Tag: CPAC

In a surreal moment, Trump told the truth about his lies at CPAC

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During a speech filled with lies, boasts, and bullying attacks that observers have come to expect, former President Donald Trump offered a rare moment of self-effacing honesty over the weekend to the audience at CPAC.

He brought up the conservative conference’s practice of holding a straw poll to see who attendees favor to be the Republican Party’s next presidential nominee — a contest which other polls suggest he still dominates. But while he was speaking, the poll hadn’t been finished yet, so he telegraphed exactly how he will react no matter the results.

“You have a poll coming out, unfortunately — I want to know what it is,” he said. “Now if it’s bad, I disown — I say it’s fake. If it’s good, I say that’s the most accurate poll perhaps ever.” Continue reading.

‘Land of misfit toys’: Former GOP lawmaker drops the hammer on CPAC ‘freak show’ after ‘reprehensible’ Trump appearance

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Appearing on CNN’s “New Day,” former Republican congressman Charlie Dent (R-PA) hammered the annual CPAC gathering that took place in Texas this past weekend, bluntly calling the confab a “freak show” that is not representative of mainstream conservatism.

Speaking with hosts John Berman and Brianna Keilar, Dent said he was both appalled and despondent at what he witnessed while noting that when he was still serving in the House, he refused to attend and be tainted by the extremism he saw there.

After watching a clip of a CPAC panel disparaging efforts to get Americans vaccinated against COVID-19, the former lawmaker went off — while also questioning the straw poll taken at the get-together that anointed Donald Trump as the attendee’s preference in the 2024 presidential election. Continue reading.

Mo Brooks Urges CPAC Crowd To Fight ‘Like Our Ancestors At Valley Forge’

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Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL), who was one of the very first leaders of Donald Trump‘s January 6 insurrection, on Friday urged GOP voters at a conservative conference to fight and die for America, just like George Washington’s soldiers did at Valley Forge, and telegraphing to them their very “survival” is at stake.

Brooks was the first member of Congress to declare he would vote against certifying the results of the Electoral College and vote to overturn the free and fair presidential election. On January 6 he also delivered a speech, telling Trump supporters at the Trump-financed, Trump-produced, and Trump-promoted rally prior to the violent attack on the Capitol, “Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass.”

On Friday Brooks told attendees at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, that the “choice is simple: We can surrender and submit. Or we can fight back, as our ancestors have done.” Continue reading.

When Matt Gaetz Met Up With White Nationalists At CPAC

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Trumpist Republican politicians like Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz appear to be mimicking their role model’s ability to send comforting signals out to white nationalists while managing to keep them at arm’s length for the sake of plausible deniability. He showed how it’s done this past weekend at the Conservative Political Action Committee’s annual convention in Orlando.

A cluster of young white nationalists attending the simultaneous America First Political Action Committee convention—organized by notorious “Groyper Army” leader Nicholas Fuentes—invaded the CPAC gathering, where Fuentes has been banned, on Saturday. They managed to find Gaetz, who took photos with one of the group’s leaders—an outspoken neo-Nazi who uses the nom de plume “Speckzo”—and briefly conversed with them, apparently acknowledging his familiarity with Fuentes.

The video of the interaction shows one of the Groypers asking Gaetz if he was familiar with Fuentes. Gaetz made an indistinct reply while walking away with an aide, pointing a raised index finger in the direction of the young men. Continue reading.

Trump’s reemergence poses risks for GOP, media

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Former President Trump‘s reentry into public life at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Sunday exacerbates challenges for political leaders in both parties, as well as the media.

Washington has been a relatively Trump-free zone for the first 40 days of President Biden‘s administration, particularly with Trump banned from Twitter, the megaphone that allowed him to gin up news cycle after news cycle. 

The speech to a faithful crowd in Orlando, Fla., won’t bring a return to the last four years, but it did establish that Trump remains the overwhelming leader of the Republican Party and that Republicans in Congress contending with the Biden administration will have to constantly be looking over their shoulder. Continue reading.

Republicans’ fascism two-step was on display at CPAC 2021

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If you want a perfect emblem of the current state of Republican politics, look to the story of how Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., spent this past weekend.

On Friday night, Gosar attended a conference for unvarnished fascists, where the main organizer gave a speech calling for America to be white nationalist country and openly celebrated the insurrection spearheaded by Donald Trump on Jan. 6. On Saturday, while speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Gosar lamely claimed to denounce “white racism,” clearly feeling that those magic words erased his participation in and support for those who are organizing white racists to take over the country through force.

t should be silly that Gosar believes that simply declaring “I denounce” is enough to negate all his concrete actions in favor of white nationalism, but the sad fact is that he has good reason to think it will work. After all, that’s how things have been working for years in this country. Call it the fascism two-step: First, Republicans do something overtly fascist. Then they wave off concerns about their fascism by faking umbrage and relying on the widespread belief that “it can never happen here” to paint their critics as hysterical. Gosar was just a particularly blunt and obvious example, but it’s the strategy that’s been used throughout Trump’s presidency and now is being heavily employed to minimize the attempted insurrection. Continue reading.

