CPAC 3

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">3/20 on covid</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">rww</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;<span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/topics/cpac/" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" transition-duration="transition-duration" s="s" transition-property="transition-property" background-color="background-color" border-color="border-color" box-shadow="box-shadow" color="color" opacity="opacity" text-shadow="text-shadow" transform="transform" transition-timing-function="transition-timing-function" linear="linear" outline-offset="outline-offset" em="em" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none">CPAC</a><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/topics/cpac-2023/" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" transition-duration="transition-duration" s="s" transition-property="transition-property" background-color="background-color" border-color="border-color" box-shadow="box-shadow" color="color" opacity="opacity" text-shadow="text-shadow" transform="transform" transition-timing-function="transition-timing-function" linear="linear" outline-offset="outline-offset" em="em" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none">CPAC 2023</a>
</font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;=</font></p><div class="layout-constrain--narrow" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-width: 47.2222em; padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="byline" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin-top: 1em;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">August 28, 2023&nbsp;</font></span></div><div class="postimage" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 2em 0px;" /></div><div class="mce-content-body" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"><div class="layout-constrain--narrow" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-width: 47.2222em; padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em; line-height: 1.5;"><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px 0px 0px 1.2em; line-height: 1.5; list-style: none;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin-bottom: 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/25/cpac-vice-chair-resigns-amid-turmoil-00113078" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Natalie Allison @ Politico</a>: <b>CPAC vice chair resigns amid turmoil.</b></font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin-bottom: 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/08/26/matt-schlapp-cpac-sexual-misconduct-allegations/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Isaac Arnsdorf and Beth Reinhard @ The Washington Post</a>: <b>CPAC urged to probe more sexual misconduct claims against chair Matt Schlapp.</b></font></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin-bottom: 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><a href="https://www.vox.com/scotus/23841718/edgelord-federal-judiciary-james-ho-fifth-circuit-abortion-guns" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Ian Millhiser @ Vox</a>: The edgelord of the federal judiciary.</font></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin-bottom: 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><a href="https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2023/08/marjorie-taylor-greene-calls-trans-people-a-cult-thats-corrupting-our-children/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Alex Bollinger @ LGBTQ Nation</a>: Marjorie Taylor Greene calls trans people a “cult” that’s “corrupting our children.”</font></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin-bottom: 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><a href="https://www.rawstory.com/kari-lake-street-fight/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">David Edwards @ Raw Story</a>: Kari Lake wants ‘a street fight, a fist fight’ after judge set Trump’s trial date for March 2024.</font></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin-bottom: 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><a href="https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/lacking-evidence-mccarthy-defends-plan-biden-impeachment-inquiry-rcna102176" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Steve Benen @ The Maddow Blog</a>: Lacking evidence, McCarthy defends plan for Biden impeachment inquiry.</font></li></ul></div></div><div class="layout-constrain--narrow" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-width: 47.2222em; padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="tags" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; border-top: 5px solid rgb(239, 243, 243); margin-bottom: 2em; padding-top: 1em;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; font-weight: 700;">Tags:</span>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/james-ho/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">James Ho</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/kari-lake/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Kari Lake</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/marjorie-taylor-greene/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Marjorie Taylor Greene</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/matt-schlapp/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Matt Schlapp</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/topics/round-up/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Round-Up</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/organizations/cpac/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">CPAC</a></font></p></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;an 5 23 no lnx</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CPAC’s longtime treasurer unloads in resignation letter: 'Cancer has been metastasizing'</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>
</div><div>David BadashandThe New Civil Rights MovementMay 25, 2023</div><div>
</div><div>The longtime treasurer for the American Conservative Union, the organization that hosts the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), has quit and issued a damning resignation letter citing how the organization is handling funds for the defense of its chairman, Matt Schlapp, accused by a GOP operative of sexual assault.</div><div>
</div><div><b>Bob Beauprez, a former GOP Congressman, personal friend of Schlapp, and American Conservative Union (ACU) board member and treasurer, wrote the board in March saying, “I cannot deliver a financial report at the upcoming board meeting with any confidence in the accuracy of the number</b>s,” as New York magazine‘s Ben Jacobs reports.</div><div>
</div><div>When the lawsuit was filed the board fronted Schlapp $50,000 to hire an attorney. Beauprez “wrote he was blindsided when Schlapp told him that he had raised another $270,000 from donors to ACU and its related foundation, ACUF. His shock grew when he said ACU’s lawyer told him in February at CPAC that the money ‘was already either dispersed or invoiced.’”</div><div>
</div><div>RELATED: Male Staffer Sues Matt Schlapp for $9 Million – Lawsuit Alleges ‘Sexual Battery’ After ‘Aggressively Fondling’ Groin Area</div><div>
</div><div>“I have to admit that I feel like I’m in the dark,” Beauprez told the board. “I have received no further information about what additional costs have accrued since then … I assume any monies paid are either coming from Matt personally or from ACU/F. But, again, I don’t know, and it is most unsettling.”</div><div>
</div><div>In January, a Republican political aide in his 30’s working at the time of the alleged assault for the Herschel Walker campaign, filed a lawsuit against Matt Schlapp for $9.4 million. It accuses Schlapp of “aggressively fondling” his “genital area in a sustained fashion” while the two were alone in a car, as The New York Times reported.</div><div>
</div><div>The Daily Beast also reported the staffer was suing “for battery, defamation, and conspiracy.”</div><div>
</div><div>“In a letter, the staffer’s attorney, Tim Hyland of Hyland Law, called Schlapp a ‘sexual predator,’” The Daily Beast added.</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>Schlapp, through an attorney’s statement, has declared the allegations he “groped” and “fondled” the male staffer’s crotch without consent after buying him drinks at two different bars, “false.”</div><div>
</div><div>Meanwhile, New York magazine’s Jacobs notes that Beauprez also said he told the board during its March meeting, “there was no mention of the case, no status update, no summary of expenditures to date, no word regarding acceptance of coverage from either our D&O [directors and officers] insurance company, or Matt’s personal liability carrier, no opportunity to ask questions, etc., etc. I thought this was not only inappropriate, but unconscionable.”</div><div>
</div><div>He pointed to their “fiduciary obligation to be made aware of what, how, and why monies are being spent, especially involving a corporation insider such as the chairman.”</div><div>
</div><div>READ MORE: DeSantis Says He Will Turn ‘Woke Military’ Away From ‘Gender Ideology’ and Reach ‘Settlement’ in Russia’s War Against Ukraine</div><div>
</div><div>Beauprez alleged that when some “have sought answers to some of what seem to be obvious and necessary questions … we have been accused of ‘not having Matt’s back’ and ‘trying to stage a leadership coup.’”</div><div>
</div><div>He also warned the organization’s “operating procedures are in direct conflict with our own bylaws,” which could lead to invented “charges” by a “rogue DA.”</div><div>
</div><div>NEW YORK reports that Beauprez “also said Schlapp refused to give any specific information about the finances of the 2023 CPAC conference held in March.”</div><div>
</div><div>“Matt always responds in much the same way, ‘It looks like we made about $500,000, maybe more.’ I hope that’s roughly accurate, but I’d like to also see the financial data upon which Matt has reached this conclusion.”</div><div>
</div><div>“A cancer has been metastasizing within the organization for years,” Beauprez concluded. “It must be diagnosed, treated, and cured, or it will destroy ACU/F. You simply cannot survive like this.”</div><div>
</div><div>RELATED: Watch: Matt Schlapp Gets Pulled Away From Reporter at CPAC Asking About the Sexual Assault Allegations Against Him</div><div>
</div><div>In 2021, citing unnamed sources, the conservative website The Dispatch reported, “federal investigators are currently looking into possible criminal campaign-finance misdeeds at ACU during Schlapp’s tenure. As part of the investigation, the FBI has interviewed former and current ACU employees about the financial dealings of the organization and its leaders.”</div><div>
</div><div>FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES</div><div>'Fine with it': CPAC goers attribute lack of attendance to 'lengthy booze lines' and 'fatigue' from midterms ›</div><div>‘Are you uncomfortable?’: Details emerge in groping allegations by male staffer against CPAC’s Matt Schlapp ›</div><div>'Gropers On Parade': Matt Schlapp ruthlessly trolled for hosting CPAC party at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago ›</div><div>RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB</div><div>Matt Schlapp accuser files a second suit against top conservative ... ›</div><div>Accuser Reveals Name in Groping Suit Against Matt Schlapp, Top ... ›</div><div>GOP strategist comes forward publicly in sexual assault case ... ›</div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">an 3 23</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx pix</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>Alexander Hinton, Rutgers University - Newark</div><div>
</div><div>In early March 2023, I mixed with the Make America Great Again faithful at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference – a popular meeting, often known as CPAC, for conservative activists and political figures.</div><div>
</div><div>I walked, ate and sat with the attendees at the National Harbor in Maryland over the course of four days. Many of them were dressed in MAGA and pro-Trump gear such as sequined hats and shirts that said things like “Trump won” the 2020 election. A few had tattoos of Trump’s face.</div><div>
</div><div>Media reports show that CPAC, which did not publicize the number of attendees, had lower-than-normal attendance and fewer high-profile sponsors.</div><div>
</div><div>Approximately 62% of CPAC attendees participating in a straw poll said they support Donald Trump for president in 2024.</div><div>
</div><div>Understanding CPAC</div><div>Many commentators and others have labeled CPAC extremist. The program was loaded with sometimes incendiary figures reviled by the left, including Republican Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz, as well as former Trump political advisers Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller.</div><div>
</div><div>I am a scholar of extremism in the United States and went to CPAC for two reasons. First, I wanted to hear firsthand what conservatives, and especially Trump followers, said. At a time of high political polarization, it is important to understand different positions.</div><div>
</div><div>Second, almost half of people in the U.S. fear political violence and civil war. I wanted to take the pulse of the conservative right and assess points of division ahead of the 2024 presidential election.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The conference’s theme was “Protecting America Now.” Who and what were the perceived threats? And, amid the polarization, was there any common ground shared by conservatives and liberals?</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">I discovered <b>five frequent demons</b> at the conference: there were China’s Communist Party and border criminals – including Mexican drug cartels and undocumented immigrants. “Radical left Marxists” and the ideologies of “wokism” and “transgenderism” were also frequent targets.</span></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">While I also found a few glimmers of hope for political common ground between the left and right, it was apparent that Trumpism – and the election denial, misinformation and scapegoating that come with it – is stronger than some think and, I believe, remains a threat to U.S. democracy.</span></div><div>
</div><div>A man in a wheelchair goes past a booth in a convention room that says 'Believe in America, not the media.'</div><div>
</div><div>CPAC attendees visit booths promoting political groups and products for sale.</div><div>
</div><div>Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images</div><div>
</div><div><b>China</b></div><div><b>China was one of the biggest common enemies identified at the conference. Just days after senior U.S. intelligence officials said that China is the United States’ biggest national security threat, speaker after speaker at CPAC harped on this theme.</b></div><div>
</div><div>The first day included panels titled “Caging the Red Dragon” and “No Chinese Balloons Above Tennessee.”</div><div>
</div><div>Such language plays to the growing number of Americans who view China as the country’s biggest enemy.</div><div>
</div><div><b>Border criminals</b></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The focus on China connected to another target at the conference – Mexican cartels that engage in human and drug trafficking. This includes groups that bring fentanyl – a drug that is Chinese-manufactured or made from Chinese-produced chemicals – into the U.S.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Many speakers accurately noted the staggering number of fentanyl deaths in the U.S., including over 100,000 overdose deaths in 2021. But they did so in often apocalyptic terms.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">They were quick to blame the Biden administration, ignoring that these issues have a long history and also existed under former President Donald Trump.</span></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The crisis, CPAC speakers said, includes large numbers of undocumented migrants crossing the border – who they sometimes derogatorily referred to as<b> “illegal aliens.” Oddly, those crossing the border were depicted both as victims of the violent cartels and as criminal and economic threats to Americans.</b></span></div><div>
</div><div><b>American Marxism</b></div><div>CPAC speakers and attendees spotlighted what they saw as equally dire demons lurking within the country.</div><div>
</div><div>“Radical leftist Marxists” – a stand-in for all Democrats – stood at the top of the list. These leftist radicals, CPAC speakers suggested, were intent on turning the U.S. into a socialist country like China in which the state controlled bodies and minds and quashed individual rights and freedoms.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>The Democratic Party “hates this country,”</b> Fox TV personality Mark Levin c</span>laimed on the CPAC stage.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“This American Marxist movement,” he continued, his voice raising, “took off big time during COVID” and then “rode the wave of Black Lives Matter, Antifa and the cop-hating, to advance this racist, Marxist, bigoted, socialist, anti-American agenda – which is everything today the Democrat Party today stands for!”</span></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The crowd responded with loud applause and cheers – ignoring that these often repeated claims have little basis in reality.</span></div><div>
</div><div>Wokism</div><div>This anti-American agenda, Levin and other CPAC speakers argued, was illustrated by “wokism.”</div><div>
</div><div>Being woke generally means understanding societal issues like racial and social justice. But CPAC speakers, who didn’t define the term, suggested that these efforts were really part of a <b>“radical leftist” plot to control what people think and say</b> –<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> an idea that the right has derided as “political correctness” in the past.</span></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">‘Transgenderism’</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">There was also an emphasis on gender and the perceived threat of transgender people. Some of the anti-transgender sentiment was casual, such as when Rep. Gaetz quipped, “We had to spend four, five days asking the Chinese spy balloon what its pronouns were before we were willing to shoot it down.”</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Perhaps the most strident remarks were made by conservative political commentator Michael Knowles, who stated, “for the good of society … transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely.”</span></div><div>
</div><div>Despite his inflammatory language and use of “transgenderism,” a derogatory term suggesting that <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">transgender people have “a condition,” Knowles received loud applause.</span></div><div>
</div><div>So, too, did other speakers who disparaged transgender identity – an issue that has become a culture wars flashpoint.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Anti-Defamation League, among other human rights groups, has shown that the idea transgender people are predatory “groomers” or pedophiles is false and is being circulated by some Republicans only for political gain.</span></div><div>
</div><div>In March 2023, Tennessee became the first state to pass a law that restricts drag performances in the presence of children – a move that likely violates the First Amendment’s free speech protection and, in my view, is based on fear, not facts. Other Republican-led states are considering anti-drag legislation.</div><div>
</div><div>A large crowd of people look toward a screen that shows a white man in a dark suit. Next to the screen is a large American flag</div><div>
</div><div>[Guests listen to former President Donald Trump address the Conservative Political Action Conference as the headline speaker.</div><div>
</div><div><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The warrior</b></div><div><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">By the time Trump took the stage, the CPAC crowd was primed. People danced and waved “TRUMP WAS RIGHT!” placards.</b></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Trump offered an apocalyptic vision of the country’s future.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Sinister forces” are seeking to turn the U.S. into a “lawless open-borders, crime-ridden, filthy, communist nightmare,” Trump said.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Trump promised to fight back against these forces. “I am your warrior,” he told the adoring crowd. “I am your justice.”</span></div><div>
