Inside The White Supremacist Movement That Infiltrated The Young Republicans

Leaked messages expose how white nationalist rhetoric used by the Aryan Nations is being normalized inside Republican circles—and tolerated by Idaho’s party leadership.

The Idaho Young Republicans did what good leaders are supposed to do—they acted fast, said what needed to be said, and didn’t flinch. Led by Tyler Kelly, the organization released a statement within hours of the viral Politico report exposing racist and violent messages in a Young Republican group chat. Their words were clear and grounded: “The rhetoric used in the leaked chat is vile, hateful, and frankly, un-American. It does not represent who we are as Republicans, or as Idahoans. Anyone who condones such behavior should remove themselves from leadership.”

That’s what leadership looks like. No excuses, no hesitation, no moral gymnastics. Just a firm response to behavior that disgraces the party they’re trying to build. While others spun and stalled, the Idaho YRs drew a line and reminded everyone that conservatism without character isn’t conservatism at all. The national YR and many other states issued similar statements calling out this disturbing behavior.

A Rot Exposed

The Politico investigation exposed a disturbing reality. Leaders of state Young Republican organizations across New York, Kansas, Arizona, and Vermont created a private Telegram chat that turned into a workshop for hate. They were not faceless agitators. They were officers, campaign staffers, and elected committee members inside the party structure. They were people positioned to recruit volunteers, distribute funds, and shape the next generation of Republican candidates.

Their messages were not just slips of anger or reckless memes. They were a window into the normalization of extreme ideologies shared by young followers of the Groyper movement.

The group’s chair at the time, Peter Giunta of New York, joked that “everyone who votes no is going to the gas chamber.” Bobby Walker called rape “epic.” William Hendrix, the Kansas vice chair, used racial slurs more than a dozen times. One member said, “I’m ready to watch people burn now.” Others responded with laughing emojis and hearts. The chat included long strings of slurs against Black, Jewish, Asian, and LGBTQ people. They described political opponents as “retarded,” “monkeys,” and “watermelon people.” Many of the texts promoted suicide and encouraged violence.

A few of the text messages from Groyper-aligned YR leaders/credit: X.com

Maya Angelo’s words, “When they tell you who they are, believe them,” hold meaning here. These texts, though not meant for public view, revealed the Christian Identity mindset and belief system of those seeking to influence Republican politics and policy.

This same group ran a national leadership slate called Restore YR to unseat the Grow YR coalition and take control of the Young Republican National Federation, a 15,000-member network that directs youth organizing, fundraising, and volunteer door-knocking for Republican legislative campaigns nationwide. Their goal was control of the federation’s resources, which could have turned a youth outreach organization into a machine promoting their extremist worldview.

One exchange exposed the ideology driving them. A participant staying at a hotel asked others to guess his room number. The reply came back: “1488.” Those numbers are not random.

The “14” represents the “14 Words” white-supremacist slogan, “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.” The “88” stands for “Heil Hitler.”

“1488” is part of white supremacist symbolism.

The 14 words were crafted by David Lane, one of the founding members of “The Order,” a violent branch of the Aryan Nations compound in Hayden Lake, Idaho. This movement defined Christian Identity in the Pacific Northwest for decades, and the Order was responsible for armed robberies, bombings, and murders. When members of a national Republican youth leadership chat use “1488,” they are repeating the same creed that once stained Idaho’s reputation with hate and violence.

The evidence shows continuity between old and new hate movements. Richard Butler’s Aryan Nations followers built compounds and printed newsletters. The Groypers build group chats and run for party office. The goal is identical: to normalize white-nationalist ideology under the language of patriotism and Christian revival.

The people caught in those messages were not random internet trolls. They were the ones asking to manage campaign volunteers and represent the Republican Party’s youth arm at the national level. If they had succeeded in their takeover, they would have used federation resources to amplify candidates who share their beliefs—people comfortable quoting Hitler or invoking the 14 words while calling themselves conservatives.

The Groyper movement is a rebranded strain of white nationalism led by internet extremist Nick Fuentes, a self-proclaimed Christian nationalist who built his following by blending racial grievance, misogyny, and authoritarian politics into what he calls the “America First” movement. Groypers present themselves as devout, patriotic conservatives, but their agenda mirrors the ideology of the old Aryan Nations: racial hierarchy, antisemitic conspiracy, and open hostility toward pluralism and democracy. They infiltrate Republican organizations, youth groups, and conservative media spaces under the guise of saving the party from “globalists” and “RINOs,” grooming young followers online through irony, coded hate speech, and calls for cultural war. Fuentes and his allies see chaos as a strategy—the more outrage they create, the more power they gain inside a movement too afraid to disown them.

The Idaho Connection

That same network is active in Idaho. In 2023, a group led by Vincent James Foxx, Dave Reilly, and Lauren Walker attempted to take over the Idaho Young Republicans using the same tactics. Foxx, treasurer of the “America First Foundation”—the nonprofit arm of Nick Fuentes’ Groyper movement—ran for Idaho YR chair on an openly Groyper platform. He pledged to “take absolute control of government from the bottom up,” condemned limited government as “liberalism going the speed limit,” and called for regulating morality and reintroducing God into public schools.

