The Kansas Young Republicans organization was deactivated Tuesday following an investigation by Politico into a trove of racist and derogatory messages exchanged in a group chat between young GOP members in four states.
Two top Kansas members were part of the group, including Vice Chair William Hendrix, who worked as a spokesperson for Attorney General Kris Kobach before being fired last Thursday, the office confirmed.
According to Politico, Hendrix used the N-word more than a dozen times in messages over the course of seven months.
Chair Alex Dwyer was also in the group. He reportedly reacted to the message, “Great. I love Hitler,” with a smiley face and heart-reacted to a message about killing political opponents in a gas chamber.
“Kansas Republican Party leadership is disgusted by the comments by young Kansas Republicans mentioned in the Politico story. Their comments do not reflect the beliefs of Republicans and certainly not of Kansas Republicans at large, who elected a Black chair a few months ago,” said Danedri Herbert, who is chair of the Kansas GOP and also works as a spokesperson for Kobach’s office.
“As of today, the Kansas Young Republicans organization is inactive,” Herbert added.
Hendrix and Dwyer did not respond to The Kansas City Star’s requests for comment and did not provide statements for Politico’s reporting.
The encrypted Telegram chat named RESTOREYR WAR ROOM also reportedly included Young Republicans members from New York, Arizona, and Vermont.
The bombshell report includes screenshots of messages that are casually violent, racist, antisemitic, misogynistic, and anti-LGBTQ. Oftentimes, the outlet reported, slurs were played for laughs in the group chat.
“Bro is at a chicken restaurant ordering his food. Would he like some watermelon and kool-aid with that?” Hendrix reportedly messaged in July.
Michael Austin, chief executive of the Kansas Black Republican Council, said the organization “unequivocally denounces the behavior and language revealed in Politico’s recent report.”
“Such conduct is not merely offensive; it is a betrayal of the very principles upon which our party was founded: the defense of liberty, the abolition of slavery, and the belief in the inherent worth and dignity of every human being,” Austin said in a statement.
What else did Young Republicans group chat include?
In 2,900 pages of messages reviewed by Politico, members of the Telegram group strategized about how best to seize control of the national Young Republicans organization on a hard-line pro-Donald Trump platform, the outlet reported.
Politico counted 251 instances of derogatory insults in the group chat, interspersed with logistical conversations about social media strategies and collecting votes.
Chat members were merciless in their rhetoric against fellow Young Republicans in competing factions of the organization. In one message, Luke Mosiman, chair of the Arizona Young Republicans, suggested that the group could boost a favored candidate by linking their opponent to white supremacist groups.
“Can we get them to start releasing Nazi edits with her … Like pro Nazi and faciam (sic) propaganda,” he asked the group.
“The only problem is we will lose the Kansas delegation,” Mosiman later added. According to Politico, Hendrix and Dwyer both laughed in reaction to the message.
In one message, Hendrix reportedly said he’s drawn to Missouri’s Young Republican organization because “Missouri doesn’t like f—,” using a slur against gay people.
Miles Ross, executive director of the Missouri GOP, said in a text message that there’s “no place in the Missouri Republican Party or elsewhere for this type of language and behavior.”
How are people responding?
Kansas Senate President Ty Masterson, an Andover Republican who’s running for governor, found himself on the defensive Tuesday after an image circulated of Hendrix and Dwyer posing in a small group with him at his campaign kickoff event.
“I categorically deny any association with William Hendrix or Alex Dwyer, as neither is currently, nor has ever been, on staff or volunteered for my campaign for governor,” Masterson said in a social media statement.
“Anyone suggesting otherwise is either lying or misinformed. I understand that my political opponents have been shopping around a photo, with deceitful intentions, in efforts to disparage me,” Masterson added. “Many people requested photos with me at my campaign announcement event, but this in no way indicates any association with them.”
Masterson said he is “personally disgusted by the comments attributed to the individuals in the article.”
Republican State Insurance Commissioner Vicki Schmidt, who is also running for governor, called the actions of the Young Republicans in the group chat “disgusting and disgraceful,” adding that “they tarnish the reputation of Kansas nationally.”
Another GOP candidate, former Gov. Jeff Colyer, said the viewpoints expressed in the chat “are not representative of Kansas.”
“Our state was founded on the belief that all of us are created equal under God — and anyone who mocks those principles dishonors the very spirit of Kansas,” Colyer said.
State Sen. Cindy Holscher, an Overland Park Democrat and gubernatorial candidate, said the moment calls for a careful examination of why the group chat members felt comfortable using such violent and hateful rhetoric casually.
“Let’s be clear: These aren’t kids joking around,” Holscher said. “These are 20- and 30-something adults with leadership roles in the Republican Party. The chair of the Kansas Young Republicans, who participated in these messages, is nearly 30 years old. Unfortunately, this type of rhetoric is not isolated. For too long in Kansas, the Republican Party has been dominated by extremists who see no room for moderation or bipartisanship, let alone unity or mutual respect.
Gov. Laura Kelly has not publicly addressed the leaked Young Republicans group chat messages. Her office did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
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Matthew Kelly
The Kansas City Star
(TNS)
(The Kansas City Star’s Kacen Bayless contributed to this story.)
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