Trump calls for GOP unity, repeats lies about election loss

ORLANDO, FLORIDA — Taking the stage for the first time since leaving office, former President Donald Trump called for GOP unity, even as he exacerbated intraparty divisions by attacking fellow Republicans and promoting lies about the election in a speech that made clear he intends to remain a dominant political force.

Speaking Sunday at the Conservative Political Action Conference, where he was hailed as a returning hero, Trump blasted his successor, President Joe Biden, and tried to lay out a vision for the future of the GOP that revolves firmly around him, despite his loss in November.

“Do you miss me yet?” Trump said after taking the stage to his old rally soundtrack and cheers from the supportive crowd. Continue reading.

CPAC Speaker Angela Stanton King Promotes QAnon From Stage

Speaker Angela Stanton King called for an investigation into QAnon’s baseless allegations of child sexual abuse and cannibalism.

A speaker at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) promoted the QAnon conspiracy theory from the event’s main stage on Sunday, shortly before Donald Trump was scheduled to appear at the conservative movement’s premiere annual event. Former congressional candidate Angela Stanton King, who has frequently boosted the conspiracy theory on social media, called for an investigation into whether QAnon’s bizarre claims about a cabal of cannibal-pedophiles controlling the world and a mysterious figure named Q giving hidden messages to Trump supporters are real.

“Let’s address it,” King said. “So we know in this election, there were some things going on in regards to the conspiracy theories with Q, right? And I think, me as a person, before I ever got into the conservative movement, I’ve always been an advocate even if it’s for abused children or it’s for those people that are incarcerated. So I think that any allegations coming forward in regards to any type of abuse when it comes to children deserves to be investigated, it deserves to be made aware of.”

The CPAC crowd applauded King’s call for an investigation into the claims made by QAnon believers, which include allegations that Democratic Party leaders and Hollywood celebrities sexually abuse children and drink their blood to stay young. QAnon supporters believe in a moment called “The Storm,” in which they anticipate Trump will order mass arrests or executions of his political opponents. Continue reading.

CPAC signals a new disturbing era for the Republican Party

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While some Republican lawmakers are fighting to return to some form of traditional political normalcy, other lawmakers and members of the political party are pushing for a new direction. 

The first night of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), which featured some of the most contentious Republican lawmakers like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), signals the Trump era may be far from over. When Cruz took the stage, he made his perspective quite clear as he suggested that he will remain a Trump loyalist for years to come.

“There’s a whole lot of voices in Washington that want to just erase the past four years, want to go back to the world before,” Cruz said. “Let me tell ya right now: Donald J. Trump ain’t goin’ anywhere.” Continue reading.

How white evangelicals found themselves worshipping a golden Trump

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Social media was ablaze this morning with a video taken at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington of a golden statue in the image of Donald Trump. People right away associated the graven image with the golden calf of the Bible—when Moses took so long bringing Yahweh’s Law down from Mt. Sinai that his brother succumbed to pressure to erect an idol to a competing god. “Mentioned in Exodus 32 and I Kings 12 in the Old Testament, worship of the golden calf is seen as a supreme act of apostasy, the rejection of a faith once confessed,” according to the Encyclopedia Britannica. “The figure is probably a representation of the Egyptian bull god Apis in the earlier period and of the Canaanite fertility god Baal in the latter.”

Now, there’s more important stuff going on right now. The parliamentarian of the United States Senate, for instance, ruled last night that the provision in the president’s covid relief package that raises the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour cannot pass by way of “reconciliation,” which is a special budget rule requiring a simple majority instead of the usual 60 votes. That, plus the reluctance of Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema to monkey with the rule, means the hard work of governance is becoming visible. By comparison, a statue of “the Golden Ass,” as someone quipped, seems rather petty. I disagree. This image captures something important and dire about the forces that still threaten our republic. It’s worth our time thinking about them.

Why are white evangelical Protestants so obedient to authority? I think because it’s literally beaten into them.

Let’s start with the obvious. Trump’s most reliable supporters are white evangelical Protestants (WEPs). These are the people who are most likely to attend this weekend’s Conservative Political Action Conference. You’d think, given how devoutly religious the former president’s supporters claim to be, that they would be outraged by the sight of a golden statue in Trump’s image, an idol akin to the golden calf, a graven image for worshipping a competing god. You’d think WEPs would be discomfited even by the appearance of elevating a mere mortal (Donald Trump) to the level of the Almighty. Continue reading.