In the coming hours and days, the rabid fans of Milo Yiannopoulos will whine and moan about how CPAC and the ACU bowed before the Altar of Political Correctness to ban their Lord and Savior and probably also say something about freedom of speech.
But, they are wrong.
They are wrong because it is, objectively, wrong to have a keynote speaker at your conference who has advocated for sexual relations between underage boys and pervy, older men. He didn’t just advocate for it, either. He spoke about it as something “beautiful” or “safe.”
Even before the video, many conservatives knew that Milo was little more than trouble waiting to happen. After the video went viral, even staunch alt-right allies like Chuck Johnson were disgusted and walked away from Milo. His book deal was canceled, his co-workers allegedly want him gone or they walk, and he has with his own words set up career and celebrity status back.
It only made sense that CPAC cut him loose.
See, that the rejection of Milo is little more than a face-saving measure is true, but it’s not to appease the social justice warriors out there. The man was a homing beacon for controversy, and the recently unearthed video of him approving of relationships between young boys and older men is was nothing short of disastrous for the ACU.
Matt Schlapp, the chair of the ACU who appears to have invited Milo unilaterally in the first place, rescinded the invitation after receiving thousands of tweets with links to the aforementioned video.
It is one thing if the wadded panties brigade of the Left were whining and moaning about the keynote speech. It is a whole different matter that conservatives who have for years donated money to CPAC and spent money attending it are suddenly questioning whether or not CPAC is worth their time or cash anymore.
That makes a difference.
There are arguments that will be made about how Milo reaches an audience that the Republican Party needs. All you need to counter that argument is to look at the people screeching in favor of him and protecting him on social media. The vast majority would otherwise be people you wouldn’t want to associate with at any other point. Why do so now?
The alt-right, which has turned social media into a pit of indescribably rancid bile, is not the movement you want to align with. They have proven time and again that they are one-issue voters, and that their issue is the purity of the American citizenry (through racial means).
There are arguments that will be made that what Milo said in that video was advocacy for personal liberty. These are people who are okay with the sexual abuse of children. They, like the alt-right, are not people you would associate with at any other time, so why do so now?
Schlapp, I am assuming under pressure from the rest of the ACU board, made the only move that could correct the mistake that was inviting Milo in the first place. He had to uninvite Yiannopoulos for the good of the conference. The new problem is that he has backed himself into a corner.
By inviting Milo, he earned ire from conservatives who have supported CPAC and the ACU for years. But uninviting him, he has now added to to it the ire of Milo’s rabid supporters. A pretty sorry situation.
But it was the right move. Thank goodness they made it.
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