{"id":2703860,"date":"2026-11-11T05:15:02","date_gmt":"2026-11-11T10:15:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/west-point-grad-notorious-for-communism-will-win-graduation-pics-resurfaces-at-uchicago-where-hes-praising-hamas-hezbollah-and-the-bloodthirsty-assads\/"},"modified":"2026-11-11T05:23:45","modified_gmt":"2026-11-11T10:23:45","slug":"west-point-grad-notorious-for-communism-will-win-graduation-pics-resurfaces-at-uchicago-where-hes-praising-hamas-hezbollah-and-the-bloodthirsty-assads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/west-point-grad-notorious-for-communism-will-win-graduation-pics-resurfaces-at-uchicago-where-hes-praising-hamas-hezbollah-and-the-bloodthirsty-assads\/","title":{"rendered":"West Point Grad Notorious for \u2018Communism Will Win\u2019 Graduation Pics Resurfaces at UChicago Where He\u2019s Praising Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Bloodthirsty Assads"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">44<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fwest-point-grad-notorious-for-communism-will-win-graduation-pics-resurfaces-at-uchicago-where-hes-praising-hamas-hezbollah-and-the-bloodthirsty-assads%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2703860&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Spenser Rapone, a former West Point graduate who provoked controversy by wearing a cap reading &#8220;communism will win&#8221; and was discharged over pro\u2011communist and violent social\u2011media posts, is now a fully funded Ph.D. student at the University of Chicago studying modern Arab and Middle eastern history. He has publicly praised Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, Hezbollah\u2019s Hassan Nasrallah, and members of the Assad regime, posted anti\u2011American and pro\u2011violence remarks, and previously studied at the New School and UT Austin, drawing scrutiny from military and political figures.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>The notorious West Point graduate who wrote &#8220;communism will win&#8221; on his cap during graduation\u2014and who now openly praises Oct. 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar, Hezbollah boss Hassan Nasrallah, and Syria&#8217;s sadistic Assad family\u2014is now a Ph.D. student at the prestigious University of Chicago, all expenses paid.<\/p>\n<p>Spenser Rapone, a self-described &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/us-news\/army-boots-west-point-grad-who-touted-communist-revolt-n884941\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">revolutionary socialist<\/a>&#8221; who was drummed out of the Army after declaring his support for communism and calling for violence against Republicans, has taken up residence at the University of Chicago, where he <a href=\"https:\/\/history.uchicago.edu\/directory\/spenser-rapone\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">specializes<\/a> in &#8220;modern Arab intellectual history&#8221; and the &#8220;history of the modern Middle East,&#8221; among other subjects.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to his well-known communist bona fides, Rapone has also picked up a taste for Islamic extremism\u2014which he now freely posts about on his public X page. His most inflammatory public pronouncements are in Arabic and remain live on X.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Glory to the martyred leader Yahya Sinwar,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.is\/wip\/1xyU3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">he said<\/a> on Oct. 18, 2024, shortly after Israel killed the Hamas boss, who masterminded the Oct. 7 massacre.<\/p>\n<p>When Israel killed Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah\u2014who was behind thousands of terror attacks, including some that killed Americans\u2014Rapone was similarly mournful.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Glory to the martyr Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, symbol of dignity for the Arab homeland and all free peoples around the world. May God have mercy on him,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.is\/wip\/TcgPv\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Rapone said<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Long live the resistance, and glory to the martyrs,&#8221; Rapone <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.is\/wip\/TWcLQ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">posted<\/a> on the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 slaughter.<\/p>\n<p>Rapone&#8217;s study of Arab history has also led him to more baroque extremes\u2014including a bizarre affection for Syria&#8217;s sadistic, now-deposed Assad regime, which presided over a shocking reign of cruelty over its own people.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The eternal leader Hafez al-Assad tried to crush this mentality in 1982, and his approach was correct at that time, just as it remains correct today,&#8221; Rapone <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.is\/wip\/e0REM\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">wrote in October 2026<\/a>, in response to a now-deleted post.<\/p>\n<p>The statement from Rapone is almost certainly a reference to the former dictator&#8217;s ruthless suppression of a rebellion in the city of Hama that same year, which left up to <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/syria-aleppo-hama-massacre-assad-799f37fd2608532a253cccb48df4e613\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">40,000 dead<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Zionist control over the United States imposes on the United States, through the American administration, a policy in this region that is not linked to the interests of American citizens, but rather linked solely to Israeli interests, and especially to Israeli expansionist interests,&#8221; he said in <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.is\/yCI2q#selection-623.0-623.225\">May 2026<\/a>, alleging it was a quote by &#8220;the immortal leader Hafez al-Assad.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>After Assad&#8217;s son, Bashar Al-Assad\u2014who notoriously used chemical weapons against his own people, including children\u2014was overthrown, Rapone posted in remorse, calling for a return of his political movement.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;May the Syrian Arab Republic of the Ba&#8217;th [sic], of national resurrection, of unity, freedom, and socialism, return in time,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.is\/wip\/ZM6IN\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">he said<\/a> in January 2026. &#8220;The least that honest academics can do, speaking for my vocation, is resist with every fiber of our beings the Zionist-imperialist lies.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/archive.is\/wip\/WbNNM\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Rapone<\/a>\u2014who published a scholarly article &#8220;reappraising&#8221; the Ba&#8217;ath Party for the prestigious Cambridge University Press\u2014called Syria&#8217;s post-Assad leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, &#8220;a terrorist puppet of the Zionist West,&#8221; in an X post from January 2026, adding that &#8220;Dr. Bashar al-Asad [sic] is the true president of Syria.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Greetings of Arabism to Dr. Bashar al-Assad, the legitimate and true President of the Syrian Arab Republic. And immortality to the message of the Ba&#8217;ath Party and the Arab nation,&#8221; Rapone posted in <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.is\/wip\/ML5er\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">December 2025<\/a>, a year after the dictator was ousted.