</div><div>The rocky ride ahead</div><div>I went to CPAC to find areas where the left and right might find common ground. Both sides worry about issues like inflation, fentanyl and crime. And, even as they may disagree on the path to get there, both want a better future for the country.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But politics is another demon lurking in the room. Most of the speakers at CPAC seemed to be there to rile up the crowd, which included many activists.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">This was especially true of Trump, whose divisiveness was on clear display at CPAC.</span></div><div>
</div><div>All of this suggests the U.S. faces a rocky ride to the upcoming 2024 election.&nbsp; <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Conversation</span></div><div>
</div><div>Alexander Hinton, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology; Director, Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights, Rutgers University - Newark</div><div>
</div><div>This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.</div><div>
</div><div>FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES</div><div>Watch: Wife of CPAC chairman calls Joe Biden's aviators 'propaganda' to make him look tough ›</div><div>Tulsi Gabbard continues her far-right metamorphosis with CPAC appearance — and defense of Putin’s Ukraine war ›</div><div>Watch: Trump supporters chase Nikki Haley into a CPAC elevator after she called for 'new leadership' ›</div><div>RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB</div><div>After 'desolate' Trump CPAC, are Republicans moving past MAGA? ›</div><div>A diminished but loyal Trump Maga crowd at CPAC: 'There's one ... ›</div><div>Trump ties a ribbon on the most MAGA CPAC yet - POLITICO ›</div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">rww 3 23</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div class="layout-constrain--narrow" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-width: 47.2222em; padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="byline" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin-top: 1em;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">March 6, 2023&nbsp;</font></span></div><div class="postimage" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 2em 0px;"><div class="mce-content-body" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"><div class="layout-constrain--narrow" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-width: 47.2222em; padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em; line-height: 1.5;"><div class="at-above-post addthis_tool" data-url="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/right-wing-round-up-i-am-your-retribution/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; line-height: 1.5;"><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px 0px 0px 1.2em; line-height: 1.5; list-style: none;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin-bottom: 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style=""><a href="https://www.salon.com/2023/03/05/i-am-your-retribution-says-in-his-cpac-speech/" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Kelly McClure @ Salon</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">: “</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">I am your retribution,” says Trump in his <b>CPAC speech.</b></span></font></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin-bottom: 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><a href="https://www.mediaite.com/politics/trumps-former-ice-director-tells-cpac-he-doesnt-give-a-shit-if-families-are-separated-at-border/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Alex Griffing @ Mediaite</a>: <b>Trump’s Former ICE Director Tells CPAC He Doesn’t ‘Give a Shit’ if Families Are Separated at Border.</b></font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin-bottom: 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style=""><a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2023/03/the-left-is-coming-for-our-children-marjorie-taylor-greene-at-cpac-serves-up-hate-in-anti-lgbtq-religious-rant/" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">David Badash @ The New Civil Rights Movement</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">: Marjorie Taylor Greene at</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 102);"> CPAC</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Serves Up Hate in Anti-LGBTQ Religious Rant.</span></font></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin-bottom: 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/170991/cpac-january-6-riot-prisoners" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Laura Jedeed @ The Soapbox</a>: The Cult of the January 6 Martyrs.</font></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin-bottom: 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/epzjwz/goyim-defense-league-jon-minadeo" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Mack Lamoureux @ Vice News</a>: A Neo-Nazi Troll Network Is Making Money Abusing Jews</font></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin-bottom: 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><a href="https://www.texasobserver.org/christian-youth-radicalization-nationalism-tex/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Josephine Lee @ The Texas Observer</a>: The New Children’s Crusade: Recruiting for America’s Culture War.</font></li></ul><div class="at-below-post addthis_tool" data-url="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/right-wing-round-up-i-am-your-retribution/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; line-height: 1.5;"><div class="layout-constrain--narrow" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-width: 47.2222em; padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="tags" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; border-top: 5px solid rgb(239, 243, 243); margin-bottom: 2em; padding-top: 1em;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; font-weight: 700;">Tags:</span>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/donald-trump/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Donald Trump</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/jon-minadeo/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Jon Minadeo</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/marjorie-taylor-greene/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Marjorie Taylor Greene</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/thomas-homan/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Thomas Homan</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/topics/round-up/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Round-Up</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/organizations/cpac/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">CPAC</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/organizations/goyim-defense-league/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Goyim Defense League</a></font></p></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">remember when they booted alt rt?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">nick f with pillow zel sweatshirt? pix] r ww</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div class="mce-content-body" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"><div class="layout-constrain--narrow" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-width: 47.2222em; padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em; line-height: 1.5;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; font-weight: 700;">national Harbor, Maryland&nbsp;</span>— White nationalist Nick Fuentes may have been kicked out of the Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Maryland, but other white nationalists and their sympathizers found their way in.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fuentes, the leader of the America First white nationalist youth movement, briefly made it into CPAC at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center Thursday, even snagging a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Qult_Headquarters/comments/11hdlxb/nick_fuentes_was_able_to_find_someone_willing_to/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">photo with Mike Lindell</a>, the election conspiracy theorist and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/mike-lindell-is-bankrolling-white-nationalist-christian-fascist-vincent-james/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">sugar daddy to right-wing causes</a>. But, as in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/cpac-unable-to-separate-itself-from-the-rights-formerly-fringe-elements/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">previous years</a>, Fuentes, who was granted his first&nbsp;<a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/01/nick-fuentes/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">ban</a>&nbsp;from CPAC in 2019, was removed from the premises and his rally permit was revoked.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Matt Schlapp, the president of the American Conservative Union, which hosts CPAC, confirmed Fuentes’ removal Friday. In a statement on&nbsp;<a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CpVOuXHtEpj/?igshid=MDJmNzVkMjY%3D" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Instagram</a>, Schlapp claimed that Fuentes’ “hateful racist rhetoric and actions are not consistent with the mission of CPAC” and claimed to be concerned about antisemitism.</font></p><blockquote style="background: rgb(239, 243, 243); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; hyphens: none; padding: 1.5em; margin: 0px 0.75em 2em;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">We removed Nick Fuentes from his attempt to attend our conference. His hateful racist rhetoric and actions are not consistent with the mission of CPAC. We are pleased that our conference welcomes a wide array of conservative perspectives from people of different backgrounds, but we are concerned about the rise in&nbsp;antisemitic rhetoric&nbsp;(or Jew hatred) in our country and around the globe, whether it be in the corridors of power and academia or through the online rantings of bigots like Fuentes.</font></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But despite banning Fuentes, CPAC gladly welcomed politicians who cozied up to him or spread hate themselves. The main event of the MAGA carnival was, of course, President Donald Trump, who had&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/extremism-on-the-menu-trumps-dinner-with-ye-milo-and-nick-fuentes/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">dined with Fuentes</a>&nbsp;and Kanye West this fall and failed to denounce the white nationalist after news broke of their dinner. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has a long history of antisemitic conspiracy theories and racist comments, took the stage Saturday to bash trans people; last year, she had spoken at Fuentes’&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/marjorie-taylor-greene-bridges-white-nationalism-and-the-gop/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">white nationalist AFPAC conference</a>&nbsp;and failed to denounce Fuentes until it became politically expedient to do so. Sebastian Gorka, a former Trump adviser and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/sebastian-gorka-made-nazi-linked-vitezi-rend-proud-wearing-its-n742851" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">alleged member of a Nazi-allied</a>&nbsp;political group in Hungary, provided CPAC with a hateful&nbsp;<a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/cpac-trans-kids-eradicated-transgender-michael-knowles_n_64038d23e4b0c78bb7430b1c" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">transphobic tirade</a>&nbsp;Saturday morning. And Stephen Miller, a former Trump adviser known for his&nbsp;<a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/stephen-miller" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">affinity for white nationalism</a>, called on House Republicans to defund the Department of Homeland Security unless every undocumented immigrant that crosses the border gets “shipped back to where they came from.” So much for standing against hateful or racist rhetoric.</font></p><figure id="attachment_538513" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-538513" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; font-weight: 700; max-width: 100%; width: 863px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">
</font><figcaption id="caption-attachment-538513" class="wp-caption-text" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; line-height: 1.2;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene speaks at CPAC on March 3, 2023.</font></figcaption></figure><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Meanwhile, followers of Fuentes’ white nationalist movement, who refer to themselves as groypers, milled about in the conference entrance Saturday wearing their blue America First hats before security asked them to leave. As they exited the building, they began&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/k2doe/status/1632122705792180226?s=20" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">chanting</a>&nbsp;“We want Nick!” and briefly&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/k2doe/status/1632123285264531456?s=20" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">set up</a>&nbsp;their America First flags in front of the hotel. They were shooed off the premises.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But some groypers found their way back into the conference and past the Secret Service checkpoint, leaving their blue America First hats at home in favor of small AF pins, a Pepe the Frog sticker, and a “Ye is Right” hat. They chatted with Ryan Sanchez, a former&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/11/7/2134381/-OANN-features-neo-Nazi-gang-member-on-air-to-defend-January-6th-Capitol-insurrectionist" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">member</a>&nbsp;of the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/report/neo-nazis-train-for-combat-in-growing-active-club-movement/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Rise Above Movement</a>, a white nationalist street gang, and Greyson Arnold, a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/30/politics/kfile-joe-kent-ties-to-white-nationalists-nazi-sympathizer/index.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">pro-Nazi blogger</a>&nbsp;whose services were once&nbsp;<a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/washington-state-gop-pays-white-nationalist-pro-nazi-blogger-greyson-arnold" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">employed</a>&nbsp;by the Washington state GOP.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">One groyper wearing an AF pin calmly explained to this reporter why he did not believe women should have the right to vote or hold elected office. “I don’t think a lot of people shouldn’t have the right to vote. I shouldn’t have the right to vote,” he added, explaining that he’s 21, doesn’t own property or have children and thus, in his opinion, shouldn’t have a say in the direction of this country.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He and another groyper identified themselves as&nbsp;<a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/12/hate-leader-nick-fuentes-is-recruiting-incels/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">“incels,”</a>&nbsp;comparing their involuntary celibacy to a disability. They insisted that they do not hate women despite believing that women should not vote or hold political office. Of course, just minutes earlier, Sanchez, Arnold, and other groypers in their group had harassed Amanda Moore, an independent writer who had gone&nbsp;<a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/02/amanda-moore-undercover-maga/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">undercover in MAGA world</a>&nbsp;in 2020 and 2021, gleefully calling her “a slut.”[</font></p><figure id="attachment_538510" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-538510" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; max-width: 100%; width: 1101px;"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-538510" class="wp-caption-text" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; line-height: 1.2;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="">[Nick Fuentes (left) and Ryan Sanchez (right) pose for a photo. Sanchez posted this photo on his Telegram March, 5, 2023, with the caption, “Nick Fuentes’ rally last night was by far the most exciting event at CPAC. I am so glad to see so many factions of the Right put aside our differences and stand together.”</font></figcaption></figure><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Undeterred by his banishment from CPAC, Fuentes vowed to hold an event nearby following Trump’s speech Saturday at an undisclosed location—<a href="https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2023/03/04/nick-fuentes-holds-racist-conference-across-cpac" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">revealed first by the Southern Poverty Law Center</a>&nbsp;to Fuentes’ disappointment. As a line of mostly young men waited to enter the conference room at The Residence Inn by Marriott across the street from CPAC, a CPAC Shabbat event came to a close down the hall, with Jewish CPAC attendees milling about the same entrance from which groypers were entering. While the America First event was free, it was not open to the press, and this reporter was turned away.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a livestream of the event, Fuentes is seen addressing attendees wearing a large black puffer jacket and sunglasses despite the dark room while Christian, dystopian, and abstract&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/AFStreamWatch/status/1632204675079348224?s=20" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">images</a>&nbsp;flickered&nbsp;on the screen behind him.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Transgenderism has got to go because it’s not true,” Fuentes says, agreeing with The Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles, who earlier that day had&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/RightWingWatch/status/1632057198577606657?s=20" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">called for the eradication of “transgenderism.”</a>&nbsp;“Well, in that case, feminism has got to go, too. Liberalism has got to be eradicated.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">“At the end of the day you know what else has got to go in a Christian society?” Fuentes asks the crowd.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">“Democracy?” a woman yells out from the audience.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">“Well that,” Fuentes says. “The other thing that has got to go from the public life at the highest levels is this Talmudic Judaism.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">His followers hollered their approval, erupting into chants of “Christ is King!”</font></p><div class="at-below-post addthis_tool" data-url="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/the-white-nationalists-at-cpac-2023/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; line-height: 1.5;"><div class="layout-constrain--narrow" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-width: 47.2222em; padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="tags" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; border-top: 5px solid rgb(239, 243, 243); margin-bottom: 2em; padding-top: 1em;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; font-weight: 700;">Tags:</span>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/matt-schlapp/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Matt Schlapp</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/mike-lindell/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Mike Lindell</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/nick-fuentes/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Nick Fuentes</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/ryan-sanchez/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Ryan Sanchez</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/organizations/america-first/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">America First</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/organizations/cpac/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">CPAC</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/organizations/rise-above-movement/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Rise Above Movement</a></font></p></div></div></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://boingboing.net/2023/03/06/trump-boasts-of-packed-audience-for-his-cpac-speech-photo-tells-a-different-story.html">https://boingboing.net/2023/03/06/trump-boasts-of-packed-audience-for-his-cpac-speech-photo-tells-a-different-story.html</a></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://boingboing.net/2023/03/06/trump-gave-an-unhinged-rant-at-cpac-about-his-friendship-with-putin-and-wwiii.html">https://boingboing.net/2023/03/06/<b>trump-gave-an-unhinged-rant-at-cpac-about-his-friendship-with-putin-and-wwiii</b>.html</a></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">an 323 maya</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>'Populist and belligerent': Republican Party 'sad' state of division on full display at CPAC</div><div>
