Benjamin Ryan Larrabee is the Field Director for a far-right organization named Turning Point USA (TPUSA). Larrabee is based out of Dallas, but has occasionally been spotted on campus tabling for TPUSA. TPUSA is not a registered student organization, but Larrabee revealed that they hope to start an RSO soon. They have connections to the YCT.
Larrabee himself fits all the hallmarks of a far-right organizer—he’s virulently Zionist, anti-abortion, anti-“political correctness,” pro-“free speech,” anti-communist. He is being used and sent all the way from Dallas to lay the seeds of a local TPUSA chapter. This poses a threat to UT students, as TPUSA is an organization often affiliated with the alt-lite, a term referring to far right groups that aim to normalize fascist, white supremacist, and other bigoted agendas but do so with a nicer image that can appeal to centrists and more traditional conservatives (contrasted with the outright fascist or neo-nazi politics of the alt-right).
TPUSA risks bringing more fascist recruitment and organizing to campus. The national organization is notorious for their “leftist professor watchlist,” which attacks progressive and critical thinkers (largely women and PoC) on campuses.* They have invited notorious far-right and dangerous figures, such as Milo Yiannapolous, Ivan Throne, Steve Bannon, and Hungarian neo-nazi Sebastian Gorka. They use free speech and “anti-communism” as dogwhistles to sneak in fascist politics, priming people to support even more overtly fascist and white supremacist policies and ideals.
If you see Larrabee on campus (or any TPUSA propaganda), call them out! Call your local antifascists and help shut them down before they spread.
For more on Larrabee and TPUSA: autonomedia.blackblogs.org/2017/12/03/blackshirt-alert-far-right-tpusa-invades-ut
*If you think this wiki and the leftist professor list on the same, you may be thinking like a fascist. Naming people who pose threats to marginalized students cannot be equivocated with the reactionary attack on professors who advocate for the marginalized.