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Dr. Bashar al-Asad. [sic] May he and the Ba&#8217;th [sic] return to power in time,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.is\/wip\/8nfoE\">Rapone said<\/a> in March 2026. &#8220;Long live Assad&#8217;s Syria,&#8221; he added <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.is\/wip\/RO81b\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a month later<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.is\/wip\/LtSxJ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">recently noted<\/a> the lack of scholarly and scientific achievements in the Arabic world today, Rapone called him a &#8220;bigoted buffoon&#8221; and attacked Trump as a &#8220;criminal president.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The University of Chicago&#8217;s embrace of Rapone comes as the Trump administration has instituted a broad review of universities\u2014which rely heavily on federal grant money\u2014over allegations of Islamic extremism, antisemitism, and &#8220;diversity, equity, and inclusion&#8221; programs. While the University of Chicago is better known for its conservative law and business schools and economics department, its humanities programs have become a hothouse of far-left activism, including anti-Israel activity that critics say veers beyond free speech into rank anti-semitism.<\/p>\n<p>The University of Chicago\u2019s Center for Middle Eastern Studies receives significant federal funding, in part to provide foreign language courses in Arabic, Turkish, and other tongues.<\/p>\n<p>After he was forced out of the military with an &#8220;other than honorable&#8221; discharge\u2014three years before completing his mandatory post-West Point five years of service\u2014Rapone has mostly bounced around academic programs, including graduate studies at the New School and a Ph.D. program at the University of Texas at Austin, which he does not appear to have finished. He has been affiliated with Chicago since September 2025, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/spenser-rapone\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">according to his LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>As is typical for serious doctoral students, Rapone&#8217;s Ph.D. studies at Chicago are <a href=\"https:\/\/socialsciences.uchicago.edu\/admissions\/funding-and-financing\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">fully funded<\/a> by the university\u2014and provide him with a $47,741 annual stipend. After two years, Ph.D. candidates usually are required to teach undergraduates.<\/p>\n<p>Rapone <a href=\"https:\/\/www.military.com\/daily-news\/2017\/09\/27\/west-point-grad-condemned-pro-communist-photos-messages.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">first achieved infamy<\/a> in 2017 after posting photos of himself at his West Point graduation\u2014about 16 months after he graduated\u2014revealing a message scrawled under his uniform cap reading &#8220;communism will win.&#8221; Another photo showed him smiling, opening his uniform Superman-style to reveal a Che Guevara T-shirt. Rapone posted the images in a show of solidarity with former NFL player Colin Kaepernick, who at the time was protesting the national anthem because of &#8220;racism.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>After going public with his communist sympathies, Rapone\u2014who was actively serving as an Army officer\u2014faced questions over a number of old tweets from news reports at the time.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Violence against the far right is resistance, not aggression,&#8221; he <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/punkproletarian\/status\/747538896519495680\">told author<\/a> J.K. Rowling in June 2016. In another post, he said he would &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/us\/west-point-grad-behind-pro-communist-photos-reportedly-was-flagged-to-superiors-in-2015#google_vignette\">happily dance<\/a>&#8221; on the grave of Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.).<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Fuck this country and its false freedom,&#8221; he said in yet another social media post, which <a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2017\/10\/04\/exclusive-communist-west-point-grad-was-reported-in-2015-for-anti-american-posts\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">raised concerns<\/a> among West Point staff at the time.        <\/p>\n<p>He eventually resigned under pressure, and it&#8217;s unclear if he had to pay back West Point for his education. The member of Congress who helped get Rapone into West Point, former Rep. Jason Altmire (D., Pa.), later condemned him.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I was shocked and extremely disappointed in the recent reports of his indefensible actions,&#8221; Altmire told the <em>Daily Caller<\/em> in <a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2017\/09\/27\/former-congressman-who-nominated-communist-extremist-to-west-point-aggressively-disavows\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">September 2017<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Rapone is the son of Richard L. Rapone, <a href=\"https:\/\/lawrencecountypa.gov\/departments\/treasurer\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the treasurer<\/a> of Lawrence County, Pa. In September 2017, the elder Rapone also denounced his son in a now-deleted Facebook post, saying his return from a military deployment to Afghanistan had caused a &#8220;notable difference in his political views.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Spenser is my son and I love him dearly however I do not like nor condone his politics, his actions or behavior,&#8221; the elder Rapone <a href=\"https:\/\/dailycallernewsfoundation.org\/2017\/09\/27\/disavow\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">said at the time.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Rapone did not immediately respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ex-West Point grad, Chicago PhD, praises Sinwar<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4469,"featured_media":2703861,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/MixCollage-09-Nov-2026-10-05-AM-7662-scaled.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[548,544],"tags":[64498,5235,87740,87739,87738],"class_list":["post-2703860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-conservative-news-daily","category-the-free-beacon","tag-campus-controversy","tag-extremism","tag-graduation-photos","tag-uchicago-news","tag-west-point-grad"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/MixCollage-09-Nov-2026-10-05-AM-7662-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2703860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4469"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2703860"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2703860\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2703863,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2703860\/revisions\/2703863"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2703861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2703860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2703860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2703860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}