</div><div>Maya Boddie March 06, 2023</div><div>
</div><div>The 2023 Conservative Political Action Conference revealed the Republican party's undeniable current state of division, Axios reports.</div><div>
</div><div>Per Axios, the GOP was formerly "defined by its general ideological unity on three core conservative principles: free markets, a muscular foreign policy and traditional social values," but now the party's vocal MAGA members have "moved the GOP's center of gravity toward a more protectionist, populist and belligerent outlook."</div><div>
</div><div>The Daily Beast columnist, Matt Lewis, recently wrote:</div><div>
</div><div><b>It's easy to highlight how unstable the GOP has become in the last decade. But the most obvious changes involve tone, attitude, temperament, and sanity. Policy preferences have largely taken a back seat to nihilism, showmanship, and culture war battles that don't easily track with our recent past experience.</b></div><div>
</div><div>READ MORE: 'A professional grassroots huckster wing': GOP strategist torches CPAC 'scam'</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">According to Axios, former President Donald Trump invoked an extreme sense of division in the room during his speech, declaring, "We will expel the warmongers, we will drive out the globalists, we <b>will cast out the communists</b>, we will throw off the<b> political class that hates our country."</b></span></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">He continued, "The Republican Party was ruled by freaks, neocons, open-border zealots and fools. We're never going back to the party of Paul Ryan, Karl Rove, and Jeb Bush" — before he lambasted Senator Rick Scott's (R-FL) attempt to cut Social Security.</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>The potential 2024 GOP presidential candidate also surpassed Florida Governor Ron DeSantis — who missed the conference for his book tour – by more than 40 percent in a straw poll.</b></div><div>
</div><div>In addition to disagreements over the existence of federal programs, Republicans' starkly different opinions on the war on Ukraine also emerged on stage.</div><div>
</div><div>[READ MORE: Donald Trump buried over his 'bad Batman' speech at 'lackluster' CPAC</div><div>
</div><div>Axios reports:</div><div>
</div><div>Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) targeted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in her speech Friday, telling him to "leave your hands off of our sons and daughters."</div><div>
</div><div><b>But two of the highest-profile speakers — former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley — are unapologetic Ukraine hawks (Haley is running for president, and Pompeo is considering it).</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Asked about Haley's presidential campaign, Greene said: "I don't listen to Nikki Haley and I don't think she's going to do well in the primary."</span></div><div>
</div><div>According to ABC News, a staffer for a potential 2024 candidate said, "As somebody that's been involved in the movement for 20-plus years, it's sad, because it was at one time the premier event for conservatives to come together."</div><div>
</div><div>READ MORE: How CPAC has gone from 'serious and wonky' to increasingly unhinged and 'Trumpified': conservative</div><div>
</div><div>Axios' full report is available at this link. The Daily Beast's full report is here (subscription required). ABC News' report is here.</div><div>
</div><div>FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES</div><div>Steve Bannon slams 'oligarch' Murdoch and Fox News in CPAC speech for cutting Trump's 'newsworthy' speech ›</div><div>'Fine with it': CPAC goers attribute lack of attendance to 'lengthy booze lines' and 'fatigue' from midterms ›</div><div>'Hate speech to genocide': Right-wing host uses CPAC stage to call for eradication of transgender people ›</div><div>RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB</div><div>Texas Republicans prefer Ron DeSantis to Donald Trump for 2024 ... ›</div><div>Rightwing Republicans rail against US aid for Ukraine: 'We've done ... ›</div><div>Do Republicans Want to Cut Social Security and Medicare? | Time ›</div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">an 3 23</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>CNN fact checker knocks down more than a dozen false claims made by GOPers at CPAC</div><div>
</div><div>Meaghan EllisMarch 04, 2023</div><div>A CNN fact-checker recently slashed through more than a dozen false claims that derived from this weekend's Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) currently underway in Dallas, Texas.</div><div>
</div><div>On Saturday, March 4, CNN's Daniel Dale penned an analysis to offer insight and clarity on the claims. In his analysis, he began with a clear introduction about the false claims he intended to debunk.</div><div>
</div><div>Starting with the first day of the conference, Dale researched claims made by Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and offered corrections to refute their inaccurate remarks.</div><div>
</div><div>READ MORE: Fact checker reveals Trump stole credit from Obama with 1 outrageous lie 56 times in 2019</div><div>
</div><div>"The members of Congress, former government officials and conservative personalities who spoke at the conference on Thursday and Friday made false claims about a variety of topics," Dale wrote.</div><div>
</div><div>"Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio uttered two false claims about President Joe Biden. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia repeated a debunked claim about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky," he added.</div><div>
</div><div>"Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama used two inaccurate statistics as he lamented the state of the country. Former Trump White House official Steve Bannon repeated his regular lie about the 2020 election having been stolen from Trump, this time baselesly blaming Fox for Trump’s defeat," he wrote.</div><div>
</div><div>Dale went on to address claims from Reps. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.) and Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.)</div><div>
</div><div>READ MORE: 'Highly misleading': CNN brutally fact-checks Kevin McCarthy's latest series of unfounded claims</div><div>
</div><div>"Rep. Kat Cammack of Florida incorrectly said a former Obama administration official had encouraged people to harass Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina inaccurately claimed Biden had laughed at a grieving mother and inaccurately insinuated that the FBI tipped off the media to its search of former President Donald Trump’s Florida residence," he wrote. "Two other speakers, Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and former Trump administration official Sebastian Gorka, inflated the number of deaths from fentanyl."</div><div>
</div><div>In total, Dale debunked 13 misleading claims made by Republican lawmakers during the conference.</div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">rww 3 23</font></div><div><div class="mce-content-body" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"><div class="layout-constrain--narrow" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-width: 47.2222em; padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em; line-height: 1.5;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">perhaps organizers of the Conservative Political Action Conference haven’t liked the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/28/us/politics/cpac-republicans-trump.html" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">coverage</a>&nbsp;of their event this year, or perhaps the event is in as much&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/02/28/matt-schlapp-cpac-assault-claim-leadership/" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">disarray</a>&nbsp;as those news reports say, but whatever the case, CPAC appears eager to keep critical media out, relegating reporters to a corner of the ballroom from which they can’t see the stage and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/matt-schlapp-rages-about-fake-journalists-as-fox-news-ignores-cpac" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">denying others credentials</a>.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">But that hasn’t stopped reporters in attendance from seeing what’s going on: CPAC is underwhelming this year.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Thursday saw no side panels, or activism boot camps. Likely GOP presidential candidates like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former Vice President Mike Pence are skipping the event. Senate and House GOP leadership are&nbsp;<a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook/2023/03/02/how-maga-took-over-cpac-00085151" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">noticeably absent</a>, save Rep. Elise Stefanik.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Of course, CPAC still has a few big names in GOP politics who, in taking the stage Thursday, showed just how far to the right the party has gone. <b>The day started with Rep. Jim Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary committee, discussing how he’s going to use the power of the committee to possibly impeach Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas.&nbsp;</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Freedom Caucus Reps. Scott Perry and Ralph Norman bragged about their caucus’ ability to wreak havoc on Kevin McCarthy’s ascension to the speakership</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Sens. Ted Cruz and J.D. Vance trashed Merrick Garland as the most “partisan” and “politicized” attorney general in United States history—a laughable claim that is par for the course here, along with the trans-bashing and Fauci booing. But what is most noticeable is what is missing.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Even with various prominent Republican politicians in attendance, the back half of the main ballroom is empty, and the front’s enthusiasm is muted. <b>Gone are the hundreds of libertarian-inclined college students traditionally known for filling CPAC’s hallways.</b> Ticket sales have lagged and premium package holders from past years remain unregistered, according to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/02/28/matt-schlapp-cpac-assault-claim-leadership/" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">The Washington Post</a>.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Like usual, Matt Schlapp, the president of the American Conservative Union, the group behind CPAC, is on stage at regular intervals, but the sexual assault allegation against him hangs in the air. In January, The Daily Beast&nbsp;<a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/herschel-walker-staffer-matt-schlapp-groped-my-crotch" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">reported</a>&nbsp;that a staffer on Herschel Walker’s Senate campaign who was put in charge of chauffeuring the conservative activist says that Schlapp groped him while he was driving and invited him back to his room. Schlapp denies the allegations and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/matt-schlapp-rages-about-fake-journalists-as-fox-news-ignores-cpac" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">blames</a>&nbsp;“fake journalists… pushing this leftist agenda and lying.” But the allegations seem to be sticking around, as are questions about his influence waning, with even Fox News pulling out of the event.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But it’s not just Schlapp that’s causing CPAC problems. It’s Trump. Under Schlapp’s leadership, CPAC turned into Trump’s circus, and as Trump has lost some of his luster among Republicans, so too has the convention.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Across the river in Washington, D.C., a group of conservatives are holding an alternative to CPAC, called Principles First, </b>with its organizer noting that “When CPAC convenes this weekend, you’ll sooner find a golden statue of Trump than a conservative principle.” And in Florida, both DeSantis and Pence are set to attend a closed-door donor retreat held by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/2015/09/15/donald-trump-club-for-growth-ads-iowa-presidential-campaign/72306172/" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">The Club for Growth</a>, a conservative anti-tax behemoth that spent<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/06/us/politics/club-for-growth-trump-desantis.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">&nbsp;$150 million</a>&nbsp;the last two election cycles. Noticeably absent from their invite list of potential GOP presidential candidates is Trump.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Schlapp briefly acknowledged Thursday that elected officials were skipping out this year’s CPAC. He said that he’s heard from people that “It’s really hard that at CPAC you don’t have every elected official.” But he said it didn’t matter. “You’re going to solve the problems in this country,” he told the half empty ballroom.</font></p><div class="at-below-post addthis_tool" data-url="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/an-underwhelming-first-day-at-cpac/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; line-height: 1.5;"><div class="layout-constrain--narrow" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-width: 47.2222em; padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="tags" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; border-top: 5px solid rgb(239, 243, 243); margin-bottom: 2em; padding-top: 1em;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; font-weight: 700;">Tags:</span>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/donald-trump/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Donald Trump</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/jim-jordan/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Jim Jordan</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/matt-schlapp/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Matt Schlapp</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/organizations/cpac/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">CPAC</a></font></p></div></div></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/matt-schlapp/stale-jokes-and-empty-seats-cpac-falters-its-first-day">https://www.mediamatters.org/matt-schlapp/stale-jokes-and-empty-seats-cpac-falters-its-first-day</a></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">sparse turnout</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/nikki-haley-cpac-wokeness/">https://www.alternet.org/nikki-haley-cpac-wokeness/</a></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/education/cpac-panelist-cites-bible-call-bring-paddle-back-schools">https://www.mediamatters.org/education/cpac-panelist-cites-bible-call-bring-paddle-back-schools</a></font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">an 3 23</font></div><div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">when white nationalist Holocaust denier&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wbez.org/stories/white-supremacist-holocaust-denier-nick-fuentes-raised-in-suburban-chicago/82b1d0a5-bc3b-4110-918b-7f7985914fcb" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Nick Fuentes</a>&nbsp;says that his&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/cpac-afpac-nick-fuentes-marjorie-taylor-greene-1313210/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC)</a>&nbsp;is badly needed because the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is too liberal, it is a wild claim because CPAC is&nbsp;<b>way</b>&nbsp;to the right of where it was 35 or 40 years ago. CPAC, founded in 1974 by the American Conservative Union (ACU) and Young Americans for Freedom (YAF), has become increasingly extreme along the way.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CPAC's first keynote speech, back in 1974, was given by then-California Gov. Ronald Reagan. It is hard to imagine the CPAC of the 1970s and 1980s hosting a far-right authoritarian like Hungarian Prime Minster Viktor Orbán, who was the guest of honor at a 2022 CPAC event in Dallas. But the more the Republican Party moved to the extreme right, the more that CPAC moved with it.</font></p><div id="story_page_incontent_p2_target" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><ins class="adsbygoogle" data-ad-client="ca-pub-5155643920455169" data-ad-slot="6339868799" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; text-align: center; margin-bottom: 20px; display: block;" /></div><p style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In an&nbsp;<a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/cpac-didnt-used-to-be-this-insane-i-swear?ref=scroll" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">opinion column published by the Daily Beast</a>&nbsp;on March 2, Never Trump conservative Matt Lewis examines CPAC's evolution and laments that 2023's "Trumpified" CPAC bears little resemblance to the "serious and wonky" CPAC of the 1980s.</font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>READ MORE:</strong><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/08/cpac-semi-fascist-viktor-orban" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">C<strong>PAC official melts down over Joe Biden's 'semi-fascist' label despite its embrace of Viktor Orbán</strong></a></font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"What a long, strange trip it’s been,"&nbsp;<a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/cpac-didnt-used-to-be-this-insane-i-swear?ref=scroll" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Lewis argues</a>. "CPAC and I were born the same year. In 1974, Ronald Reagan spoke at the very first CPAC gathering. He began by introducing three Vietnam POWs. One of them was, you guessed it, John McCain. In 2019, the ghost of John McCain was attacked from the stage of CPAC….</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> To be sure, CPAC speakers have long existed on a spectrum, somewhere between William F. Buckley and P.T. Barnum. But in the last dozen years or so — coinciding, it seems, with the election of Barack Obama, and then exploding with Trump's election — it began skewing very heavily toward the Barnum end.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Lewis notes that only 11 years ago, in 2012, he was CPAC's Blogger of the Year. And in the past, CPAC welcomed everyone from ABC News' Sam Donaldson to conservative columnist George Will. But those days are long gone.</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">"My conclusion is this: If you want to know what the conservative movement will look like in five years, look at what today’s CPAC hall is like,"&nbsp;<a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/cpac-didnt-used-to-be-this-insane-i-swear?ref=scroll" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Lewis explains</a>. "That is a scary thought, because if that analysis turns out to be true, Donald Trump is the GOP's future. After all, he's their celebrated hero. And with Ron DeSantis presumably sitting this CPAC out, he's the only game in town.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">READ MORE:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/08/viktor-orban-same-sex-marriage" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orbán rails against same-sex marriage in CPAC speec</a>h</font></strong></p></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">an 3 23</font></div><div><p style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=Marjorie+Taylor+Greene" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; outline: 0px;"><strong>Greene</strong></a>&nbsp;(R-GA), a far-right Christian nationalist extremist, kicked off her speech at the&nbsp;<b>Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC)&nbsp;</b>Friday morning by telling the room filled with many empty seats that the<b>&nbsp;left is “coming for our children,”</b>&nbsp;in her hate-filled, lie-filled, fear-mongering, anti-LGBTQ speech portraying her cause as virtuous because, she preached, “our God is bigger.” That God, she promised, would help her pass anti-transgender legislation that “will make it a felony to perform anything to do with gender-affirming care on children.”