How Low Can the GOP Go? Check Out CPAC 2023
Aside from worship of the former President, the CPAC show is all about the art of Angertainment
Oh, how the mighty have fallen. This year’s Conservative Political Action Conference was, with the possible exception of an appearance by the Dear Leader, a dud.
A gathering where tomorrow’s policy makers once engaged with the conservative faithful no longer has a purpose. After all, when there’s no policy other than idol worship, what else can you say?
Let’s start with money, the right wing’s favorite measure of success.
Past years conference sponsors included brand name entities recognizable to a wide swath of people: Google, Fox News, the National Rifle Association, the Heritage Foundation, the National Review and the Washington Times.
This year’s underwriters drew heavily from the wingnut wing of the right, for instance:
America’s Frontline Doctors: founded by Simone Gold, sentenced to 60 days in prison after pleading guilty to entering the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The WalkAway Foundation: leader Brandon Straka on probation after pleading guilty to disorderly conduct. Admitted recording himself telling Capitol rioters to “go go go.”
The New Federal State of China: Cofounded by Steve Bannon, convicted in July 2022 for contempt of Congress. Serves as vehicle for billionaire Guo Wengui campaign to assert control over opposition to the Chinese government.
Real America’s Voice: Broadcasts Bannon’s “War Room” and includes a large booth for broadcasting misinformation.
The conference is run by the American Conservative Union, co founded in the 1960s by William F. Buckley and prominent conservatives, in part, to root out the segregationist John Birch Society from the right wing.
The CPAC’s descent into darkness includes the John Birch Society is an exhibitor this year.
Ticket prices are up, sales are down, despite giveaways to congressional staffers. CPAC staff have been quitting in droves, amid discontent over leader Matt Schlapp’s alleged fondling of a staffer on Herschel Walker’s senate campaign and charges of in-house discrimination.
Low and behold, the twitternet says they are hiring people to fill seats.
A major theme for speakers this year is rhetoric targeting transsexuals. Supposedly men who dress like women are coming for suburban children, even though there are almost daily stories about clerics being arrested for grooming and molestation.
Ultimately, the anti-trans rhetoric is really about finding a way to make LGBTQ people an issue, as polling shows most Americans aren’t vested in policing bedrooms. Oh, and while we’re on the subject, there’s data showing a spike in use of the gay pickup app Grinder in the vicinity of the conference.
2023’s CPAC vendors are selling Trump hats, buttons, stickers and T-shirts — including one showing him in shades, holding a gun and dubbed the “Trumpinator.” Other wannabe presidential candidates apparently aren’t offering merch inventories, cause their names are virtually non-existent in booths.
The first night’s Ronald Reagan dinner featured sore loser Kari Lake, who continues to claim she won the Arizona gubernatorial contest. She’s been on national tour, hoping to inflame supporters with bogus claims of election fraud, while filing lawsuit after rejected lawsuit seeking to overturn her loss. She was the perfect victim to keep the Trumpian flame alive over the first two days of the conference.
Aside from worship of the former President, the CPAC show is all about the art of Angertainment.
Speakers aren’t so much talking about a conservative agenda, as they are trying to stoke outrage against their perceived enemies. One after another was hoping to lay out a zinger offensive enough to make it into the mainstream media’s reporting.
Junior Trump appears to have won that competition by calling a Pennsylvania Senator a vegetable, referring to John Fetterman’s decision to seek treatment for depression.
Way to go Donny! I’m sure millions of Americans will think twice now before seeking mental health care.
Junior’s galfriend, Kimberly Goilfoyle, probably also deserves mention for drawing the smallest audience and scant enthusiasm for her “put America first message” directed at President Biden.
The most embarrassing appearance award should go to presidential candidate Nikki Haley for least enthusiastic audience, after she noted that the GOP has lost seven of the last eight popular votes. She was besieged by unhappy Trump supporters as she left the stage.
Sen. Rick Scott ramped up his ongoing feud with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell during his speech…yay for disarray!
