Content warning: This article contains quotations of violent, sexually explicit and racist comments.
Hank Poitras, who streams online to thousands of followers as “Planet Hank,” once joked about sexually mutilating women as a punishment for getting pregnant. On Friday, he delivered a keynote address at an event in Barre celebrating Turning Point USA’s first chapter in Vermont.
Turning Point is a national organization that seeks to grow the conservative movement on America’s college campuses and high schools. Its reach has grown considerably since the assassination last year of its founder, Charlie Kirk, and now includes an official “activism hub” in Vermont started by a first-year student at Spaulding High School.
The hub’s celebratory kickoff, however, became mired in controversy after political blogger John Walters published a compendium of Poitras’ misogynistic and racist social media posts. And Poitras’ ascendancy in conservative politics is raising questions about who gains power in a Vermont Republican Party that says it is trying to distance itself from the extremists within its ranks. Poitras was elected to serve as chair of the Windham County Republican Committee in October.
Paul Dame, the chair of the Vermont Republican Party, appeared on Poitras’ podcast last year and was scheduled to speak alongside him at the Turning Point event. He said he first learned of the content creator’s controversial posts when asked for comment last week by Vermont Public.
“I think they’re awful. I’ve never been in contexts where people say things like that before,” Dame said. “Those remarks are not reflective of me, of the Republican Party, or really anyone else except for Hank.”
He also said they probably wouldn’t stop him from returning to Poitras’ show.
“There are audiences out there that won’t hear from me unless I go to where they are,” he said.
‘Most canceled guy in Vermont’
About 60 people, fewer than 10 of whom were under 18, braved heavy snow to attend Friday’s event.
Poitras wore a suit and tie and brought his own recording equipment. He dismissed the criticism he’s come under as a political hit job.
“I am Planet Hank — yep, the guy the liberals are trying to cancel right now, probably the most canceled guy in Vermont,” he told the crowd. “They built this cancel machine as a weapon against anyone who challenges their agenda. I’m embarrassed for them.”
Poitras has indeed been the subject of several cycles of online outrage. In Brattleboro, where he amassed a significant following for his Cops-style arrest videos, many residents have reacted with alarm, and sought to publicize some of his most extreme statements and views in an effort to counter his growing clout.
When he hosted a community event in Brattleboro last January about crime in town, hundreds attended, according to local media, and speakers included local politicians, business owners, and the leader of the local housing trust.
Soon after that event, a backlash ensued. In a Brattleboro group chat, someone released a compilation of some of Poitras’ since-deleted posts on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Black people hate all white people, this is why we carry weapons,” he wrote in one. “Why would anyone rape this ugly women?” he wrote in another, about E. Jean Carroll.
Poitras owned up to the posts, but told the Keene Sentinel they had been taken out of context. Still, the Brattleboro police department released a statement condemning his “racist and divisive statements,” and at least one sponsor dropped him.
A few weeks later, in March, local progressive YouTuber Kyle Whitten, who goes by “Kyle From The Shire,” released another compilation of Poitras’ past work. It included a clip of Poitras riffing about what he would do if a woman told him she were pregnant.
That woman would have to get an abortion, he said. And then Poitras went further.
“We’re taking your organs out too, b-----. We’re taking every single part, except the f---ing p---y walls. Right? All you need is a p---y. Then we’re going to cauterize the top of it. So it’s just a tube that leads to a dead end. Like the rest of y’all’s f---in’ choices in life,” Poitras continued.
In an interview, Whitten called Poitras a “rare” MAGA conservative who “forgot how to dog-whistle.” But then again, he said, maybe that’s not so unusual.
“Trump is the president right now, and he says some pretty wild stuff daily, and has, you know, the members of his party out there defending him 24/7. So does it surprise me? Yes, and no,” he said.
‘I apologize’
In an interview with Vermont Public after the Turning Point event, Poitras denied making racist comments and said that his online posts had been taken “out of context.” He also offered a blanket apology.
“I apologize for what I said, to people who were offended by what I said, for any mistakes that I’ve ever made in the world, for any harm that I’ve ever done to anybody, for anything that I do in the future. I apologize in advance for it,” he said.