</font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The left has told us something that should put fear in the heart of every parent,” Greene said as she began her speech. “Not just parents – every single person.”</font></p><div id="story_page_incontent_p2_target" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><ins class="adsbygoogle" data-ad-client="ca-pub-5155643920455169" data-ad-slot="6339868799" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; text-align: center; margin-bottom: 20px; display: block;" /></div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“They said they’re coming for our children,” Greene declared.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I think the Republican Party has a duty. We have a responsibility, and that is to be the party that protects children,” her speech (video below) continued.</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Greene again falsely claimed that&nbsp;<a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=Volodymyr+Zelenskyy" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><strong>Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy</strong></a>&nbsp;said “he wants our sons and daughters to go die in Ukraine,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">”&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2023/03/marjorie-taylor-greene-and-mike-lee-spread-anti-ukraine-disinformation-with-deceptively-edited-viral-video/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">which is the exact opposite of what he said</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. She attacked the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus for “literally singing we’re coming for your children,” referring to a 2021 “</span><a href="https://www.tmz.com/2021/07/09/san-francisco-gay-mens-chorus-convert-your-children-controversial-song-backlash-death-threats/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">tongue in cheek</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">” song the group received right-wing death threats over because it advocated for teaching children to love and “not to hate.”</span></font></p><p style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">She did not offer any other examples where “the left” said they are “coming for our children."</font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">she called medical experts who support transgender children a<b>&nbsp;“billion dollar industry that mutilates the genitals of children”</b>&nbsp;and claimed “they have a target, or should I say a victim?”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Describing transgender children and teens as “confused,” Greene told her audience, “everyone knows that when you’re growing up, I mean, think about it. How many times did you say when you’re a kid you wanted to be a fireman or a doctor or a police officer. You wanted to be something when you’re an adult, but when you grew up, you became something else.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">READ MORE:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2023/03/watch-trump-falsely-accuses-biden-of-creating-a-marxist-equity-enforcement-squad-and-calls-for-restitution/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Watch: Trump Falsely Accuses Biden of Creating a ‘Marxist Equity Enforcement Squad’ and Calls for ‘Restitution</a></font></strong></p><p style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>r</b>ather than offer support for transgender children and teens and their families, Greene repeatedly called them abused “victims” and said many of them “have diagnosis of autism, mental illness, they have depression, they have anxiety, they have psychosis. Many of them live in foster care. So they already have lived lives of abuse. And these victims come in thinking they’re going to find happiness and they’re going to find security in their identity because they think they can change their gender. These boys think they can become girls. These girls think they can become boys,” as she described gender-affirming surgery that almost never takes place on minors.</font></span></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Greene announced her bill,&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">the&nbsp;<b>Protect Children’s innocence act</b>, which she said “will make it a felony to perform anything to do with gender affirming care on children.” She boasted it would pass because of God.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“Our God is bigger.</b>&nbsp;And our God, our God is the God that created us man and woman in His image, He created us in our God is the God that created our children. And because of him, we will get this bill passed and the Republican Party will be the party that protects children from such an evil that I cannot believe it exists in this time.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Watch Greene’s full speech below&nbsp;<a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2023/03/the-left-is-coming-for-our-children-marjorie-taylor-greene-at-cpac-serves-up-hate-in-anti-lgbtq-religious-rant/" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">or at this link</a>.</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">see schlapp 3 new grope, more staff quit 2 23</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px 0px 0px 1.2em; line-height: 1.5; list-style: none;" helvetica="Helvetica" light="light" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><li style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin-bottom: 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.ipas.org/resource/slide-to-christian-nationalism-cpacs-global-expansion-into-mexico/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Ipas</a>: Slide to Christian Nationalism: CPAC’s Global Expansion into Mexico.</font></li></ul></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">rww 2 23</font></div><div><div class="mce-content-body" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"><div class="layout-constrain--narrow" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-width: 47.2222em; padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em; line-height: 1.5;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.events.cpac.org/agenda" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">schedule</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.events.cpac.org/speakers" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">speakers</a>&nbsp;list for this week’s Conservative Political Action Conference make it clear that the gathering will be dominated by the undemocratic and unprincipled power-seeking strategies for which former President Donald Trump and the MAGA movement are known.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; font-weight: 700;"><u style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Lying About Elections, Undermining Democracy</font></u></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The choice of Kari Lake to keynote the event’s gala, the “Ronald Reagan Dinner,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">” makes it clear that CPAC will continue to promote damaging false claims about voter fraud. Trump’s refusal to admit that voters rejected him in 2020 fueled the violent attempt to stop Congress from affirming President Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Following in Trump’s footsteps, Lake has refused to accept her defeat by Arizona voters in last year’s governor’s race. Instead, she&nbsp;<a href="https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/laurieroberts/2022/12/19/kari-lake-lobs-threat-maricopa-county-election-lawsuit/69741146007/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">inflames</a>&nbsp;supporters with bogus claims of election fraud,&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/KariLake/status/1630047482729099265?s=20" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">filing</a>&nbsp;lawsuit after&nbsp;<a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/3785655-judge-dismisses-remainder-of-kari-lakes-election-lawsuit-following-two-day-trial/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">rejected</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/12/24/kari-lake-election-lawsuit-rejected-00075580" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">lawsuit</a>&nbsp;seeking to overturn her loss. Right Wing Watch reported that this month&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/kari-lake-makes-the-round-of-radical-right-wing-programs/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Lake took her complaints</a>&nbsp;to two programs hosted by far-right broadcasters who have called for violence against political opponents. On one, when the host claimed that conservative Christians are being provoked to unleash “violence or bloodshed,” Lake responded, “I don’t know how much longer the people can take it.” As we saw on Jan. 6, 2021, this strategy is dangerous for democracy.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In addition to Trump himself, other speakers include Trump family members, right-wing funder and promoter of</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> debunked election conspiracies Mike Lindell, MAGA strategist Steve Bannon, and far-right “Pizzagate” promoter Jack Posobiec.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Previous CPAC gatherings have celebrated authoritarian strongmen leader</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">s like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Brazil’s former president, Jair Balsonaro, whose supporters attacked government buildings after his defeat. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Bolsonaro’s son Eduardo, a right-wing legislator, will speak at CPAC this year.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; font-weight: 700; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><u style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="">‘Parents with Pitchforks’: Limiting the Freedom to Learn</font></u></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Right-wing political leaders are aggressively restricting freedom in the name of attacking “wokeness,” which they have invoked to restrict honest teaching about racism, purge library books that feature Black and LGBTQ characters, and deny access to essential health care for transgender people. This is an expansion of the cynical right-wing strategy launched during the Trump administration to vilify “critical race theory” and then slap the label on anything right-wing activists didn’t like.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">One strategy in the war on “wokeness” is stoking racial resentment and grievance among conservative white voters. Before last year’s election, a group run by former Trump adviser Stephen Miller&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/10/30/stephen-miller-ads-biden-racism-white-americans-00064148" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">ran digital ads</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;denouncing “anti-white bigotry” and falsely claiming that the Biden administration “put white people last in line for COVID relief funds.”</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Miller, an architect of Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies with a documented affinity for&nbsp;<a href="https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2019/11/12/stephen-millers-affinity-white-nationalism-revealed-leaked-emails" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">white nationalism</a>, is listed as a CPAC speaker.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">One Thursday CPAC segment dubbed “Parents with Pitchforks” includes Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears, whose boss Gov. Glenn Youngkin has just launched an investigation of the AP African American Studies class attacked by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Another segment on “Sacking the Woke Playbook” features Sen. Tommy Tuberville and former acting attorney general Matt Whitaker, who once insisted that all judicial nominees should share his&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/iowa-gop-senate-candidates-vow-to-block-judges-who-wont-follow-biblical-law/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">“biblical view of justice.”</a></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; font-weight: 700;"><u style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Christian Nationalism</font></u></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Also likely to be promoted at CPAC is the&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/how-christian-nationalism-fueled-the-insurrection-and-threatens-democracy/" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">increasingly aggressive Christian nationalism</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;espoused by religious-right activists and promoted by far-right politicians like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> North Carolina’s vehemently anti-LGBTQ Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/north-carolinas-republican-lt-gov-mark-robinson-puts-his-christian-nationalism-on-full-display/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">exclaimed</a>&nbsp;in 2021, “As for this not being a Christian nation, yes, it is! If you don’t like it, I’ll buy your plane, train, or automobile ticket right up out of here.<b>”</b></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>&nbsp;Both Greene and Robinson are listed as speakers</b> at this year’s gathering.&nbsp;Scholars have documented that white evangelicals are the group most likely to strongly embrace Christian nationalism, and those who do are more likely to support authoritarianism and&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/05/20/white-christian-nationalism-buffalo-abortion/" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">political violence</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; font-weight: 700;"><u style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">A ‘Principled’ Alternative?</font></u></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A group of non-Trumpist conservatives has organized&nbsp;<a href="https://principlesfirstsummit.us/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">an alternative to CPAC</a>, which they call the Principles First Summit. In a&nbsp;<a href="https://heath.substack.com/p/stop-the-circus-close-the-curtain" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Substack column</a>&nbsp;promoting the summit, organizer Heath Mayo denounced the evolution of CPAC in the Trump era, saying “What once set a budding movement’s standards for principles and character is now a showcase of its worst ills.” CPAC, Mayo wrote, “actively applauds a conspiratorial fringe of our politics completely unmoored from ethical constraints and moral commitments.”</font></p><div class="at-below-post addthis_tool" data-url="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/cpac-2023-preview-pitchforks-and-propaganda/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; line-height: 1.5;"><div class="layout-constrain--narrow" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-width: 47.2222em; padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="tags" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; border-top: 5px solid rgb(239, 243, 243); margin-bottom: 2em; padding-top: 1em;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; font-weight: 700;">Tags:</span>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/donald-trump/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Donald Trump</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/eduardo-bolsonaro/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Eduardo Bolsonaro</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/jack-posobiec/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Jack Posobiec</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/kari-lake/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Kari Lake</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/marjorie-taylor-greene/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Marjorie Taylor Greene</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/mark-robinson/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Mark Robinson</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/mike-lindell/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Mike Lindell</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/stephen-miller/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Stephen Miller</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/steve-bannon/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Steve Bannon</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/winsome-sears/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Winsome Sears</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/topics/censorship/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Censorship</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/topics/christian-nationalism/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Christian Nationalism</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/topics/cpac/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">CPAC</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/topics/cpac-2023/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">CPAC 2023</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/topics/critical-race-theory/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Critical Race Theory</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/topics/stop-the-steal/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Stop the Steal</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/organizations/cpac/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">CPAC</a></font></p></div></div></div><div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;=</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">mma 2 23 // santos grope groin</font></p><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>following a monthlong&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/matt-schlapp/will-fox-reevaluate-its-relationship-cpac-after-sexual-assault-allegations-against" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">absence</a>&nbsp;from the network's on-air programming, conservative luminaries Matt and Mercedes Schlapp have found safe harbors with rival right-wing media outlets. The Schlapps had been frequent guests on Fox News and Fox Business until last month’s report of sexual assault.</b></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Fox News and Fox Business have continued to leave frequent guests Matt and Mercedes Schlapp off their programming since a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/herschel-walker-staffer-matt-schlapp-groped-my-crotch?ref=scroll" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">January 5 report</a>&nbsp;that a Republican campaign staffer assigned as Matt’s driver in October said Matt had sexually assaulted him.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">According to Media Matters’ internal database of cable news guest appearances, Matt appeared on Fox News’ weekday programs at least 29 times in 2022, and Mercedes appeared at least 56 times.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-hid-schlapps-its-airwaves-after-gop-staffer-told-daily-beast-matt-schlapp-groped-him" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">Fox quietly pulled the Schlapps off-air</a>&nbsp;after several appearances on the Fox channels in early January, and the network never mentioned the report or&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/17/us/politics/matt-schlapp-groping-accusation.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">the subsequent lawsuit</a>&nbsp;against the Schlapps filed by the staffer.<b>&nbsp;During their hiatus from Fox, both Matt and Mercedes have instead appeared on Fox’s right-wing media rivals, such as Newsmax.</b></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Matt is the chair of the American Conservative Union, which hosts the&nbsp;<b>Conservative Political Action Conference. Fox’s relationship with the Schlapps runs deeper than just hosting them dozens of times last year: Fox Nation has&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/matt-schlapp/will-fox-reevaluate-its-relationship-cpac-after-sexual-assault-allegations-against" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">sponsored</a>&nbsp;every stateside CPAC since 2019,&nbsp;</b>one year after the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-nation/god-help-me-ive-watched-10-hours-fox-nation-heres-what-i-learned" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">streaming network</a>&nbsp;launched. In 2021, Fox Nation was a “<a href="https://links.conservative.org/cpac/prospectus/tx/sp-cpac-tx.