QAnon apologist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene called impeachment star witness Lt. Col. Vindman a "loser," and smeared his reputation with a baseless anti-Semitic conspiracy theory being pushed by right winger Jack Posobiec.
Congressman Matt Gaetz received thunderous applause as he called for the end of various federal law enforcement agencies and the CDC, claiming they have been “weaponized” against conservatives.
At a panel presentation, Trump’s ICE Director Thomas Homan said he didn’t “give a sh*t” about family separation at the southern border. The audience cheered.
And so forth…
The conclusion of this three day event was a speech by the former President. Although he thanked the fire marshals for letting extra people in, the fact is he couldn’t fill the room.
You can be sure Trumpian history will proclaim that only the crowd for his inauguration was bigger.
"This is the final battle," Trump told the audience, referring to the 2024 presidential race and the fate of the country itself. "This is it."
It’s either Trump in 2024 or “we no longer have a country.”
"I am your justice," Trump tells them. "I am your retribution."
The former President is good at bragging. He did everything right. Only the demons of the Democratic party and their allies in the media stood in the way of perfection.
The silence around what is arguably his biggest accomplishment, a Supreme Court willing to overturn Roe v. Wade, included CPAC as a whole.
A-B-O-R-T-I-O-N was a topic noticeably absent from the preaching and preening on the CPAC stage. The right knows things happened too fast, too soon for just about everybody in the electorate but the Christofascists, who have decided to run the table, shooting down birth control, upholding purity, and demanding a return to the good ol’ days of feminine subservience.
Also absent from the president’s performance was any mention of Operation Warp Speed, his initiative to create a COVID vaccine. Ronny Jackson, the former White House physician-turned-congressman from Texas hosted a panel entitled “A Real Heartstopper” calling for an investigation into vaccine efficacy.
Trump did have some promises besides getting even with assorted enemies. He proposed a contest to develop 10 new cities on federal land nationwide, nicknamed “Freedom Cities.”
A “baby bonus” would be created to encourage a new baby boom, presumably to populate the new Freedom Cities.
Then there was the Make America Beautiful part of the spiel, wherein governors nationwide would be challenged to get “rid of ugly buildings,” revitalize parks and ensure “a pristine environment” that features “towering monuments to our true American heroes.”
He gave a nod to local police forces, who would take the role of enforcers saying, “They will do the job the way they have to.”
The biggest applause of the evening came when he announced his policies directed at transsexuals’. “And we’ll revoke every policy of chemical castration and sexual mutilation of our children,” he said, which earned a standing ovation. “That will take place on day one.”
Media reviews on the conference are in, and let’s just say they’re less than flattering.
Here’s my favorite, via Mediaite:
Republican strategist Mike Murphy torched the Conservative Political Action Conference for being a hotbed of grifters and cranks.
Murphy described CPAC attendees as “the hobbyist wing of the right-wing,” while the Club for Growth represents the donor class.
“CPAC now is like the 25 Japanese troops in a cave somewhere in 1953 waiting for the emperor to tell them to attack,” he said. “It is a symptom of the weakness of the Trump thing, not the strength that he owns this shrinking island.
CNN was kind enough to bother with FACT CHECK. You won’t be shocked by anything other than the sheer number of bogus claims being made.
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A little housekeeping: The radiation regime targeting Cancer Version 3 started today at 8am. I’ll be reporting to UCSD every weekday for the next two weeks.
I have no idea how disruptive this will be; I remember from previous bouts that getting zapped is tiring. So I may or may not miss a day or two, and if the appointments are all earlier my posts will come out later. (I’m writing this on Sunday afternoon). I’m not going anywhere.
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The current members of the Republican Party have embraced evil in order to obtain power. Therefore, they will go to the uttermost depths of evil. IMO we need to start calling them the Party of Death as they clearly have no regard for human lives and human welfare.
Prayer is offered daily for you, your family, and everyone in your medical team.
Thanks for the words as always. Take care in this upcoming venture again. You are always accompanied by so many admirers of your ability to frame and inform us by your slant on the news. The temperature check on CPAC is reaching the "dead" zone. May it continue! Sending good thoughts your way!