It started innocently enough.
Testing the Trumpified GOP’s newfound love for freedom of speech, a right-wing porn star planned to attend the conservative youth organization Turning Point USA’s annual Student Action Summit 2021, which began this weekend in Tampa, Florida.
The conservative movement can be a big tent – a tent big enough to contain both Brandi Love, who purchased an “adult VIP ticket,” and groypers, the white supremacist followers of Nick Fuentes.
But things went haywire when Love arrived at the event, as the event’s white nationalist contingent approached her while more mainstream conservative voices fretted over what harms her presence might inflict on children at the event.
No red carpet but this is the walk I’ve been waiting all week for!!! pic.twitter.com/reayD7IX8V
— Brandi Love ® (@brandi_love) July 18, 2021
Love, a self-branded “conservative porn star” who is a contributor to The Federalist, found herself besieged by the combination of white supremacists and moralizers, leading to her eventual expulsion from the event while triggering a debate on the right over whether the conservative movement should embrace Love.
Jaden McNeil, a Fuentes devotee and self-described “conservative gamer,” wrote on Telegram on Saturday that “There are 13 year old kids at this conference and TPUSA has pornstars as VIPs.”
“Imagine sending your kids to this conference thinking they’re gonna learn about Christian Conservative values and they come home w photos w pornstars,” he added.
Fuentes himself complained that TPUSA had banned him from attending, “but allows in a literal porn star.”
So-called “groypers,” white nationalists who follow Fuentes, reportedly began to approach Love at the conference. Salon’s Zachary Petrizzo was at the conference, and first reported details of Love’s banning.
Currently, there's some drama at the Turning Point USA gathering in Tampa due to white nationalists in attendance trolling "conservative pornstar" Brandi Love, a "VIP" at the event.
— Zachary Petrizzo (@ZTPetrizzo) July 17, 2021
Later that night, TPUSA cancelled Love’s invitation to the conference and refunded her ticket.
That decision prompted Love to post the message on her Twitter account, and to declare that “The Republican Party is broken.”
Can't make this shit up lol!!
I just watched
Charlie Kirk
Dan Bongino
Rick Scott
Kat TimpfSpeak about freedom, censorship, how inclusive the “movement” is …etc…
And then they had me thrown out of the Turning Point USA conference ???
The Republican Party is broken https://t.co/wBzq9xaHbT pic.twitter.com/Q477hv5L09
— Brandi Love ® (@brandi_love) July 18, 2021
Andrew Kolvet, a Turning Points USA spokesman, told TPM in a statement that the group was not trying to be “unkind or rude” to Love, but was rather concerned by her social media posts.
“A few concerned parents rightly alerted us to the extremely pornographic nature of her social media posts, and event leadership immediately took the appropriate steps in keeping with the best interest of the minors present at the event,” Kolvet said in the statement, adding that the non-profit has a policy of not involving itself with those who “publish sexually explicit and pornographic content at student events.”
Kolvet added that any controversy “is purely contrived.”
“No one is attacking her right to own her own platform or business, it just shouldn’t be around kids,” Kolvet added.
Love’s expulsion triggered right-on-right arguments between those who would prefer Love’s brand of conservatism to that on offer from the likes of Erik Erickson, and those who can’t stand to imagine delicate conservative youth being exposed to Love.
I honestly don't know what the word "conservative" means if it includes welcoming hardcore porn stars to events for conservative teens https://t.co/sa64zEU0YS
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) July 19, 2021
A few things wrong with this.
1. She’s not conservative, by definition
2. It’s not for no reason. TPUSA is an event for conservatives, incl. minors
3. “Big tent” = sacrificing conservative principles; not conservative.
4. Not an opportunity if it means sacrificing principles. https://t.co/raQTLFda5G
— Jenna Ellis (@JennaEllisEsq) July 19, 2021
Love, for her part, seems to have taken the whole event on the chin.
In an interview with The Daily Caller, she decried it as the “worst case example of cancel culture.”
“TPUSA literally opened the show talking about how we need to fight back against big tech censorship, cancel culture, the deterioration of our 1st Amendment etc,” she said.
“Charlie Kirk literally talked about making sacrifices as outspoken ‘conservatives.’ Something I’ve been for years at great risk and great loss. And then they expelled me.”
She is also using the opportunity to sell t-shirts referencing the supposed role of Kirk, who founded TPUSA, in her banning.
“I triggered Charlie Kirk,” the shirt reads.