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">Featuring Sponsor</a>” at the event, paying&nbsp;<a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2021/02/trump-allies-at-cpac-2021/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">at least $250,000</a>, and it was a top sponsor&nbsp;<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20230118163923/https://archive.ph/fEwDS" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">again in 2022</a>. Even before Fox Nation started sponsoring the event, Fox News hosts often spoke at CPAC: Jeanine Pirro in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGHX1wekPss" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">2017</a>, Sean Hannity in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BD3kge2DXU" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">2015</a>, and Tucker Carlson in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9Y1jKbk7qA" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">2013</a>.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It remains to be seen whether Fox will continue to support CPAC while the network continues to keep the Schlapps off its programming and ignores the report of sexual assault by Matt, aside from&nbsp;<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/american-conservative-union-chairman-matt-schlapp-accused-lawsuit-groping-john-doe-political-aide" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">one story on FoxNews.com</a>&nbsp;weeks ago. But at least one other right-wing media outlet, Newsmax, is welcoming the Schlapps, even as it too ignores this story. (Republican lawmakers are&nbsp;<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/republicans-ignore-matt-schlapp-cpac-sexual-assault-lawsuit-2023-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">reportedly ignoring it</a>&nbsp;as well.) Newsmax gave the Schlapps free rein to comment on GOP politics without asking them to address the report about Matt.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Newsmax provided a safe space for both Matt and Mercedes</b>&nbsp;Schlapp on January 27, interviewing them on separate programs and failing to bring up the lawsuit filed against both of them or the sexual assault report. Instead, Mercedes was asked for her opinion about the Paul Pelosi video, a Biden judicial nomination, and DirecTV’s supposed&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/newsmax/timeline-gop-threatens-directv-defense-newsmax" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">“deplatforming”</a>&nbsp;of Newsmax. Matt was asked about Trump's recent culture war attacks and the reelection of Ronna McDaniel as the Republican National Committee chair</span>. [vids]</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>matt was also&nbsp;<a href="https://rumble.com/v27eijy-matt-schlapp-discusses-how-the-contentious-rnc-chair-race-is-an-indicator-o.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">interviewed</a>&nbsp;on&nbsp;<a href="https://rumble.com/v27ekp6-matt-schlapp-on-cpac-2023-being-a-strategy-session-for-getting-ahead-of-vot.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">January 27</a>&nbsp;and again on February 2 by right-wing podcaster Steve Bannon,&nbsp;</b>Trump’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/21/us/politics/steve-bannon-sentence-contempt-congress.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">disgraced</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-37971742" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">former strategic adviser</a>. In the most recent appearance on Bannon’s show, Matt&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/steve-bannon/matt-schlapp-tells-steve-bannon-cpac-will-be-little-bit-hungarian-its-treatment-press" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">promised</a>&nbsp;that the 2023 CPAC will be “a little bit Hungarian” in its treatment of unfriendly media outlets, possibly to avoid reporters asking difficult questions about him. Bannon did not bring up the report of sexual assault during either of these appearances.</font></p></div></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mercedes also had a safe space during her January 27 appearance on<b>&nbsp;WMAL</b>’s&nbsp;<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="https://omny.fm/shows/oconnor-and-company/01-27-23-hour-3-7-am-ginny-gentles-mercedes-schlap" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">O’Connor & Company</a></span>. While neither the lawsuit nor the allegation against Matt were mentioned during the interview, co-host Larry O’Connor closed it by saying to Mercedes: “I know you've been through hell the last couple of weeks” and offering his support.</font></p></div></div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">cpac once has legit policy presented?</font></div><div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to a report from Rolling Stone, the speeches thus far at the <b>Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Dallas have been&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/cpac-2022-ted-cruz-militant-rhetoric-1393449/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">larded with "dark" threats of coming violence</a>&nbsp;as the speakers brushed aside any discussion about the Jan 6 Capitol riot.</b></font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">With Donald Trump --who instigated the Capitol insurrection -- taking the stage on Saturday, Tim Dickinson wrote that</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> in many cases the speeches, "...menaced America with what seemed to be thinly veiled calls for violence."</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Case in point, he notes, was a speech given by recently convicted former Donald Trump advisor <b>Steve Bannon who proclaimed to the crowd, "We are at war."</b></font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"Repeating the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump,</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Bannon insisted that Joe Biden is an 'illegitimate imposter.'</b> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Calling on Republicans t<b>o send 'shock troops' to Washington, Bannon promised the crowd they had an opportunity to 'shatter the Democratic party as a national political institution'."</b> he wrote. "He alleged that the<b> party has been overrun by 'radical, cultural Marxists' </b>and <b>'groomers' who 'want to destroy the Republic.' </b>Bannon insisted the GOP must pursue absolute victory over 'power-mad and lawless' Democrats, asserting: 'There can be no half measures anymore'."</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) doubled down on Bannon's heated rhetoric, exhorting the crowd with the claim, "It’s like the old Roman Colosseum where you slam on a breastplate and you grab a battle axe and you go fight the barbarians. As they say in the military world, it is a target-rich environment.”</b></font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"The rhetoric of revolution and frontline confrontation went hand-in-hand with other speakers and presenters who cast the American left as demonic, evil, and destructive — in other words the kind of enemies who deserve to be dealt with harshly,</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">" the report states before adding, "</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">CPAC has long been a political circus, a relatively harmless sideshow. But its latest incarnation has become manifestly dangerous — more fascist than farce. It is holding up alleged perpetrators of political violence as martyrs. It is demonizing its domestic political opponents as diabolical 'enemies within.' And it is <b>giving MAGA supporters a militaristic frame for their charge to the 'front lines' of America’s culture wars."</b></span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"In short it is playing with fire. But it’s the rest of us who may get burned." Rolling Stones' Dickinson concluded.</font></p></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/tucker-carlson/right-wing-media-spend-week-rallying-around-viktor-orban-after-he-gave-what-his-own">https://www.mediamatters.org/tucker-carlson/right-wing-media-spend-week-rallying-around-viktor-orban-after-he-gave-what-his-own</a></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">an 8 22</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2022, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has been conducting&nbsp;<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/04/sarah-palin-2657095851/" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">her first political campaign since 2008</a>, when she was GOP presidential nominee John McCain’s running mate. Palin, endorsed by former President Donald Trump — someone McCain expressed vehement contempt for — is running for a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/16/palin-campaign-alaska/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">U.S. House of Representatives seat</a>&nbsp;in Alaska. And like other Republican candidates of 2022, she is, according to Mother Jones, resorting to Trump’s Big Lie playbook.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump continues to falsely claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him — a claim that has been repeatedly debunked. Palin, Mother Jones’ Emily Hofstaedter reports in an&nbsp;<a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/08/sarah-palin-is-taking-a-few-pages-from-trumps-election-lies-playbook/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">article published on August 9</a>, borrowed from Trump’s Big Lie narrative when she appeared at the Conservative Political Action Conference’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?522151-113/alaska-governor-sarah-palin-cpac-conference-texas" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">CPAC Texas gathering</a>&nbsp;in Dallas on Thursday, August 4. The event featuring Palin was billed as “She’s Back! An Interview With Sarah Palin.”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hofstaedter explains, “Interview host and CPAC Vice-Chair Charlie Gerow introduced her as ‘one of the leaders in the conservative movement’ before they embarked on a 20-minute conversation that included plenty of misinformation about the integrity of American elections. Palin and Gerow hit many of the cherished Republican talking points that attempt to undermine faith in the electoral process, including Dominion voting machines, mail-in ballots, and ranked-choice voting.”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>READ MORE:</strong><strong>&nbsp;</strong><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/steve-schmidt-trump-palin/" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><strong>'Two deranged people': Steve Schmidt slams Trump's growing alliance with Sarah Palin</strong></a></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palin was highly critical of ranked-choice voting at CPAC Texas, telling the crowd, “It’s bizarre, it’s convoluted, it’s confusing, and it results in voter suppression. It results in a lack of voter enthusiasm because it’s so weird…. It doesn’t matter if you win by getting the most votes. It matters if you have more second or third place votes depending on how the voters are ranking you.”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But Hofstaedter stresses that Palin’s claims about ranked-choice voting are untrue, pointing out that Maine has been using it since 2016 without any problem.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Amy Fried, a political science professor at the University of Maine, told Mother Jones, “There isn’t a higher rate of incomplete or spoiled ballots in ranked-choice races compared to ballots in elections using plurality voting. Nor is turnout lower.”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Similarly, New York University law professor Rick Pildes told Mother Jones, “There’s no evidence voters have been confused or don’t understand how to rank candidates one, two, three.”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>READ MORE:&nbsp;</strong><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/federal-judge-shoots-down-sarah-palins-request-for-new-defamation-trial-against-the-ny-times/" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><strong>Federal judge shoots down Sarah Palin’s request for new defamation trial against the NY Times: 'Motion denied'</strong></a></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hofstaedter points out that Palin also criticized Domination Voting Systems’ equipment at CPAC Texas.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“After the 2020 elections, Trump lawyers Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani claimed, without any evidence, that Dominion voting software was switching votes for Trump to (Joe) Biden,” Hofstaedter notes. “Repeatedly, this assertion has been proven false.”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>READ MORE:&nbsp;</strong><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/04/sarah-palin-2657208697/" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><strong>How 'relic of the past' Sarah Palin helped shape the 'outrageous' GOP politics of today: journalist</strong></a></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">nazi rhet</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/libertarian-writer-slams-the-gops-creepy-affection-for-viktor-orban/">https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/libertarian-writer-slams-the-gops-creepy-affection-for-viktor-orban/</a></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>On&nbsp;&nbsp;Saturday, July 23, far-right Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán — who is adored by the MAGA movement in the United States — gave a&nbsp;<a href="https://abouthungary.hu/speeches-and-remarks/speech-by-prime-minister-viktor-orban-at-the-31-st-balvanyos-summer-free-university-and-student-camp" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">speech in Romania</a>&nbsp;</b><b>that was controversial even by his authoritarian standards. Orbán used the rhetoric of the Great Replacement theory, a cornerstone of modern White supremacist and White nationalist ideology, and he claimed that a “mixed-race world” is hurting western countries</b>. The speech was so extreme that even Zsuzsa Hegedüs, a long-time ally and adviser, slammed it as “openly racist” and “a purely Nazi diatribe worthy of Joseph Goebbels” when she&nbsp;<a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/nazi-talk-orban-adviser-trashe-mix-race-speech-dramatic-exit/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">submitted a resignation letter</a>&nbsp;on Tuesday, July 26.</font></div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">Regardless, Orbán is still scheduled to speak a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-26/viktor-orban-will-speak-at-cpac-in-texas-despite-nazi-speech-backlash" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) gathering</a>&nbsp;in Dallas in August that will also feature former <b>President Donald Trump and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia</b>.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;And conservative/libertarian journalist Cathy Young, in an&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.thebulwark.com/do-american-national-conservatives-condone-orbans-white-nationalism/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">article published by The Bulwark</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;on July 28, slams Orbán “apologists” in the Republican Party who continue to openly embrace and praise the Hungarian prime minister despite his extremism.</span><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">Young is especially critical of MAGA journalist Rod Dreher,&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">a senior editor for Patrick Buchanan’s publication The American Conservative.</span></b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">During his speech in Romania, Young notes, Orbán praised “Le Camp des Saints” (“The Camp of the Saints”), a 1973 novel by far-right French author Jean Raspail. The book has an overtly racist, anti-immigrant outlook and is adored by White nationalists in France and other countries. And Orbán described it as “outstanding,” saying, “I recommend it to anyone who wants to understand the spiritual developments underlying the West’s inability to defend itself.” Typically, those on the French far right who praise “Le Camp des Saints” also praise Renaud Camus’ 2011 book “Le Grand Remplacement” (“The Great Replacement”), which is considered essential reading among White supremacists and White nationalists.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>READ MORE:&nbsp;</strong><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/cpac-proud-strongman-viktor-orban/" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><strong>CPAC 'proud' to host Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán to 'fight against socialism'</strong></a></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Raspail’s novel — the full text of which can be easily found online — is highly popular with the American and European far right,” Young observes. “Erstwhile Trump adviser&nbsp;<b>Steve Bannon is a fan. So is Steve King, the former congressman from Iowa who managed to become a pariah even in the Trumpified Republican Party by wondering aloud why such terms as ‘White nationalist’ and ‘White supremacist’ should be considered offensive. So is Stephen Miller,</b>&nbsp;the immigration policy chief in the Trump White House.”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Young continues, “Dreher doesn’t exactly love ‘The Camp of the Saints.’ He read it back in 2015 in response to refugee crisis in Europe, and reported that it is ‘a bad book, both aesthetically and morally,’ but nonetheless one with ‘something valuable to say to us’ — namely, that ‘the sentimental liberal humanitarianism’ of the West’s elites and their longing for ‘redemption for the West’s sins’ will bring about the death of western civilization by stripping it of the will to defend itself against the invading hordes from the Third World.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Le Camp des Saints,” Young notes, “is not just about the ‘clash of civilizations’ but, quite explicitly, about racial warfare: White people versus everybody else.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Given the expressions of complicated feelings by some of the book’s sympathetic American readers,” Young writes, “it’s important not to lose sight of the fact that Orbán glowingly endorses ‘The Camp of the Saints’ without any kind of ‘yes, it’s awful and racist, but’ disclaimer. Considered together with his comments about ‘race-mixing,’ his unqualified praise for Raspail’s book looks very much like a mask-off moment.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[READ MORE:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/05/viktor-orban/" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Former psychotherapist explains why Trump-loving Americans are drinking deep from Orban’s fascist well</a></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Young continues, “The enthusiasm for Orbán among American ‘national conservatives’ like Dreher was creepy enough before the speech in Romania,” Young explains. “Orbán’s quasi-authoritarian drift, his demonization of dissenters and aliens, and his fondness for Vladimir Putin are all long-established aspects of his politics and persona. But now, the Hungarian prime minister is rather brazenly flirting with White nationalism — something that the</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">&nbsp;<b>NatCons</b></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;have strenuously disavowed. If they still want to embrace Orbán and his ‘vision,’ will they have any credibility left when claiming that they stand for a civic nationalist creed and consider racial ethnonationalism abhorrent?”</span></font></p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong>READ MORE:&nbsp;</strong><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/01/trump-orban/" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><strong>Critics are horrified as Trump endorses strongman Viktor Orbán in Hungarian election</strong></a></font><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/07/12/trump-cranks-it-up-at-cpac-why-raising-the-spectacle-of-right-wing-madness-right-now-is-so-scary/">https://www.salon.com/<b>2021/07</b>/12/trump-cranks-it-up-at-cpac-why-raising-the-spectacle-of-right-wing-madness-right-now-is-so-scary/</a></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">no lnx</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Every revolutionary movement needs a martyr and it appears that the MAGA revolution has finally found one for itself.