When he lost, Foxx posted a video bragging that all his candidates were Groypers and that he could easily have “200 people chanting Groyper” outside the convention. Walker posted videos accusing the Idaho YRs of cheating and threatened that her faction would “make them pay.” Reilly, another self-identified Groyper, called the Idaho YR statement “cowardice,” demanded Kelly’s resignation, and defended those exposed in the Politico leak as “good young kids.” Two years later, and Walker has yet to influence another YR election.

These are not isolated personalities. Walker serves as the Idaho Freedom Caucus’ online enforcer, attacking critics of the new caucus with vulgar insults. Reilly has worked for both the Foundation and the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee and has been endorsed by several IFC legislators, including party chair Dorothy Moon. He now hosts The Backlash, a white-supremacist podcast promoting antisemitic content and grooming young listeners into Groyper ideology.

The Groyper Playbook in Idaho

The Groyper strategy is formulaic: provoke outrage, claim persecution, and use the chaos to gain power. Transplants, libertarian agitators, and Groypers discovered that in Idaho, outrage is the fastest route to control. They inflame division online, weaponize grievance, and convert conflict into votes and influence.

This approach now drives the political machine behind the Idaho Freedom Foundation, the Idaho Freedom Caucus, the Citizens Alliance of Idaho, and the Idaho Family Policy Center. Each relies on the same digital outrage ecosystem to mobilize followers. They feed their audience daily anger to enforce loyalty and drown out reasoned debate.

A small group of influencers on X operates as full-time enforcers, attacking anyone who resists the far-right agenda. Most have no visible jobs, yet spend every waking hour posting rage-bait and amplifying the machine’s messaging. Their audience is cultivated, not spontaneous. The cycle is simple: outrage fuels clicks, clicks create loyalty, and loyalty delivers votes and donations that keep dark-money donors in control.

That system rewards cruelty because cruelty gets engagement. Legislators aligned with them echo the tone of those accounts, crafting policies that mirror their talking points. The moral collapse seen in the leaked chats is not an outlier—it’s the predictable result of a political economy that prizes attention over integrity.

The Silence of Party Leadership

When asked for comment about the Politico revelations and the Idaho Young Republicans’ response, the Idaho Republican Party refused to respond. The silence signals fear—fear of offending the Groyper base it has spent years cultivating.

Chairwoman Dorothy Moon’s record explains that fear. She and her allies have embraced non-Republican insurgents like Ammon Bundy and Doug Traubel, whose campaigns thrive on conspiracy and outrage. Under her leadership, the party preaches purity but welcomes extremism. Critics of Moon and her allies face harassment and doxxing from the same network that fuels the far-right outrage machine.

Moon’s pattern is consistent. When she couldn’t control the Idaho Young Republicans or the Idaho Federation of Republican Women, she moved to strip them of voting rights within the state committee. She supported Janice McGeachin, who publicly thanked Nick Fuentes’ Groypers at their national conference. She has worked with Dave Reilly and Brian Almon, a documented white nationalist who runs the Gem State Chronicle while drawing pay from the Idaho GOP.

Moon doesn’t need to use slurs herself; her alliances say enough. The culture revealed in the Politico leaks—the normalization of hate, the “1488” jokes, the language of elimination—thrives through her tolerance of those who push it. The Idaho GOP leadership's silence is complicity disguised as caution.

And for those who needed another path to distract from the truly disturbing messaging that’s been welcomed in far-right circles, many have resorted to whataboutism. By pointing to the leaked texts from the Virginia AG candidate who called for “putting two bullets” into a rival GOP legislator, they attempt to assert their twisted moral authority by suggesting that one example from the left was so much worse. This attempt to rationalize and normalize radical Aryan Nations-inspired rhetoric shows just how effective the Groyper narrative grooming has become.

Restoring Dignity Through Aggressive Civility

Conflict is not contention. That distinction matters. Abusive people rely on weaponizing contention to drive good people away. Many Christians are taught from childhood to avoid contention because it is “a tool of Satan.” Groypers exploit that reflex. They know that if they can make decent people fear confrontation, they can dominate unopposed.

Conflict, handled with civility and truth, is not destructive—it is necessary. It’s how a healthy society holds itself accountable. We must engage directly, demanding facts and honesty, using evidence to expose deceit and protect human dignity.

When people use the language of elimination—joking about gas chambers or pledging loyalty to “1488”—they are not being edgy. They are normalizing hatred. They are grooming the young to see cruelty as courage. The adults who defend them are not saving conservatism; they are destroying it.

Standing up to that corruption requires courage. Civility without confrontation is surrender; confrontation without civility is chaos. The balance between the two is where truth lives.

The Young Republican groups in Idaho and around the country showed that balance when they condemned hate without hesitation. The rest of Idaho’s Republican leadership must decide whether they are capable of the same honesty—or if fear of their own base has already cost them their soul.

The Groypers of Idaho

---

About the Author

Gregory Graf is the creator of Political Potatoes and a lifelong conservative Republican who lives in Star, Idaho.

Do you want to help support Political Potatoes? Please consider upgrading to a paid subscription and/or leave a tip 😊 Your support keeps this work going and is appreciated.

Disclaimer
The following is intended to convey an opinion on newsworthy events of public concern regarding public figures and/or public officials in exercising their official duties. No implications or inferences—beyond those explicitly stated in the preceding— are intended to be conveyed or endorsed by the Author. Wherever available, hyperlinks have been provided to allow readers to directly access any underlying assertions of fact upon which this opinion is based.