CPAC Canceled For Lack Of ... Oh Wait, That *Was* CPAC?
Dom was there, whatever it was!
The annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) used to be a thing journalists were desperate to get assigned. Now, the only thing more empty than the broadcast riser were the seats.
The narrative among many journalists at this year’s CPAC is that CPAC is dead.
“It’s cooked,” one told me.
“This is sad,” said another when seeing the half empty room.
Mother Jones quoted one attendee saying “it’s shitty.”
The feeling that CPAC doesn’t have the juice anymore was mentioned onstage by Matt and Mercedes Schlapp, the two former Bush 43 staffers who took over the whole thing in 2015. Back then, the American Conservative Union, the parent organization of CPAC, was fledging. The William F. Buckley-founded organization hadn’t really weathered America’s affair with tyrannical tan-suit wearing socialist Barack Obama. So the Schlapps hitched their wagon to the Trump train, zhuzh-ed things up a bit, and never looked back.
But Donald Trump wasn’t at CPAC this year. Last year, he wasn’t announced until the final day. It’s only the second time in the last 15 years he’s bailed on CPAC.
In 2016, Trump skipped CPAC because he, according to a piece in the historically conservative Washington Examiner, wanted special treatment. Back then, Schlapp said Trump’s refusal to do a normal sit-down interview was “bullshit,” adding that Trump was “trying to run us over.”
The Examiner reported Schlapp as saying:
“You can’t both say ‘I’m going to claim the Reagan mantle, I’m a Reagan conservative,’ and make this kind of a decision,” Schlapp said. “I think it’s unfortunate. We want him here. We have a lot of respect for him. He’s the front-runner in the race...If you’re competing against other conservatives for the nomination, you got to get the same amount of time as everyone else and you got to answer questions,” he added.
A decade later, the Examiner is reporting the same thing as MoJo: that Trump might have killed the conservative movement in favor of himself, and that groups like Turning Point USA are eating CPAC.
There’s been some posturing that Trump, his cabinet, and members of the House and Senate were too busy with Trump’s special military operation in Iran, and attempting to fund the Department of Homeland Security. But Congress just went on a two-week vacation. Trump gave a speech in Memphis on March 23, and to Saudi investors in Miami on March 27. Prominent faces in right-wing TV land were also absent. Not even Trump’s kids or the usual Fox News talking heads showed up.
Instead, they got Nick Shirley, Benny Johnson, Matt Foldi, and Josh Hammer, people whom much of the aging crowd seemed either unaware of and/or uninterested in. These are smug dorks and acne-faced internet trolls hurling culture war buzzwords and memes they themselves started, breathlessly plugging their podcasts and livestreams.
It is not without a deep irony that Franklin Graham, the now elderly scion of his father’s televangelist empire, started with a predictable fire and brimstone speech, only to veer off course and rail against internet hucksters, like podcasters, telling the crowd to be weary of those who profit from “clicks,” likes and views.
I didn’t see a “radio row” of right-wing podcasters and blowhards. The big media riser sat empty most of the time. The only broadcasters were bootlickers at Newsmax, RAV, OAN and Lindell TV. There were only a few freelance wire photographers, including myself, who’d ever covered a previous CPAC. The conference regulars are only getting older as groups like Turning Point USA poach the conservative youth, bussing them to TPUSA rallies where they dole out armfuls of branded swag.
Matt Schlapp claims he can’t hold CPAC in a blue state because of bureaucracy, which might be true, but it could also be true that he’s got champagne taste on a beer budget.
Once again, CPAC was at Gaylord Resort. A subsidiary of Marriott, Gaylords are all-inclusive resort hotels. CPAC’s flagship conference is typically held in or around Washington DC. For the last couple of years, CPAC was held at the Gaylord in Maryland’s National Harbor, right by Joint Base Andrews. The Dallas-area Gaylord in Grapevine is a short and insane drive north from Dallas, next to a secluded lake. Next year, Schlapp says CPAC is moving to Orlando, which also has a Gaylord (complete with a maze-like atrium, a boat, a waterfall, a little fort, a mini alligator zoo, and a tiki bar).
And now the inevitable ravages of time are showing on CPAC’s stage setup, which hasn’t changed in years. The red carpeting is shredding and fraying at the edges; the white chairs are showing indentations from all the butts that have sat through CPAC’s 20-minute panels; the giant red circle looming over everything is even looking stressed.
Some of the video bumpers between speakers and panels this year featured flashy graphics with heavy fades and wipes, like promos for a UFC match, highlighting different cabinet members and countries with and without the CPAC endorsement. One of them noted that Russia had a zero percent rating for its press freedom. Hungary earned a 90 percent.