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Ashli Babbit, the Jan. 6th insurrectionist who was shot by a security guard as she climbed through a broken window just a few feet away from members of Congress, is Donald Trump's Horst Wessel, the German brownshirt who was murdered in 1930 and turned into a martyr by the Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels. Trump himself is making the case for Babbit, having mentioned her in every appearance he's made in the last week.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">At his recent Florida rally, Trump wondered: "Who shot Ashli Babbit? We all saw the hand... Now they don't want to give the name." At his press conference on Wednesday in which he announced his laughable "class action" lawsuit against the Big Tech companies, he went a little bit farther saying, "there were no guns in the Capitol except for the gun that shot Ashli Babbitt.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;And nobody knows who that man were...the person that shot Ashli Babbitt right through the head, just boom. There was no reason for that."<b>&nbsp;Then this past weekend he went all the way, describing the insurrection as a love fest and Babbit as an innocent victim in an interview with Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo:</b></span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Bartiromo took the ball and ran with it, saying that Babbitt&nbsp;</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">climbed out of a broken window (as if she was trying to escape the vicious gunman)</b>&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">after which both she and Trump speculated that the officer who shot Babbitt was part of a Democratic official's security detail,<b>&nbsp;</b></span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">casually mentioning Chuck Schumer in the process.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">&nbsp;The implication was obvious: the Democrats shot Ashli Babbitt for no good reason. The fact that we have all seen the footage of the shooting is irrelevant: We can believe them or we can believe our lying eyes.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style=""><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Over the weekend, Trump appeared at his second </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">CPAC c</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">onference in five months — this time in Texas.</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;(Salon's Zachary Petrizzo delivered these dispatches from the event.) Trump gave his usual speech, to a notably more excited crowd than the last one in February in Florida. He's barely able to keep from announcing to his adoring fans that he's running again and they are all clamoring for him to do it. And it's clear that he will be running to avenge his bogus claims that he actually won the election. The Big Lie will never die.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">It all sounds bizarre but when you talk about this stuff in the context of CPAC, it is really not all that crazy. Sure the violent insurrection gives their standard reckless rhetoric a feeling of urgency that wasn't there before, but if you look back you can see that's been there for decades.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Back in 1973 when the American Conservative Union (founded in 1964) first started holding these get-togethers, the GOP was in terrible disarray in the wake of Watergate and far-right organizers saw an opportunity to reshape the party in their conservative image.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> They invited Ronald Reagan to give the first keynote and the "New Right" never looked back.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>CPAC has always been used as a way to take the temperature of the party activists and in that way, it's very instructive.</b>&nbsp;The straw poll that's taken every year (or now, every few months, apparently) has not always been predictive of the party's nominee, but it shows what ideas and issues most excite the base. It's almost certain that the feedback loop between this group and the right-wing media guides the party as much as party officials and pollsters do.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;For the first quarter-century, the conference was an ideological gathering designed to promote the conservative movement agenda of anti-communism, small government, strong military, Christian Right values, low taxes, etc. But with the rise of the right-wing media — first talk radio, then Fox News — by the turn of the century, it became much more of a right-wing celebrity spectacle that sought to shock the political media, which loved to cover it since it was always held in DC</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. (This is the first year they've ever held the event outside of DC.)&nbsp;</span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In fact, for the past 20 years, CPAC was basically the same circus that Trump took on the road for his beloved rallies. During the Bush years, politicians showed up and there were panel discussions of issues but the stars of the show were people like</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> <b style="">Ann Coulter, who pretty much made her name at these events. </b>And they said things which, <b style="">looking back, make January 6th seem inevitable.</b></span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">At the 2002 meeting, Coulter said, "we need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed, too, otherwise, they will turn out to be outright traitors." A few years later she made news again with another notorious speech:</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">On Democrats: "Someday they will find a way to abort all future Boy Scouts."</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">College professors: "sissified, pussified." Harvard: "the Soviet Union." John Kerry: the other "dominant woman in Democratic politics."</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Her post-9/11 motto: "Rag head talks tough, rag head faces consequences." For good measure, she threw in a joke about having Muslims burn down the Supreme Court — with the liberal justices inside.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Then came questions. A young woman asked Coulter to describe the<b> most difficult ethical decision she ever made. "There was one time I had a shot at Bill Clinton," Coulter said.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">She meant that literally. Meanwhile, down in the bowels of the hotel hosting <b>CPAC, they sold merchandise with adorable sayings such as "Happiness is Hillary Clinton's face on a milk carton" and "Rope. Tree. Journalist. Some Assembly Required." </b>At the next year's event, Coulter said, "I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word 'faot,'" and when she was rebuked for saying it, she called it "speech totalitarianism."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">There is nothing new under the right-wing sun.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In recent years, some of the acts were scrapped. Coulter was not invited in 2015, and in 2017 the right-wing provocateur Milo Yianopoulos was canceled when it was revealed that he had made positive statements about pedophili</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">a. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">They were no longer needed anyway. The show was by then dominated by Donald Trump who had made his first big political splash there in 2013 spreading the "birther" lie, which the attendees ate up with a spoon. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>And while Coulter climbed her way back to CPAC this weekend, participating on an obscure panel going on about immigration and making grotesque racist statements, as usual, her act doesn't shock anymore and nobody cares. Who needs Coulter anyway when you have Trump?</b></span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">HEATHER DIGBY PARTON</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Heather Digby Parton, also known as "Digby," is a contributing writer to Salon. She was the winner of the 2014 Hillman Prize for Opinion and Analysis Journalism.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></p></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/07/cpac-2021-2653755199/">https://www.alternet.org/2021/07/cpac-2021-2653755199/</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>
</div><div>Jesus, guns and COVID denialism’: How CPAC’s Dallas gathering was an unhinged mix of ‘ and ‘voice-in-your-head stuff’</div><div>
</div><div>Lauren Boebert speaking with attendees at the 2020 Student Action Summit, hosted by Turning Point USA at the Palm Beach County Convention Center in West Palm Beach, Florida, Gage Skidmore</div><div>&nbsp;Alex Henderson July 12, 2021</div><div>&nbsp; &nbsp;</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">During its July 9-11 event in Dallas, the Conservative Political Action Conference featured a long list of GOP wingnuts — from former President Donald Trump to Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas to Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, a QAnon supporter. Never Trump conservative Charlie Sykes analyzes the gathering in a July 12 column for The Bulwark, lamenting that it was full of "cray-cray voice-in-your-head stuff."</span></div><div>
</div><div>Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas has described Sykes as someone who "used to be conservative," which is wildly misleading but not surprising coming from Cruz. Sykes is still conservative, and The Bulwark is a right-wing website. But the Republican Party, as the CPAC event demonstrates, has moved so far to the right that a traditional non-Trumpian, non-extremist conservative like Sykes is now considered a RINO (Republican in Name Only) in Trumpworld and the 2021 GOP.</div><div>
</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">"In fairness," Sykes writes, "CPAC has never been mistaken for a gathering of philosophers; it was described as the 'Star Wars Bar Scene of the conservative movement' long before the Trump Era. But this weekend's confederacy of dunces, with apologies to John Kennedy O'Toole, was, nevertheless, a window into what conservativism has become."</span></div><div>
</div><div>CPAC crowd applauds a comment about the U.S. failing to reach a 90% vaccination rate https://t.co/iGX6FD4SaU</div><div>— Andrew Solender (@Andrew Solender) 1625957915.0</div><div>
</div><div>[vid]</div><div>
</div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>Boebert: We’re here to tell government we don’t want your benefits. We don’t want your welfare</b>… https://t.co/Gk8WenGrls</div><div>— Acyn (@Acyn) 1625945792.0</div><div>
</div><div>Sykes adds, "To the extent that the right believes in anything these days, it seems committed to standing up for neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers on social media platforms, while pushing to fire school teachers and college professors who teach forbidden topics in schools. This is not be confused with 'cancel culture,' which is now exclusively deployed to refer to virtually any criticism aimed at right-wing figures."</div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">---</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/07/the-extremism-at-cpac-2021-shows-why-democrats-go-on-the-defensive-in-2022-journalist/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2021/07/the-extremism-at-cpac-2021-shows-why-democrats-go-on-the-defensive-in-2022-journalist/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">many Never Trump conservatives were hoping that when now-President Joe Biden won the 2020 election, Republicans would abandon Trumpism. Instead, they doubled down on it, and the recent 2021 Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas was a celebration of Trumpian extremism — from anti-vaxxer paranoia to the Big Lie about the 2020 election to praising the January 6 insurrectionists as heroic. According to liberal Washington Post opinion columnist Greg Sargent, CPAC 2021 should serve as a wake-up call for Democrats and encourage them to do everything imaginable to prevent a red wave in the 2022 midterms.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Sargent, this week in his column, explains, "Back in the dark ages of the last century, the right-wing culture war was often described with a reference to the three Gs: God, guns and gays. These days, the right-wing culture war is perhaps better described with three Vs: vaccine derangement, validation of White racial innocence, and valorization of insurrectionists</span>. Over the weekend, the Conservative Political Action Conference treated the nation to a parade of such obsessions."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The lineup at CPAC 2021 in Dallas ranged from former President Donald Trump to Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas to a QAnon supporter: Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"We were told the large percentage of Americans who remain unvaccinated against COVID-19 is a cause for ecstatic celebration," Sargent notes. "We were told 'Marxist' Democrats want to indoctrinate your children to be ashamed of their whiteness. And, of course, we were told that the election was stolen from Donald Trump. This zombie lie was delivered to CPAC by the former president himself, who previewed this by telling Fox News that the January 6 rioters were 'peaceful people' and that they are this current moment's true victims of injustice. If there's one thing that all this lunacy confirmed, it's that such culture-warring will be central to GOP efforts in 2022."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sargent notes that the 2010 and 2014 midterms — back when Barack Obama was president — far-right Republicans successfully used culture war fear-mongering to rally their base.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>"Today's vaccine denial and valorization of insurrectionists carry serious echoes of the Tea Party during the Barack Obama presidency</b>," Sargent recalls. "In 2010, protesters confronted Democratic lawmakers with vile slurs, and Republicans told endless lies about 'death panels.' In 2014, the GOP went all-in on the lie that Obama would allow terrorists to import Ebola across our border. Republicans were in no way penalized for any of this. Instead, they won two smashing midterm victories."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sargent wraps up his column by urging Democrats to put Republicans "on the defensive" in the 2022 midterms.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"This might include asking anti-critical race theory Republicans why they think our cadets are such snowflakes that they must be shielded from hard truths about their country's past," Sargent writes. "Or asking why Republicans are doing far too little to encourage GOP voters to endure a little pinprick to protect their friends, relatives and neighbors from dying of a deadly disease. Or why they're trying to bury the truth about their own party's complicity in an effort to sack the U.S. government with mob violence."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The columnist adds, "Ask yourself this: Why is it that Democrats spend far more time denying lies — that they want to indoctrinate your children with White shame and send jackbooted government thugs to kick down your doors and force vaccines on you — than Republicans spend denying any of those charges against them, which are true?"</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">'We lose': This Republican governor fears his party will fail if it goes ... ›</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">How partisan gerrymandering alone could give Republicans a ... ›</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Republicans are aggressively stepping up their voter suppression ... ›</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Why Democrats may defy history and win the 2022 midterms ... ›</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In ramp-up to 2022 midterms, Republican candidates center pitches ... ›</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2022 midterms: Republicans may dominate but don't count ... ›</font></div></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><h1 class="widgetheadline h1" style="margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; cursor: pointer; overflow-wrap: break-word; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">w<a class="widgetheadline-text custom-post-headline" href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/07/white-nationalists-cpac/" aria-label="White nationalists prep for 'physical' altercation with security at Dallas CPAC conference" data-type="text" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" word-break="word-break" break-word="break-word" outline="outline" px="px" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" font-size="font-size" line-height="line-height">hite nationalists prep for 'physical' altercation with security at Dallas CPAC conference</a></font></h1><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div class="social-author clearfix" style="margin-top: 10px; display: inline-block; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a class="social-authorname" href="https://www.alternet.org/author/zacharypetrizzo" data-type="text" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.4; display: inline; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;">Zachary Petrizzo</a>&nbsp;<a class="social-authorname" href="https://www.alternet.org/author/salon" data-type="text" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.4; display: inline; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;">Salon</a></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span><div class="social-date" style="margin-top: 8px; display: inline-block; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;<span class="social-date__text" style="top: 3px; position: relative; line-height: 1; left: -3px;">July 09, 2021</span></div><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body css-listicle-body-2653734066" style="margin-top: 10px; -webkit-box-orient: vertical; text-overflow: ellipsis; overflow: hidden; display: -webkit-box; -webkit-line-clamp: 4; line-height: 31px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="body-description"><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">DALLAS —White nationalist and Unite the Right attendee&nbsp;<a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/06/30/white-nationalist-groyper-leader-doubles-down-on-jan-6-capitol-riot-calling-it-awesome/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Nicholas Fuentes</a>, de facto leader of the ultra-far-right "groyper" movement, has announced that he plans to attending a Conservative Political Action...</font></p></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/03/cpac-nazi-symbol/">https://www.alternet.org/2021/03/cpac-nazi-symbol/</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">cdv</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>
</div><div>CPAC veers into neo-Nazi fantasy — was it deliberate?</div><div>President Donald J. Trump delivers his remarks Saturday, Feb. 29, 2019, during his appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in Oxon Hill, Md. (Official White House Photo by Tia Dufour)</div><div>&nbsp;Chauncey DeVega and Salon March 02, 2021</div><div>&nbsp; &nbsp;</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Once upon a time, the Conservative Political Action Conference was a relatively traditional and "mainstream" gathering of many divergent currents on the political right.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Fueled by the obsessive racist backlash against Barack Obama's presidency and paranoid fantasies about a bogeyman fictional version of "the left," the Republican Party rapidly became more extreme, contemptuous not just of "liberals" but of multiracial democracy and reality itself. During those years, CPAC came to resemble a political zoo or circus where assorted cast-offs, broken toys and fringe figures from the Republican Party and conservative movement could gather together and hatch their nefarious plots.</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>As a result, during the Obama era CPAC became something of a bellwether or leading indicator of the Republican Party's embrace of right-wing extremism and anti-democracy fervor.</b></div><div>
