Today is the beginning of the 2021 CPAC four-day festival of lies about Donald Trump’s “stolen” election. If that lede seems loaded to you, simply take a look at all available information about how the convention is being handled and see if it’s not accurate — and tragically so. At its worst, CPAC’s pushing of the Big Lie, which will be streamed live by Fox Nation, is anticipated to spark further domestic terrorism. At its best, CPAC is shaping up to be a sorry commentary on the further descent into madness of the conservative movement, a movement which is conservative in name only. It done lost all its former principles, not to mention its damn mind and if you doubt that, Matt Schlapp is the chair of CPAC and he’s made it clear what the focus of the next four days will be. Popular Information:
Months later, Schlapp continues to make false claims about voter fraud in Nevada. In an appearance on CNN this week, Schlapp suggested people in Nevada voted twice. “You should only vote once and if you vote by mail, somebody at that election office should have to verify that signature according to the state statute. That did not happen in the state of Nevada,” Schlapp said. Again, Schlapp was wrong. There was signature matching for mail-in ballots in Nevada.
Schlapp has created a program centered around these false claims. There are seven panels devoted to perpetuating lies about election fraud, including:
Other Culprits: Why Judges & Media Refused to Look at the Evidence
The Left Pulled the Strings, Covered It Up, and Even Admits It
Failed States (PA, GA, NV, oh my!)
The “Other Culprits” panel features Congressman Mo Brooks (R-AL), who appeared at the January 6 rally that occurred just before the riot. Brooks told the crowd that it was time to start “taking down names and kicking ass.” He refused to apologize.
Trump will undoubtably include his false claims of election fraud in his keynote address on Sunday. In a statement this week, Trump claimed that “experts” believed he “won” the election and bemoaned the “election crimes that were committed against me.”
It’s not surprising that Schlapp has created a four-day event to cater to Trump’s ego. Publicly aligning himself with Trump has been profitable for him. In the waning days of Trump’s presidency, Schlapp was paid $750,000 by convicted fraudster Pete Petit to try to secure a pardon from Trump. Schlapp failed to get Petit a pardon.
But top Republican leaders in Congress are participating in this event. They have decided to make Trump’s lies about election fraud central to the future of the Republican Party.
Kevin McCarthy will be there, front and center, so will Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz. Mitt Romney won’t. Neither will frequent former CPAC speakers Ben Sasse and Pat Toomey. And forget about Mike Pence. Romney didn’t show up at last year’s CPAC because Schlapp told him he “couldn’t insure his safety.” Pence has a lot more people who want to see him dead than Mitt ever did for casting the sole Republican vote to convict Trump at Impeachment I. Pence is afraid of getting murdered if he shows up and considering how extremism has gone main stream in the GOP, he’s not over estimating the situation. So, CPAC is basically defenestrated this year of what were recognized as bona fide conservative speakers from days past and instead, a 96-hour lie-fest, resurrecting the Big Lie and mythologizing it, is the platform for CPAC 2021.
If you can stand to listen to Matt Schlapp for seven minutes, this is a classic interview. Watch the man cringe. Hitting him with facts is like throwing holy water on Dracula.
American Conservative Union Chairman Matt Schlapp defends his decision to invite Donald Trump to speak at CPAC this weekend, despite the former President's ongoing lie that he won the 2020 election. https://t.co/vboWYo5DjU pic.twitter.com/wOeCqdyMo5
— Cuomo Prime Time (@CuomoPrimeTime) February 23, 2021
In a striking exchange, Cuomo flatly declared that giving Trump a platform means CPAC is “tacitly endorsing his election farce.”
In response, Schlapp forthrightly defended this by insisting that at the conference, they’d be “going through what happened in these states.”
It’s as if CPAC can magically erase what we all just lived through: All these very same lies about the election getting shot down in dozens of court battles, followed by these lies inciting a violent effort to subvert the election.
Cuomo pointed out that all the claims of widespread fraud are false, and asked: “You guys really want the conservative movement to be made on the back of a lie about the election?”
Schlapp demurred, but the answer to this question is Yes. That’s what they do want. This idea is rapidly becoming the central organizing mythology of the remnants of the conservative movement that remain captive to Trump.
If you try to distance yourself from this, take the proverbial 10,000 foot look, this is simply incredible. A major political party — what’s left of it — is choosing to continue to breathe life into a copiously debunked lie and rally the troops around it, both literally and figuratively. That this is dangerous beyond belief, to undermine faith in our elections system, goes without saying. Nothing undermines the rule of law at a more fundamental level. But they’re doing it.
Look for four days of this, culminating in Donald Trump’s Lazarus-esque Sunday night speech.
