‘Twinks4Trump’ activist granted White House press accreditation
The founder of the infamous ‘Twinks4Trump’ art project is now an accredited White House correspondent.
Self-branded “gay conservative mouthpiece” Lucian Wintrich was behind a photo exhibit last year under the title ‘Twinks4Trump’, featuring scantily-clad young gay men, in support of the Republican billionaire.
However, things are looking up for Wintrich – who has been handed an official White House press pass, courtesy of Trump’s press secretary Sean Spicer.
Though the White House press corps is typically comprised of serious news outlets, Wintrich got the pass on behalf of alt-right and overtly pro-Trump blog Gateway Pundit, which first revealed it would have an official White House correspondent at the ‘DepoloraBall’ inauguration event.
Wintrich made his press corps debut this week, despite having no experience of political reporting.
Gateway Pundit founder Jim Hoft tweeted a picture of himself and Wintrich in the White House’s Press Briefing Room yesterday.
The tweet was adorned with a frog emoji and both appear to be making a frog symbol with their hands – which MediaMatters noted is an apparent reference to white supremacist hate symbol Pepe the Frog.
The internet-famous ‘Pepe the Frog’ meme started out life as an innocuous cartoon, but was adopted as a visual symbol by the far-right and white supremacists online last year.
The symbol was added to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL)’s database of listed hate symbols in September, joining the swastika and the KKK’s burning cross.
Speaking about his ‘Twinks4Trump’ project previously, Wintrich said: “Twinks4Trump combines stereotypes about young gay men and these deep stereotypes about young conservatives. And it kind of tosses them up a little bit. It’s satire.
“I think that camp comedy, political satire, they’re incredible tools for bridging that cultural divide and that gap and getting people to laugh while simultaneously getting them to think about things a little bit differently.
“The second you hear a dissenting voice and you say ‘Oh well, this sounds conservative so you must be a racist, bigot neo-nazi you don’t have any sort of conversation.
“To be gay and then conservative…you have to fight harder and research more and then read more than anybody else because you’re going to be continuously challenged.”