</div><div>Writing at the Washington Monthly, David Atkins summarizes this:</div><div>
</div><div>But CPAC isn't a sideshow. It's the main stage of the conservative movement, predicting its future behavior in an era of widening asymmetric polarization. CPAC presaged the rise of the Party of Reagan over that of Gerald Ford and Dwight Eisenhower. It heralded the scorched-earth confrontational politics of Newt Gingrich in the Bill Clinton era. It elevated George W. Bush at a time when the mainstream GOP still saw itself more in the mold of John McCain. It celebrated the Tea Party before GOP legislators had fully embraced it. And it promoted openly racist birthers and conspiracy theorists like Donald Trump at a time when the the mainline GOP was producing superficially anti-racist autopsies and promoting candidates like Marco Rubio and Spanish-speaking Jeb Bush.</div><div>So if we want to know where the Republican Party is heading today, we should pay close attention to CPAC.</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div><b>It is now an obligatory stop for Republican presidential candidates and others seeking high office to win the approval</b>. This year's CPAC gathering — held in Florida rather than Washington, D.C. — was of course where the recently deposed former president and authoritarian cult leader announced his return to public life and plans to further dominate the Republican Party.</div><div>
</div><div><b>Today's Republican Party did not slip and accidentally fall into neofascism and racial authoritarianism. Rather, it willingly leapt into that cesspool. CPAC has devolved into a "safe space" where such vile ideas are cultivated and normalized.</b></div><div>
</div><div>In her landmark 1951 book "The Origins of Totalitarianism," Hannah Arendt previewed the way today's Trump-controlled Republican Party has devolved into a fascist authoritarian movement, a cultural and political force that transcends voting, campaigns, elections and other forms of "normal" political behavior.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">On Twitter, author Jared Yates Sexton recently echoed Arendt with a contemporary warning:</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Continuing to pretend like we still live in a two-party representative system will only give room and cover to a fascist movement that is intentionally and systematically demolishing democracy and civil liberties. We must recognize the reality of the threat.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">What we've witnessed, over the past few years, is the reveal of the GOP as a fascist movement to protect the white, wealthy, and powerful, an angry and violent rejection of democracy and human dignity. There is no saving them, there is no unity, there's only avoiding tragedy.</span></div><div>
</div><div>At this year's CPAC gathering, the escalation that Sexton describes became even more grotesque and dangerous. As reported by many reporters, journalists, and other observers, the main stage at CPAC was shaped like the Othala or Odal rune, an ancient proto-Germanic symbol worn more recently on the uniforms of some of Hitler's most fearsome soldiers, including the infamous Waffen-SS.</div><div>
</div><div>In our own time, the Odal rune has also been adopted by neo-Nazis and other white supremacists in both the United States and abroad in an effort make their politics appear more palatable and normal to "mainstream" conservatives and other members of the right wing.</div><div>
</div><div><b>Predictably, Matt Schlapp, the organizer of this year's CPAC gathering, denied any connection between the shape of the main stage and Nazism. Notably, Schlapp did not order the design of the stage changed after he was made aware of its ominous symbolism and history.</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Ultimately, it is not the physical design of the stage at the 2021 CPAC gathering that is concerning, but more importantly the white supremacist and other racist and anti-human values and ideas being shared and reinforced by the event's speakers and attendees.</span></div><div>
</div><div>To better understand the relationship between the Odal symbol, Nazism, white supremacy, CPAC, today's Republican Party and the broader right-wing movement, I asked a range of experts from various backgrounds for their insights.</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>James Scaminaci III, expert on right-wing politics and extremism:</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Starting with the disclosure that Steve Bannon's Breitbart sanitized and mainstreamed neo-Nazi propaganda during the 2016 Trump campaign, that Trump himself retweeted neo-Nazi imagery during the campaign, and that within conservative media outlets there were "ghost" white nationalists, this shows that the infiltration has never stopped. Moreover, the displays are becoming even more overt.</span></div><div>
</div><div>I suspect, in a similar vein with Trump's use of "88" notations, that this not initially intended for GOPers or conservatives who may or may not be aware of such imagery. Rather, it is intended for those on the left to notice and bring it out in the open, and then the right can have a culture-war fight about it. This reinforces their narratives of "cancel culture," and their persecution complex. I think it is part trolling, part "owning the libs," and using the libs to educate their own publics.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Moreover, the neo-Nazis and Klan, since at least 2005, have used conservative gatherings to infiltrate and spread their message. They approached the Tea Party with sanitized messages, hid their Nazi tattoos, and tried to coax them toward their viewpoint. They did this during the nativist anti-immigration movement between 2005 and 2008. They mixed with middle-class protesters. They've done this with the "reopen" campaigns. There is also speculation that at least some of the boogaloo militia were disguised neo-Nazis pushing their accelerationist agenda. Neo-Nazis and the Klan have had a chance to mingle with conservative, Christian GOP voters. You can see this in the conflation of the neo-Nazi "white genocide" with the more sanitized "great replacement" conspiracy theory.</span></div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>Ultimately, what I see with the image at the CPAC conference is part of a long-term trend where neo-Nazis sanitize their rhetoric, sanitize their personal presentations and infiltrate the GOP, the Christian right and the "conservative" movement.</div><div>
</div><div>Gavriel Rosenfeld, historian, and author of "The Fourth Reich: The Specter of Nazism from World War II to the Present," "Hi Hitler! How the Nazi Past is Being Normalized in Contemporary Culture" and "The World Hitler Never Made: Alternate History and the Memory of Nazism":</div><div>Whether or not the much-commented-upon use of an Odal rune was coincidental or deliberate in creating the CPAC conference stage, the GOP in recent years has flirted with symbols and images used by the American and European far right.</div><div>
</div><div>GOP politicians, including the now ex-president, have earned warranted suspicion for playing symbolic footsie with right-wing extremists in the form of various social media postings, retweets, and other dog-whistle endorsements.</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>Most of these endorsements have involved new symbols used by the far right: Pepe the Frog, the VDare/Lion Guard Lion symbol (proposed as a possible symbol of a future Trump-led Patriot Party), white power "OK" salutes, etc. Thus far, while many MAGA supporters overtly use Nazi-era symbols (black sun, SS runes, etc.) the GOP itself has rarely endorsed actual symbols used in the era of classical fascism.</div><div>
</div><div><b>The most notable exception was probably Trump's retweeting of tweets smearing antifa with the Nazi-era red triangle sewn onto the uniforms of left-wing concentration camp prisoners.</b></div><div>
</div><div>The Odal rune would be a notable exception to this, but at this point, CPAC has plausible deniability until better evidence surfaces.&nbsp; I'd say we are right to be vigilant about paying attention to (and calling out) the increasing willingness of the far right to "say the quiet part out loud" in terms of overt imagery, even if occasionally the fears are misplaced. For some time now, left-liberals are justified in being fearful of the increasingly unhinged right.</div><div>
</div><div>Tim Wise, anti-racism activist, speaker, and author of the new book "Dispatches from the Race War":</div><div>
</div><div>There are two ways of understanding this. The first is as a strange coincidence, in which a right-wing party whose leader has told white nationalists and assorted fascists to stand back and stand by, and claimed some among the Nazis in Charlottesville were "fine people," just so happens to design the stage at their signature event in the shape of a Nazi symbol.</div><div>
</div><div>The second is as a deliberate wink and nod to those within the conservative movement who know the white nationalist base of their party and are signaling to it. But here's the thing: Whichever of these is true hardly matters.</div><div>
</div><div>The Nazis will see this as a subtle endorsement of their ideology. That means more terrorism, more death and an ever-increasing threat to democracy. Which is why even if the design were innocent, this simply goes to show that the right has no interest in guarding against white racist terror by distancing itself from the kinds of people who stormed the Capitol or shot up the Walmart in El Paso or organized Unite the Right in 2017. Because if they wanted to disavow and distance from that bunch they would take pains to avoid things like this. They would work to avoid any sniff of Nazi impropriety. They want it both ways — to punch and then hide their hands. The rest of us must make it clear: This is who they are. It is who they have been for a long time.</div><div>
</div><div>Jean Guerrero, journalist, investigative reporter and author of "Hatemonger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the White Nationalist Agenda":</div><div>
</div><div>The use of Nazi iconography is clearly meant to thrill the GOP's increasingly racist base and to trigger the libs, as well as supporters of American democracy. No one should be surprised. They want people speculating about whether the symbol was used deliberately so as to distract from the now unquestionable reality, which is that the Republican Party is an extremist party. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Mainstream Republicans have embraced white supremacist ideas that pose a danger to communities of color, just as they did in California during the '90s amid fears about the "browning of America." Stephen Miller is no longer a fringe figure of the party. He is the Republican Party.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Miller is always laundering white supremacist ideas through the language about heritage. I'm not surprised by the use of this specific symbol. What it dog-whistles is "white heritage."</span></div><div>
</div><div>FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES</div><div>Fascism expert details the alarming similarities between Trump ... ›</div><div>Gang of young Marines and an ex-porn star moved to Idaho to ... ›</div><div>'Come on': Trump campaign's new T-shirt insignia looks a lot like a ... ›</div><div>Republicans' fascism two-step was on display at CPAC 2021 ... ›</div><div>RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB</div><div>Hyatt calls hate symbols 'abhorrent' after CPAC stage compared to ... ›</div><div>CPAC's stage resembled a Nazi symbol, the Othala Rune, critics say ... ›</div><div>CPAC organizer vehemently denies stage was designed to look like ... ›</div><div>How A Nazi Symbol At CPAC Turned Into A Massive Hyatt Public ... ›</div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">alt rt has afpac w/ gosar az&nbsp; and steve king</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/03/cpac-fascism/">https://www.alternet.org/2021/03/cpac-fascism/</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>Republicans' fascism two-step was on display at CPAC 2021</div><div>
</div><div>&nbsp;Amanda Marcotte March 01, 2021</div><div>&nbsp; &nbsp;</div><div>
</div><div>If you want a perfect emblem of the current state of Republican politics, look to the story of how Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., spent this past weekend.</div><div>
</div><div>On Friday night, Gosar attended a conference for unvarnished fascists, where the main organizer gave a speech calling for America to be white nationalist country and openly celebrated the insurrection spearheaded by Donald Trump on Jan. 6. On Saturday, while speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Gosar lamely claimed to denounce "white racism," clearly feeling that those magic words erased his participation in and support for those who are organizing white racists to take over the country through force.</div><div>
</div><div>It should be silly that Gosar believes that simply declaring "I denounce" is enough to negate all his concrete actions in favor of white nationalism, but the sad fact is that he has good reason to think it will work. After all, that's how things have been working for years in this country. Call it the fascism two-step: First, Republicans do something overtly fascist. Then they wave off concerns about their fascism by faking umbrage and relying on the widespread belief that "it can never happen here" to paint their critics as hysterical. Gosar was just a particularly blunt and obvious example, but it's the strategy that's been used throughout Trump's presidency and now is being heavily employed to minimize the attempted insurrection.</div><div>
</div><div>Much was written, both on social and plain old regular media, about how CPAC this year was cementing Trump's power over the GOP and turning the party into a cult of personality for their orange-hued buffoon of a leader. Indeed, it's both alarming and darkly funny, from the rapturous reception of his predictably whiny stemwinder to the ridiculous gold statue of Trump that was on display, which drew thousands of jokes about golden calves. But really, the Trump worship is only part of what is the bigger and much scarier story of CPAC.</div><div>
</div><div>The conference was geared around the task of completing the transformation of the Republican party into an overtly authoritarian — even fascist — party that is focused on seizing and holding power against the will of the American people. The Trump idolatry is part of that — what's a fascist party without a cult around a narcissistic leader? — but ultimately, Trump still functions as he always has, which is as a tool for his followers to get what they want, and not an ends in himself. And what they want, as CPAC made quite clear, is to make the U.S. a white nationalist country, which is always what the "MAGA" slogan stood for.</div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>The CPAC straw poll showed only 55% of attendees endorsed Trump as their favorite for the Republican presidential nominee. However, a full 97% approved of Trump's performance in office, despite him ending his presidency by launching a coup that ended in a bloody attack on the Capitol. Trump himself they can leave or take. But the insurrection and the violent assault on American democracy? That is what the CPAC crowd is all about.</b></div><div>
</div><div>As Heather "Digby" Parton noted at Salon Monday morning, "Trump went out of his way to cancel a whole lot of Republicans he considers disloyal, promising to do everything in his power to 'get rid of 'em all,'" and then proceeded to name "every single GOP politician who voted for impeachment individually, his voice dripping with venom."</div><div>
</div><div>This is a result, of course, of Trump's famous narcissism and his obsessive cataloging of his enemies. But it is also, and more importantly, about something else: Purging the party of anyone who isn't on board with a fascist agenda. The targets of Trump's wrath are the only Republicans who drew the line at a violent attempt to overthrow the government. This isn't about just remaking the party in his own image, but remaking they party as one explicitly supportive of violent insurrections. Frankly, it won't be a hard task, since, as his pathetically short list showed, few Republicans were even interested in opposing his coup in the first place....</div></div><div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">don jr at cpac Tpac fail, PO'd at mccarthy; kim g sez he will do more out of office than biden</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/02/trump-evangelicals/">https://www.alternet.org/2021/02/trump-evangelicals/</a></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">an ME 221</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" /><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">no lnx</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>While some Republican lawmakers are fighting to return to some form of traditional political normalcy, other lawmakers and members of the political party are pushing for a new direction.</div><div>
</div><div>The first night of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), which featured some of the most contentious Republican lawmakers like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), signals the Trump era may be far from over. When Cruz took the stage, he made his perspective quite clear as he suggested that he will remain a Trump loyalist for years to come.</div><div>
</div><div>"There's a whole lot of voices in Washington that want to just erase the past four years, want to go back to the world before," Cruz said. "Let me tell ya right now: Donald J. Trump ain't goin' anywhere."</div><div>
</div><div>Hawley expressed similar remarks. While he admitted that he is aware of the fact that he is not the most popular lawmaker, he and other conservatives like him are not going anywhere.</div><div>
</div><div>"I'm not going anywhere," Hawley proclaimed as he insisted the "radical left, their corporate allies [and] the liberal media to cancel me." He added, "I'm here today, I'm not going anywhere and I'm not backing down, not a chance!"</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div><b>According to Hawley, Republicans like him are the future of the political party</b>. "I just want to say to those people who say to us, 'Oh, you're the past, your moment has passed, it's over, it's Joe Biden's America now,' we're not the past, we're the future, we represent the future of this country," the junior senator said. "We're not going to back down to the woke mob, we're not going to back down to the cancel culture, we're not going to be told what we can say or do."</div><div>
</div><div>A new editorial published by The New York Times notes how the first night of the CPAC underscores the uncertainty of the Republican Party's future. The publication notes that "in recent years, CPAC has evolved from a family reunion of Republican libertarians, social conservatives and a hawkish foreign policy establishment into Trump-chella."</div><div>
