots and feeds her dogs, Frankie and Biggie. With a mocha in hand, she gets in her car and drives to downtown DC, her phone buzzing incessantly with chatter; eventually she’ll have to mute it

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