Your guess is as good as anybody’s as to what the result of this mind bender will be, but the two extremes have been scoped out: one possibility is further domestic terrorism from a ginned up lunatic fringe, or CPAC could simply be the pathetic sputtering of a party running on fumes, because it ran out of gas long ago.
Given what’s going on with his tax returns, I think two trains are on a collision course that will manifest a total train wreck somewhere in Orlando sometime on Sunday. Just guessing.
As all committed Nazi’s know: If you want the “Big Lie” strategy to succeed, you can never ever let up and acknowledge the truth.
But you ALSO need a unified and consistent message. They don’t got it.
“Other Culprits: Why Judges & Media Refused to Look at the Evidence”
Hmm. They probably “refused” because NO ONE PROVIDED ANY. Maybe the CPAC (maybe QPAC?) folks might want to consider a basic principle of law: A judge and the media will always want to look at evidence but said evidence MUST be presented. Every single case that came up was basically met with “We’ll show you the evidence later” but in ALL real trials (and all those “lawyers” should know this), the evidence needs to be presented BEFORE a trial can start in order to determine if there’s actually ENOUGH evidence to hold the trial.
It’s not like Rudy or any of the rest were asked to show EVERYTHING; they were simply asked to provide enough evidence of their claims that would justify the time for the court to hear the case. That is the MINIMUM requirement. In a regular trial, prosecutors and defense lawyers can always bring in more evidence if more should come up (of course, each side has to provide the other side a chance to examine that evidence before it can be used) but, again, in a regular trial, each side must present what evidence they have BEFORE the trial starts (this allows each side a chance to rebut–or even challenge–the evidence).
You’d think even the dumbasses who believed Trump’s claims about fraud would know that much just from years of watching “Law and Order” and “JAG” and all the other legal dramas (the shows weren’t always completely accurate but they did provide a bit of a window into how courts work).
I’m not a lawyer but I’ve always been under the impression that while you don’t have to show ALL your evidence to get a case held over for trial, you have to at least present enough credible evidence that there are triable matters of fact. If you don’t have enough to meet a minimum standard then a judge can toss a case out. Looks to me that’s what happened to Trump. Over, and over and over again. DOZENS of times. Including ironically enough sometimes by judges that he appointed!
Exactly.
What evidence.
There is none, only lies about it.
Some of the judges asked the lawyers, in court, if they were claiming fraud occurred and the lawyers denied it.
None of the cases provided any credible evidence of fraud, and some of their “expert witnesses” proved to be anything but expert.
Hope the Trumpistas enjoy this moment. The next several months are going to be…awkward.
I think I know why they’re doing this,
The money Lebowski!
McConnell (and other old-school establishment types but especially Yertle) are probably going crazy right now. There will still be dark money coming in, and some corporate money too but it there will still be a huge hole in GOP fundraising. Democrats have well over fifteen years of experience with developing small donor fundraising operations. Sanders ran a pretty solid Presidential primary campaign on it and Obama turned it into an art form. Countless other Democratic candidates have adopted it since and with great success. The GOP has dabbled with it but mostly relied on the mega donors and corporate money fueling PACS and Super PACS. Trump did okay with it, and continues to do so but no one in their right mind, or even the Trump prion diseased brains of Republicans in Congress who believe they can’t win without him at the head of their Party (well, the bulk of the latter group at least) believes Trump will share that wealth. He’s got massive money problems of his own.
Trump is going to fundraise like crazy from the GOP base. If, as it appears is going to happen conservatives are going to go all-in with Trump starting this weekend then Trump will grow increasingly brazen as will some of the Congressional nutjobs like Marjorie “Tayl-hole” Greene and Lauren “Bobblehead” and with that the floodgates might well open up for Trump. If you thought the Trumpy Bear ads were annoying but at least amusing in a sick sort of way you ain’t seen nothing yet! All those other ads for Trump coffee mugs, MAGA hats and so forth are about to include more and more vile swag. I can easily imagine not only “limited edition” Trump coffee mugs” or even sets, but “personally signed by Trump” MAGA hats and t-shirts. But it won’t stop there. “Personally signed” Q flags? Yep. Hell, we might even wind up seeing signed Confederate flags or even Nazi flags. Trump did after all say there were “very fine people” carrying that stuff!
Where it could and I fear will get really scary is with raffles for “limited edition” Trump assault weapons with an “authentic replica” of Trump’s signature on the stock. Trump approved “survival kits” and who the hell knows what else. We aren’t standing this weekend at the edge of a rabbit hole, but at the abyss. And for conservatives, that abyss is staring back in a seductive gaze that will having them jumping into it with a smile.