If you liked Roman times, where emperors turned down a thumb and Christians cowered in the coliseum when the lions were released, you’ll love CPAC. Tonight is as much action as has been generated so far. Otherwise, CPAC is falling on its butt. In days of yore, CPAC was a must-attend conservative convention where all the intelligentsia and players in the Republican party met and discussed conservative values, strategies, all of that. Certainly in the year before an election year, any and all presidential candidates were present. That is not the case this year.

CPAC basically started to decline in 2016, for reasons which need not be explained. Steve Bannon and Nigel Farage began to take precedence over the leaders of conservative culture.

The likes of Charlie Sykes, the Lincoln Project people, Jennifer Rubin, Mona Charen, all the legitimate commentators, writers, and former GOP movers and shakers have moved on from CPAC. If they are anywhere right now, they are at Principles First, in Washington, D.C., which is a counter program that the Republican Accountability Project and others put together. And left at CPAC is Don Junior. And he’s throwing red meat to the crowd and Paul Ryan is steak tartare.

Here’s the level of intelligentsia left at CPAC nowadays.

Reality intrudes.

Here’s a jewel from earlier today, if you didn’t see this.

And tomorrow should be lit. Trump says the place is sold out to a “monster” crowd. And you’ll be glad to know, Trump is starting things out with a game show and a prize. I wonder if the gold statue will be rolled in and if Kimberly will do her hootchie cootchie dance. Politico:

Today, amid the Trump-related merch and art, Donald Trump Jr. caused a stir when he told attendees to look for gold-wrapped chocolate bars under their seats for the chance to win a VIP ticket to a reception with his father on Saturday. And what a mind trip that speech may be, coming on the heels of Trump’s release of a futuristic plan to create as many as 10 new “Freedom Cities” built from scratch on federal land.

As my colleague Meridith McGraw reported exclusively today, the plan includes investments in vertical-takeoff-and-landing vehicles, “baby bonuses” and “hives of industry” free from Chinese imports. There’s no small chance Trump’s audience tomorrow will be cheering procreation and made-to-order places to live.

And then there’s Vivek Ramaswamy, the biotech entrepreneur who, like Trump, is running for president in 2024. My colleague Natalie Allison posted a photograph on Twitter from one of his aides of his handwritten speech (it’s really worth a look). He plans, she wrote, to call for the FBI to be shut down.

Ramaswamy almost certainly isn’t going to be president. And the entire significance of CPAC has been the subject of much debate recently. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Trump’s top rival, is skipping the conference. So is former Vice President Mike Pence, and a number of other top party leaders. It’s about as Trump-y a show as you’ll find anywhere in the GOP, and whatever happens in the straw poll on Saturday should be taken with a bucket load of salt.

But you can’t ignore it, either. Trump is still the frontrunner to win the party’s nomination in 2024. And if anyone is going to knock him off, eventually they’re going to need to cut into his margins with the energetic grassroots activists who go to events like CPAC — a not entirely unfaithful representation of the base of the GOP.

Here’s the simple math: If there are a lot of candidates and the votes are split, Trump will get the nomination. If it gets down to only Trump and DeSantis, then DeSantis will most probably get it. And then Trump will go nuts, run as an Independent and bleed off Republican votes.

If you see it any other way and can game another scenario, please share.

I have to put this tweet here as a bonus. It had me rolling on the floor in 2021. Remember this?

The audio was laid under the video by Mrs. Betty Bowers, a Twitter luminary who is a gay man who dresses as a woman. I like Betty’s sense of humor.

 

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2 COMMENTS

  2. This is how I know there is no God. If even a fraction of the Christian Bible were true, God would strike these people down where they stand. Republicans used to be people I simply disagreed with, but now they’re just fascists trying to take away my freedoms in the name of some imaginary sky wizard a lot of Americans are increasingly rejecting. Is it any wonder?

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