Kassy Dillon via FB.jpg

Kassy Dillon, the founder of Lone Conservative, has been battling what she considers to be the entrenched liberal bias of American colleges and universities. The Mount Holyoke College student from Agawam, a rising star in the GOP, was recently appointed to the board of directors of the Western Mass Republicans PAC.

(Kassy Dillon / Facebook)

AGAWAM — A college student from Agawam has been appointed to the board of directors of the Western Mass Republicans PAC and will help lead the organization's new Western Mass Young Republicans division.

Kassy Dillon, a junior at Mount Holyoke College with a double major in Middle Eastern Studies and International Relations, is a conservative activist and political commentator for several websites including Campus Reform, Breitbart, Heat Street, Red Alert Politics and Lone Conservative. Her articles have been featured on Fox News and the Drudge Report.

Dillon is the founder of Lone Conservative, a website run by "a bunch of college students who are tired of the liberal idiocy" that plagues college campuses across America, she says on the site.

"It is time for young Republicans to pay attention to the local elections and start getting involved with helping local candidates," she said. "Working together, we can ensure that Western Massachusetts has a strong coalition of Republicans to help elect candidates that represent our values."

Dillon will be joined on the board of directors by William Nardi of Springfield, a student journalist at Roger Williams University and formerly an intern for Gov. Charlie Baker. Nardi also was recently tapped to help lead WMR's Young Republicans division.

The Young Republicans division was created to help expand GOP efforts in the region by engaging millennial voters, according to Robert Grove, chairman of Western Mass Republicans, or WMR. "Younger voters in Western Massachusetts are a key demographic for WMR and the GOP," he said. "Many have a passion for involvement but until now they had no organization to support them."

The Republican Party is setting its sights on millennials, the largest population group in the U.S. and the generation following Generation X. Indeed, the latest Millennial Impact Report indicates the group is more conservative-leaning than liberal and has little or no trust that government will do the right thing.

The Pew Research Center reports that millennials (ages 18-34) have surpassed baby boomers (ages 51-69) as the nation's largest living generation. Millennials now number around 75.4 million, surpassing the 74.9 million baby boomers, according to population estimates released in April by the U.S. Census Bureau. Meanwhile, Gen Xers (ages 35-50) are projected to pass the boomers in population by 2028.

"We see a growing number of younger voters, especially millennials, concerned about the direction and policies of big government," Grove said. "They are moving away from progressive political philosophies and adopting a more measured and thoughtful political approach.

Dillon's conservative bona fides are unassailable.

In July, Dillon was temporarily banned from Twitter for retweeting a remark by actress Leslie Jones, the "Saturday Nigh Live" cast member and "Ghostbusters" star who came under fire from online trolls.

After enduring a stream of pornography, racist speech, and hateful memes, Jones fired back with her own profanity-laced retort. But when Dillon redirected Jones' tweet to Jones herself, Dillon said she was suspended from the social media site.

"The only reason why I tweeted copies of what Leslie said is to show bias," Dillon told Heat Street, an online news site popular with conservatives and libertarians. "If this famous actress actress does it, it's okay," Dillon said. "But if I do the same thing as a conservative writer, Twitter punishes me for it."

Dillon said she repeated Jones' tweet, word for word, in an effort to expose bias on Twitter, which didn't ban hate speech directed toward Dillon.