The New CPAC Makes the Old CPAC Look Like the #Resistance

[babylonsister]

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/02/the-new-cpac-makes-old-cpac-look-like-the-resistance.html

The New CPAC Makes the Old CPAC Look Like the #Resistance
By Ben Jacobs


In 2014, a dissident group of conservatives held their own counter CPAC called the Uninvited. It featured speakers on the hard right such as Senator Ted Cruz and Representative Mo Brooks and featured a welcome address from Steve Bannon, whose then-website Breitbart sponsored the event. Inside CPAC that year were Carly Fiorina, Senator Pat Toomey, and foreign-policy veteran John Bolton.

Fast-forward to CPAC in 2021. Cruz and Brooks, who both vocally supported Donald Trump’s challenge to certifying Joe Biden’s win on January 6, are speaking at CPAC. Fiorina voted for Biden, Toomey voted to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial, and Bolton became a vocal Trump critic who was cited as a key witness in the first impeachment trial.

snip//

For a large contingent of attendees who sit through every minute of the conference, CPAC is their vacation. For others, it’s a raucous party: Young conservatives show up to hear fiery speeches during the day and get absolutely lit at night. Then there are the professional operatives and D.C. journalists for whom this is a networking event, a chance to woo clients and cultivate sources. They’re there to swap some business cards and expense some drinks. Finally, there is just the fringe attracted by a big crowd and a large press pen. If you too want to turn yourself into an alt-right martyr or just shout at national reporters, CPAC is the place.

Terry Schilling, an ACU board member who met his wife at CPAC, which he first attended in 2006, described the event “as really a reflection of the conservative movement and where it is headed.” He noted when he first went to the event, attendees all seemed to wear “bow ties, sport coats, and boat shoes.” Schilling argued the crowd was now far more diverse: “There are truckers and people with tattoos and purple hair,” and it was an event that was no longer reliant on people who read National Review.

And, for Schlapp, the CPAC crowd was the perfect litmus test of conservative feeling in the country. “It’s a random association of people who buy their own tickets, come from all over the country, and it’s not a cheap thing to attend. If that’s not an example of where the conservative movement is, I don’t know what would be.”

[Grins]

1. "... an event that no longer reliant on people who read National Review."

A GREAT line. Stealing it.

[SCantiGOP]

3. Take the last two words off the quote

and it might be even more accurate.

[tulipsandroses]

2. and it's not a cheap thing to attend. - Tell me again about that economic anxiety

If one more person asks about reaching those poor trump supporters, and their economic anxiety....

[rickyhall]

4. Greedy selfish racist nazi motherfuckers and I don't mean that in a good way.