A former student activist for conservative nonprofit Turning Point USA on Monday called the organization a “shithole” with “increasing levels of drama” and “some of the most incompetent, lazy, and downright dishonest people I have ever encountered.”
“The following is the resignation letter I handed into my bosses earlier this morning,” Kaitlin Bennett, formerly the president of Kent State University’s chapter of Turning Point USA, wrote.
She addressed her resignation to Frankie O’Laughlin and Alana Mastrangelo. A Facebook page under O’Laughlin’s name lists him as a field director at Turning Point USA, and a Twitter page under Mastrangelo’s name lists her as a regional manager for the organization.
Bennett posted her resignation on Liberty Hangout, a website that bills itself as a “libertarian media outlet and alternative news source” that seeks to promote “Austrian economics and property rights.” The letter appears to be her only post on the website.
In her resignation, Bennett said she was “highly disappointed” in the organization’s leadership for taking “zero responsibility ” in the aftermath of a widely mocked event in October 2017 where members of the university’s Turning Point USA chapter dressed up in diapers to protest “safe spaces.”
Safe spaces are for children. pic.twitter.com/OSsETyDbC4
— TPUSA at Kent State (@TPUSAatKent) October 19, 2017
According to Bennett, O’Laughlin and Mastrangelo “approved the event” but “failed to show any leadership” when the chapter faced “the consequences of online harassment.”
“I was embarrassed to have been left alone to deal with the aftermath of the safe space event,” Bennett wrote. “Although I thought the safe space event was funny and have zero remorse for holding it, I took full responsibility for it when Turning Point failed to show any leadership.”
Bennett said she was “deeply saddened that Turning Point USA did not turn out to be the organization I thought it was.”
“I have realized how much of a shithole organization Turning Point USA is, and am glad I got out of this bullshit before I invested my whole life into it, let alone just my senior year of college,” Bennett wrote. “I expect to be paid in full for my hours worked, since the organization is also too incompetent to multiply 10 by 12.50 every week.”
She advised the group’s leaders to find “real” jobs.
“Maybe answering to business professionals rather than college dropouts, egotistic enough to put their face on stupid memes, will give you the leadership skills you desperately need for your positions,” she wrote. “Maybe after this is published on Liberty Hangout and Occupy Democrats Logic, to audiences that reach 17 million people on a bad week, I too can be verified on Twitter like you, Alana.”
Bennett signed off with “good riddance,” and added, “If you need a safe space after everyone hears about this, I still have the diapers.”
The Twitter account for the university’s chapter of Turning Point USA tweeted at Charlie Kirk, the nonprofit’s executive director and founder, several hours after Bennett posted her resignation.
.@charliekirk11 you should’ve been the one in the diaper
— TPUSA at Kent State (@TPUSAatKent) February 12, 2018