Hungary’s authoritarian leader, Viktor Orbán, has made bold attempts at silencing the free press. He’s used his power to install wealthy supporters in Hungarian media, and targeted journalists for reporting on stories critical of his government. Reporters Without Borders has called him a “free press predator.” Last week, it was reported that Trump is actively trying to help Orbán in his upcoming election, and that Russia and Hungary plotted to fake an assassination attempt on Orbán in an effort to swing the vote.
While its influence in the US may be waning, colleagues overseas tell me that it appears to growing abroad. Hungary has been hosting its own outposts of CPAC. UK Prime Minister-For-Head-Of-Lettuce-Period-Of-Time Liz Truss took the stage to announce a CPAC UK later this year. George Weinberg, from Republicans Overseas in Germany, did that weird Trump-style dance, and mused about a CPAC in Munich. When I asked a colleague based in Germany who Weinberg was, they called him “off the rails.”
This comes following an FT report in February about a US State Department “slush fund to get MAGA-style things going in various places” through various think-tanks, as a way to “undermine government policies” throughout Europe. The US pushed back, saying it wasn’t setting up a “slush fund,” but rather “a transparent, lawful use of resources to advance US interests and values abroad.” It’s still unclear which think tanks the administration is targeting.
Ken Paxton, Texas’s scandal-plagued attorney general, is the CPAC favorite to win the GOP’s run-off primary election against Senator John Cornyn. Paxton gave the keynote during the annual Ronald Reagan dinner, a slot historically reserved for party stalwarts and rising stars, but Trump hasn’t endorsed either him or Cornyn. Gov. Greg Abbott’s well-received speech full of red meat and one-liners suggests he’s considering a run at the Oval Office in 2028.
During one panel titled “Women Warriors,” Rep. Kat Cammack made a good joke about freaking out House Speaker Mike Johnson when he walked in on her breastfeeding. It seemed to sail past much of the audience.
Later, Former Rep. Mayra Flores, a far-right conservative bomb thrower challenging Rep. Henry Cuellar, told the half-empty room the party needed to reach out to Latino people and women, many of whom share traditional conservative values. She was heckled.
But then, so was Sen. Ted Cruz. He boasted about being unlikeable when someone shouted, “Do your job!” Cruz went on to give detailed instructions on how to subscribe to his podcast via text message.
There was also the bit on impeachment that was hastily dropped, a forehead-slapping fuckup I saw firsthand from the photo buffer and still can’t get my head around. And as far as I know, nobody mentioned Mike Lindell getting served during a livestream.
One thing that hasn’t seemed to get enough attention this year was the makeup of the crowd itself. Maybe it was the alcohol, which I’m told led to one obnoxious J6-er getting thrown out (at least twice), but some folks were just rowdy. Particularly the Iranian expats and Persians who came to see Reza Pahlavi, the self-proclaimed heir-in-exile to Iran.
It’s difficult to say exactly, but it sure as hell seemed like they filled up half the room. Of course, that does a bit of disservice to the Brazilians waiting for the Bolsonaro brothers, and South Koreans supporting Yoon Suk Yeol, the former president of South Korea who was jailed for attempting a coup, and Poles waiting for Polish President Karol Nawrocki to profess his love of the US, the EU and military alliances.
But it was the Persian community that showed up en masse.
On several occasions at least 100 people took to the halls to start chanting, “KING Re-za Pah-lavi,” prompting reporters and photographers to rush out of the ballroom. One scene on the second day devolved into chaos as the alleged mother of Reza Pahlavi called someone via video chat. Police had to break up the crowd.
Spirits were high. People in costumes and traditional garb wandered the hall with smiles. Some men were smoking in the bathrooms after the smoking patio 15 feet away became too crowded.
Back in the ballroom, people onstage were railing about the Arab community in North Texas. They claimed the US was at risk of becoming a Muslim nation under Sharia Law.
When Pahlavi finished speaking around lunchtime on the third day, the room began emptying out. Some came back for RFK Jr.’s chat with Mercedes Schlapp — the big finale! — but not everyone.
Still, there is something notable about all these people being under one roof, or the lack thereof. It’s not like CPAC is the only storied political conference struggling to stay relevant in the 21st century. The progressive Netroots Nation had a poor turnout last year as well. Whether that means political conferences should adopt TPUSA’s T-shirt cannons and pyrotechnics, or dial it back to old-fashioned smoke-filled rooms, is a fair question to ask when some asshole yelling at a phone in their car for magic internet points can be just as loud as elected officials and policy wonks.
Regardless, all the bloviating and hot air means nothing if your deeply flawed and scandal-ridden promise-making candidate can’t win an election, or sit in a room with people they don’t like to do their damn job in the interest of the people — even the ones that didn’t vote for them.
Holy cow, Dominic. Glad you safely returned from Brokebrain Mountain.
OT: Because we can all use a laugh right about now -
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