Calendargate
Observers from that side of the political spectrum cited the controversy as reflecting continued tension between the two factions that had united to support former president Donald Trump in his re-election bid.
[citation needed] Earlier in 2023, conservatives were angry that AB InBev had hired trans woman influencer Dylan Mulvaney as a brand ambassador for Bud Light launched a boycott.
[a] One of the images featured conservative comedian Ashley St. Clair wearing a black bra and pearl necklace while sitting in a bubble bath, an apparent reference to one of Mulvaney's Bud Light videos.
"[4] Some conservative commentators reacted negatively in a vigorous online debate later that month around the Christmas holidays,[1] criticizing it as lustful,[2][3] with Bryson Gray even calling it "demonic".
[1][5] Former Trump attorney Jenna Ellis responded to another tweet mocking Gaines for posing so suggestively for the calendar after having cited fears of locker-room voyeurism to justify excluding trans women from sports.
"[6] At another conservative publication, The Washington Examiner, Tiana Lowe Doescher took the opposite viewpoint, calling the calendar "anodyne and innocuous at worst ... PG-13 and tolerably cringe".
She chided critics calling it pornographic, noting that conservatives had largely won their political and cultural battle over sexually explicit material online, at least as far as restricting minors' access to it.
Nate Hochman, a conservative writer and activist, who had in 2021 defended Turning Point USA's controversial decision to rescind porn star Brandi Love's invitation to appear at their conference,[8][relevant?]
Instead of creating an authentic counterculture—one that might someday be able to challenge the hegemony of our decaying mainstream institutions—conservatives are locked in a dialectic relationship with the very social norms and mores that they ostensibly seek to overcome.The progressive outlet Vox called Calendargate "deeply revealing about the fault lines inside the conservative movement".
He took no position on the issues involved but, noting that this sort of internal feud was more common on the political left, said it was "nice to see conservatives taking a crack at it.
"[10] Vice writer Magdalene Taylor took note of a video Isabella Marie DeLuca, another young conservative influencer, had posted in October of herself baking a cake that had drawn fresh attention after Calendargate.