Poitras said he’s a military veteran who regrets some of the conduct he engaged in while struggling with drugs and alcohol after serving in Iraq.
“I’ve said all kinds of dumb stuff,” he said.
Pressed about his comments about mutilating women, he said they were part of a comedic routine delivered 10 years ago. When a reporter pointed out that they were timestamped to 2022, he said he did not remember, and ended the conversation.
As the online history that Poitras sought to erase gains a wider audience, high-profile Republicans, including Gov. Phil Scott, have lamented his role as a thought leader in conservative circles.
“It’s disappointing to hear, because there’s no place in politics for hateful and racist dialogue, which is something Gov. Scott has been clear and consistent about throughout his time as governor,” Scott’s spokesperson, Amanda Wheeler, said in a written statement.
Neither Scott nor Dame has called for Poitras’ resignation from his role in the GOP, though Dame said his conduct will “make it harder for Republicans generally, and especially any Republicans in Windham County.”
One elected Republican official, Barre City Rep. Michael Boutin, shared the stage with Poitras at Friday evening’s event at the Canadian Club. He told Vermont Public that he’d asked Turning Point to take Poitras off the bill, and that he’d considered pulling out of the event. The Turning Point representative who organized the event declined to comment.
Boutin said he ultimately decided to speak anyway because he didn’t want to let down the Spaulding students who had invited him.
“If I don't, that means that the only voice that will be heard is a voice that I don't feel is the future of our party,” he said.
Dame was also scheduled to speak at Friday’s event but canceled due to unexpected family obligations. He sent a video message that was played for the crowd in his absence.
“It was important to me that my voice was represented with the young people who will be there,” he said.
The young people who started the Turning Point hub in Barre say they’ve been the subject of hateful and threatening comments online. The founder says nine teachers turned him down when he asked them to serve as an advisor to his chapter of “Club America,” which is the branch of TPUSA that oversees activities in high schools.
Friday’s event featured speeches from five teens involved in the program, including three from New York. They read Scripture, quoted Kirk, and spoke earnestly of a desire to engage respectfully with peers across the ideological spectrum. They also talked about the difficulty of being conservative kids in blue states.
Dame said he hears the same sentiment from a lot of young Republicans in Vermont who “don’t feel like they fit in.” Turning Point, he said, offers a place “where young conservatives can feel involved.”
‘Frauds and grifters’
As Senate minority leader, Caledonia County Sen. Scott Beck plays a lead role in recruiting the next generation of Republican elected officials. Last year, he called for the resignation of one of them — former Orleans County Sen. Samuel Douglass — after Politico detailed his involvement in a racist and antisemitic group chat among Young Republican chapters in four states.
Though Beck stopped short of calling for Poitras’ resignation from the Vermont GOP county committee, he said last week, “I don’t think that Windham County should have somebody like that leading their GOP.”
Beck said he understood the rationale behind Boutin and Dame participating in the Turning Point event, but he doesn’t agree with it.
“Some people would perceive that you’re providing legitimacy to those thoughts and people that think like that,” he said.
“Some people would perceive that you’re providing legitimacy to those thoughts and people that think like that."Caledonia County Sen. Scott Beck, on fellow Republicans' decision to participate in the Feb. 20 Turning Point event
He said the party’s experience with Douglass last year, and now Poitras, underscore the vigilance with which Republicans need to monitor who it is that’s joining their ranks, and what they seek to achieve with its power.
“Our current president has been engaged in that type of behavior and has been a part — not the only part but has been a significant part — in turning the conversation into a non-civil conversation,” Beck said. “And for those that can’t be above that, then they can’t be part of what we’re trying to do.”
The battle over the future of the conservative movement hit a recent inflection point at Turning Point’s annual youth conference in Phoenix, where Ben Shapiro denounced the “frauds and grifters” within its own ranks.
“The conservative movement is in serious danger ... from charlatans who claim to speak in the name of principle but actually traffic in conspiracism and dishonesty,” Shapiro said.
Dame said Shapiro’s comments speak to challenges he faces as the leader of the Republican Party in Vermont.
“It’s sort of a new problem, from my perspective, that we haven’t figured out how to deal with just yet,” he said.
