Texas county chair GOP candidate accused of grooming minors

[Tekken_Guy]

https://twitter.com/saragonzalestx/status/1759258320500576331

[DaleCooper]

It’s always projection

This is clearly a QAnon person from the Blaze (Glenn Beck's people) trying to keep a gay guy out of Republican leadership. If they had any dirt on him they'd presumably have led with something other than what appears to be a completely tame and unobjectionable text. Tough to feel bad for a gay Republican, though. What was he expecting? Lol.

[Roll Roons]

So he's not actually a county GOP chair or anything? What's the point of this thread?

[Arizona Iced Tea]

Ryan Cook is an election twitter poster who was caught grooming a minor on ET. He is running for a GOP precinct chair position in Nacogdoches County TX in the March primary.

[Dan the Roman]

Zoomers treating texting like assault, episode 6044563

Seriously,  I feel the same way about the streamers or others who get in trouble for DMs. For christ sakes, just block.

Should this behavior be frowned upon? Absolutely.

Are 90% of those piling on Ryan in the ET space guilty of flirting in DMs in a poorly socialized way which is probably mortifying and creepy?

But it is horrendously insulting to men and women, both above and below 18, who face genuine sexual harassment and threats to equate texting between X accounts, half of which have anime pfps, with the grooming which goes on regularly within communities or institutions.

[Del Tachi]

So…he isn’t a Texas GOP county chair?  LOL

change your title OP

[Tekken_Guy]

So…he isn’t a Texas GOP county chair?  LOL

change your title OP

I said “candidate”

[Del Tachi]

So…he isn’t a Texas GOP county chair?  LOL

change your title OP

I said “candidate”

And not a candidate for county chair, but for precinct captain.  A laughably insignificant person/position LOL

[Fight for Trump]

And the implication is that all Republicans are groomers, right? I was wondering when we'd have our weekly version of this same thread that always turns out to be inaccurate and misleading.

[kwabbit]

This thing is just gonna happen when terminally online teens, probably most of which are neurodivergent, gather in a space where age is blurred behind the screen. Cancel culture can be overstated but the recent spree of cancelling random people for one awkward twitter DM exchange is basically bullying/harassment and the fact that the reaction of most of these people is to point and laugh indicates that the point of this stuff is to 'cancel' and not any desire for justice or protection.

[kyc0705]

An important thing to remember is that if you plan to be in the public sphere, especially in politics, you have to prepare for the worst things you've ever posted online to be shared very publicly. 

[Del Tachi]

An important thing to remember is that if you plan to be in the public sphere, especially in politics, you have to prepare for the worst things you've ever posted online to be shared very publicly. 

Thank God no one on Atlas will ever be elected to anything then.

[GM Team Member and Deputy PPT WB]

An important thing to remember is that if you plan to be in the public sphere, especially in politics, you have to prepare for the worst things you've ever posted online to be shared very publicly. 

yeah, if I ever ran for anything I'd expect any weird art I've commissioned to come out eventually.

[Del Tachi]

An important thing to remember is that if you plan to be in the public sphere, especially in politics, you have to prepare for the worst things you've ever posted online to be shared very publicly. 

yeah, if I ever ran for anything I'd expect any weird art I've commissioned to come out eventually.

I just dread the day, quickly approaching in maybe only 10-15 years, where we're getting subjected to political storylines about what candidates posted to their FB/IG accounts as high schoolers LOL

[Indy Texas]

So…he isn’t a Texas GOP county chair?  LOL

change your title OP

I said “candidate”

And not a candidate for county chair, but for precinct captain.  A laughably insignificant person/position LOL

In Texas, there is a distinction. A precinct chair is an elected position you run for in the party primary. A precinct captain is just a grassroots volunteer role the precinct chair can appoint people to, and you can have multiple precinct captains.

The overwhelming majority of precinct chair races in both parties are uncontested and in a lot of precincts, the chair position is vacant most of the time. Local party organizations in general have been getting weaker over time, starting with the various "good government reforms" in the 1970s and culminating in McCain-Feingold and Citizens United kneecapping party fundraising and making the prospect of ideological donors simply bypassing the party organizations altogether in favor of super PACs and 501(c)s.

Not having a chair in a given precinct has no real impact whatsoever beyond the county party having to find someone to serve as an election judge at the polling place in that precinct. This guy was making a big show of how he was going to use the precinct chair position to "flip" the City of Nacogdoches red even though the position gives him no money, resources or authority to pursue his own strategy to do that. (It's also just an incredibly weird thing to focus on given that Nacogdoches County is already reliably Republican and Democrats exercise basically no control whatsoever in public offices there.)

[DrScholl]

I'm sorry, but are conservatives brushing this off as "oh it was just messages" and "It's not important because who cares about a county precinct chair???!!!!"? Republicans have pushed this narrative against Democrats, but it's Republicans and Christians that are constantly getting caught being predators.

[DaleCooper]

I'm sorry, but are conservatives brushing this off as "oh it was just messages" and "It's not important because who cares about a county precinct chair???!!!!"? Republicans have pushed this narrative against Democrats, but it's Republicans and Christians that are constantly getting caught being predators.

Republicans and Christians are the ones trying to send a message by making an example out of one of the only apparently openly gay guys dumb enough to join their party.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

https://vxtwitter.com/IsthmusPol/status/1765215016414781888
https://twitter.com/ryanc_2025/status/1765215161999044850
It looks like he just won.

[Shaula🏳️‍⚧️]

worst election result today

[Hollywood]

A 20 old gay man is talking to another young gay man that he may know or not know is 16. The age of consent in Texas is 17.  If the minor is 16, then the adult must not be more than 3 years older (19).  States around Texas have an Age of Consent of 16, but this isn't an excuse.  I'm not sure where I draw the line on gay male relationships within this age range.  Is the 16 year old not gay?  Where does the grooming occur?

[Dan the Roman]

worst election result today

Didn't it turn out the messages were fabricated?

[GeorgiaModerate]

An important thing to remember is that if you plan to be in the public sphere, especially in politics, you have to prepare for the worst things you've ever posted online to be shared very publicly. 

Thank God no one on Atlas will ever be elected to anything then.

There are counterexamples.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Not sure how it is in Texas but in Minnesota precinct chair is indeed a laughably trivial position. They basically just attend meetings every 1-2 months to talk about planning fundraising events and finding buildings willing to grant space to hold things like caucuses and debates and party workshops.

Source: I was a DFL precinct chair 2021-2022.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

worst election result today

Didn't it turn out the messages were fabricated?

No those messages were apparently real, but the guy who leaked those fabricated fake messages regarding someone else.

[DaleCooper]

worst election result today

Didn't it turn out the messages were fabricated?

The whole story is fabricated. Just reading the message from the screenshot included in the tweet proves that the headline is false.