</div><div>This year has been no exception, with speaker after speaker focusing on the pet issues of the former president. "Are your votes being distorted?" one ominous video asked, flashing photos of President Biden on the big screen. Mr. Trump plans to address the crowd on Sunday and anything he says about his future political ambitions will inevitably overshadow the entire event....</div></div><div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">compensatory cpac rant ie pound the table? FREEEE_DUMB! wow combines star wars and nazi ref, also mel gibson</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/02/ted-cruz-speech/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.alternet.org/2021/02/ted-cruz-speech/</a></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=Ted+Cruz" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">U.S. Senator Ted Cruz</a>&nbsp;(R-TX), fresh from&nbsp;<a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2021/02/does-quarantine-not-apply-to-senators-ted-cruz-blasted-for-garland-questions-and-for-going-to-dc-after-cancun/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">near-universal condemnation over his Cancun vacation</a>&nbsp;during the Lone Star State's ice and snow storms, power outages, and water shortage, spoke at&nbsp;<a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=CPAC" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">CPAC</a>&nbsp;Friday morning in an apparent effort to win back some of his lost approval rating.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He screamed for nearly a minute.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"These are dark days and the media tells us this is the new Galactic Empire forever and 1000 years, but already Joe Biden and the radicals in his administration they are already overshooting, they are already going too far, their policies don't work, they are disasters, they are bad, they are destroying jobs, they are stripping our freedom," Cruz said, screaming out unsubstantiated falsehoods.</font></span></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"There is a natural pendulum to politics and the country will come back to sanity and mark my words, 2022 is going to be a fantastic election year, and so is 2024, as we stand together and <b>defend liberty, defend the Constitution, defend the Bill of Rights of every American. In the immortal words of William Wallace, 'Freedom!'</b>" he screamed.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Watch:</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">---</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">huh?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">young pharoh anti-sem israeli pedo</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/02/cpac-ripped-for-hypocritical-move-canceling-reprehensible-guest-from-speaking-at-anti-cancel-culture-event"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2021/02/cpac-ripped-for-hypocritical-move-canceling-reprehensible-guest-from-speaking-at-anti-cancel-culture-event</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">-----</font></div><div><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/its-back-after-2019-outrage-american-priority-festival-and-conference-2020-promises-golf-tournament-and-a-whos-who-of-far-right-speakers/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/its-back-after-2019-outrage-american-priority-festival-and-conference-2020-promises-golf-tournament-and-a-whos-who-of-far-right-speakers/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">doral</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s Back: After 2019 Outrage, American Priority Festival and Conference 2020 Promises Golf Tournament—and a Who’s Who of Far-Right Speakers</font></b></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By Kristen Doerer | September 15, 2020&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Simona Papadopoulos (left) poses with her husband George Papadopoulos (center) and another model after her bathing suit fashion show at the American Priority Festival and Conference. Screenshot of Simona Papadopoulos' since deleted tweet.]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At last year’s American Priority Festival and Conference, a macabre video that superimposed President Donald Trump’s face on a figure shooting the president’s perceived political opponents in a mass killing spree, reported on by The New York Times, caused outrage. This year, the AMP festival, unhindered by the global coronavirus pandemic, will feature a who’s who of right-wing and far-right speakers, all gathered together at the Trump National Doral Miami Oct. 8-11.</font></span></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The “YUGE lineup”—their words, not ours—includes returning speakers, such as far-right Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, convicted felon Roger Stone, whose sentence was commuted by President Donald Trump, and far-right activist and One America News Network figure Jack Posobiec, who pushed the “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory, according to an organizer’s email Monday.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Anti-Muslim activist and right-wing conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer will also return to the stage. After winning the GOP nomination to represent Florida’s 21st Congressional District in the U.S. House in August, Loomer received Trump’s congratulations as she rubbed shoulders with a series of far-right figures at her victory party. Failed congressional candidate and QAnon conspiracy theorist DeAnna Lorraine, who recently accused Trump of “taking his base for granted” by wearing a mask, is another featured speaker. (We’ll see how many COVID-19 cases come out of this year’s festival.)&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>George Papadopoulos—</b>who went to federal prison for making false statements to FBI agents about the timing of his contact with Russian intermediaries in 2016—will return to Trump Doral as well. Last year, Papadopolous spoke on an “Unmasking the Russian Hoax” panel, while his wife Simona Papadopolous held a swimsuit fashion show during the pool party portion of the festival.&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Described as “Four days of God, country, and MAGA at the spectacular Trump National Doral resort in Miami, FL,” the conference promises “everything you could want in a patriot event.” And in case that description doesn’t excite you, the email promotes a golf tournament for an additional cost, a “MAGA pool party”—which no doubt means more patriotic swimsuits—and even spa deals:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>AMP is also hosting a celebrity golf tournament&nbsp;</b>on the world-famous Blue Monster course with net proceeds benefiting the American Priority Foundation! Come play golf with some of the most patriotic names in sports, TV, and politics. Tournament entry is $500 and available as an option when you register. This makes a great gift for those golf fans!</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">AMP is also hosting a screening of Dinesh D’Souza’s blockbuster new film ‘Trump Card’, shooting a music video for a brand new patriot anthem by Alex Jordan, kicking off with a MAGA pool party, and hosting many surprise special guests.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The festival and conference was conceived as a pro-Trump, millennial-focused alternative to the annual Conservative Political Action Conference held in Washington, D.C., by<b>&nbsp;Ali Alexander, a right-wing political operative, and Alex Phillips, a conservative donor who owns a small telecom company in Virginia. Alexander—who previously went by Ali Akbar</b>&nbsp;and who has ties to far-right figures such as Unite the Right white supremacist attendee Matt Colligan—has recently floated the idea of revamping a 2018 effort discredit mail-in voting ahead of the 2020 presidential election, dispatching Trump supporters to places where ballots are being counted?. Posobiec, who helped announce the first AMP festival in 2018, also promoted Alexander’s latest ploy to discredit mail-in voting.&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The first AMP festival, held in 2018 in Washington, D.C., was effectively a flop, with one speaker even canceling after seeing the dismal turnout. Last year’s event, held in Doral, managed to attract more attendees but&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">not quite the millennial and Gen Z crowd that was intended.</span>&nbsp;Though younger conservatives were in attendance, the event attracted plenty of Generation X and baby boomer attendees, featuring such groups as the graying “Bikers for Trump.” Millennial MAGA stars were featured, including the Deplorable Choir, Ricky Rebel, a singer-songwriter known for being unapologetically both pro-Trump and gay, and right-wing activist Scott Presler.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It also ironically prevented reporters from covering its events—centered around the concept of free speech and the First Amendment—by allowing only “invited” media, barring Right Wing Watch’s Jared Holt from entry. In 2018, Alexander had explained the “invite only” policy this way: “Frankly, any press reporter who writes a hit piece on us is not getting a press credential.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">An Aug. 7 email promises panels with “<b>leading experts on Medical Tyranny, Tech Censorship, Educational Freedom, The China Threat, Pandemic Response</b>, and much more!” Last year, speakers peddled conspiracy theories and called for civil war. After coverage of the events and the crude video by the New York Times, ProPublica, and other outlets, AMP temporarily took down its page.</font></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></span></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">As Right Wing Watch reported last year, “The conference could have been dismissed as a meeting of the fringe, but big-ticket speakers like Don Trump Jr. and Sarah Huckabee Sanders lent legitimacy to the conference, as did more respectable Republican groups like the&nbsp;<b>Leadership Institute, which held a series of trainings in side rooms.</b></span><b>”</b>&nbsp;While AMP 2020 has yet to secure high-profile Trump administration or Trump family speakers, its location at the Trump Doral and the degree of coziness Trump has gotten with such formerly fringe figures say enough.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" /></font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/at-cpac-everything-is-socialism-and-the-only-solution-is-more-trump/" title="At CPAC, Everything Is Socialism and the Only Solution Is More Trump" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" /></a><p class="date" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; font-weight: 700; text-transform: uppercase; line-height: 1;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/at-cpac-everything-is-socialism-and-the-only-solution-is-more-trump/" title="At CPAC, Everything Is Socialism and the Only Solution Is More Trump" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">MARCH 3, 2020 12:01 PM</font></a></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">At CPAC, Everything Is Socialism and the Only Solution Is More Trump</span></font></font></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/trump-uses-coronavirus-fears-to-advance-bannons-far-right-agenda/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/trump-uses-coronavirus-fears-to-advance-bannons-far-right-agenda/</font></a></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When President Donald J. Trump delivered his latest&nbsp;<a title="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/12/business/stock-market-today.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/12/business/stock-market-today.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">market-rattling remarks</a>&nbsp;on the coronavirus pandemic from the Oval Office on Wednesday night, political reporters collectively scratched their heads over the president’s announcement of a ban on travelers from Europe and cargo coming from the continent. (The cargo ban was later&nbsp;<a title="https://www.businessinsider.com/white-house-scrambles-to-clarify-details-on-coronavirus-response-2020-3" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/white-house-scrambles-to-clarify-details-on-coronavirus-response-2020-3" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">walked back</a>.)</font></font></font></div><div class="mce-content-body" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"><div class="layout-constrain--narrow" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-width: 47.2222em; padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em; line-height: 1.5;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But anyone paying attention to the rise of the global right knew what Trump was up to: using well-founded fears of the virus’s spread in the U.S. to strengthen the hand of Stephen K. Bannon, Trump’s erstwhile chief White House strategist, in the former’s&nbsp;<a title="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/marine-le-pen-has-a-plan-to-make-france-great-again-and-steve-bannon-helped/" href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/marine-le-pen-has-a-plan-to-make-france-great-again-and-steve-bannon-helped/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">quest to weaken the European Union</a>.</font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In his&nbsp;<a title="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-address-nation/" href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-address-nation/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">remarks</a>, Trump blamed European travelers for “seeding” the “foreign virus”—first identified in China—on American shores, and blamed Europe for the spread of the new coronavirus, because, he said, the E.U. had not banned travel from China as the U.S. has. “And taking early intense action, we have seen dramatically fewer cases of the virus in the United States than are now present in Europe,” Trump said, conveniently omitting the fact that Europe has a&nbsp;<a title="http://www.euro.who.int/en/countries/france/news/news/2020/2/well-prepared-laboratories-are-first-line-of-defence-against-novel-coronavirus-in-europe" href="http://www.euro.who.int/en/countries/france/news/news/2020/2/well-prepared-laboratories-are-first-line-of-defence-against-novel-coronavirus-in-europe" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">viable testing regimen</a>, while it’s still&nbsp;<a title="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/03/11/814189027/no-guarantee-youll-get-tested-for-covid-19-even-if-your-doctor-requests-it" href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/03/11/814189027/no-guarantee-youll-get-tested-for-covid-19-even-if-your-doctor-requests-it" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">impossible for most people</a>&nbsp;in the U.S. to obtain a&nbsp;<a title="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-11/coronavirus-testing-kits-lack-key-ingredient-causing-confusion" href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-11/coronavirus-testing-kits-lack-key-ingredient-causing-confusion" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">t</a><a title="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-11/coronavirus-testing-kits-lack-key-ingredient-causing-confusion" href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-11/coronavirus-testing-kits-lack-key-ingredient-causing-confusion" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">est for COVID-19</a>, as the new coronavirus is formally known. Consequently, no one knows just how many people in the land of the free are freely walking around, spreading the virus. Nor do we know how many deaths from respiratory failure are due to the new virus.</font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While a number of claims made by Trump in the remarks he delivered from the&nbsp;<a title="http://www.whitehousemuseum.org/furnishings/resolute-desk.htm" href="http://www.whitehousemuseum.org/furnishings/resolute-desk.htm" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">Resolute Desk</a>&nbsp;have since been&nbsp;<a title="https://www.businessinsider.com/white-house-scrambles-to-clarify-details-on-coronavirus-response-2020-3" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/white-house-scrambles-to-clarify-details-on-coronavirus-response-2020-3" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">walked back</a>&nbsp;by various government agencies, it is notable that a&nbsp;<a title="https://www.dhs.gov/news/2020/03/11/homeland-security-acting-secretary-chad-f-wolf-s-statement-presidential-proclamation" href="https://www.dhs.gov/news/2020/03/11/homeland-security-acting-secretary-chad-f-wolf-s-statement-presidential-proclamation" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">clarification</a>&nbsp;from the Department of Homeland Security says that the European countries affected by the executive order signed by Trump include only those in the&nbsp;<a title="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Area" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Area" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">Schengen area</a>, which means those that are party to a multi-nation agreement to maintain open borders among them. Most of those 22 nations are members of the E.U.</font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">In other words, this is an ideological and punitive action against those nations for daring to act in coalition—and for having demonstrated, since 1985, the value of such a compact.</font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Since before his ouster from the White House (for saying&nbsp;<a title="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tasneemnashrulla/steve-bannon-fire-and-fury#.vnlYVWyJW" href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tasneemnashrulla/steve-bannon-fire-and-fury#.vnlYVWyJW" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">mean things</a>&nbsp;about Trump’s son, Don Jr., daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner that were reported in the Michael Wolff book, “Fire and Fury”), Bannon has been working on growing the right-wing nationalist parties in Europe, Brazil and elsewhere, with a foremost goal of busting up the E.U. While he served as an executive at Cambridge Analytica,&nbsp;<a title="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/new-evidence-emerges-of-steve-bannon-and-cambridge-analyticas-role-in-brexit" href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/new-evidence-emerges-of-steve-bannon-and-cambridge-analyticas-role-in-brexit" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">Bannon helped fuel</a>&nbsp;the Brexit referendum that has led to the United Kingdom’s departure from the E.U.</font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In his Wednesday-night remarks, Trump said that the U.K. would be exempt from his European travel ban—never mind that confirmed COVID-19 cases in the U.K. leapt by more than 20 percent since Trump spoke to the American people yesterday from the Oval Office, now standing at 596, with 20 deaths reported. “However,”&nbsp;<a title="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-51857856" href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-51857856" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">according to the BBC</a>, “the actual number of people infected could be between 5,000 and 10,000, the government’s chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance said.”</font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a title="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/12/trump-coronavirus-travel-europe-resorts-126808" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/12/trump-coronavirus-travel-europe-resorts-126808" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">Politico notes</a>&nbsp;that the parameters of his European travel ban functionally exempt travelers from Trump’s own properties in Scotland and Ireland.</font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In addition, Trump’s framing of COVID-19 as a “foreign virus” fits neatly into one of Bannon’s newer projects, a group he calls&nbsp;<a title="https://prospect.org/power/trump-bannon-busting-world/" href="https://prospect.org/power/trump-bannon-busting-world/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">Committee on the Present Danger: China</a></b>, whose major donor, Guo Wengui, appears to be Bannon’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/steve-bannon-guo-wengui-private-jet-campaign-finance-law" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">l</a><a title="https://www.propublica.org/article/steve-bannon-guo-wengui-private-jet-campaign-finance-law" href="https://www.propublica.org/article/steve-bannon-guo-wengui-private-jet-campaign-finance-law" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">atest sugar daddy</a>, now that he’s said to have been&nbsp;<a title="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/04/us/politics/bannon-mercer-trump.html" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/04/us/politics/bannon-mercer-trump.html" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">abandoned</a>&nbsp;by his former patrons, Robert and Rebekah Mercer.</font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">While Trump and Bannon may have their personal differences, it is clear that they’re working in tandem. The constellation of right-wing actors that forms the alliance colloquially known as Bannon World are firmly on team Trump, as was obvious at last month’s Conservative Political Action Conference, which has become, for all intents and purposes, an arm of the Trump campaign. (The conference is run by Matt Schlapp, whose wife Mercedes works for the Trump campaign. Matt Schlapp and his roster of speakers at the four-day conference almost all effusively praised the president, with many urging his reelection.)&nbsp;<b>Bannon World speakers at CPAC included former White House adviser&nbsp;<a title="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/white-house-aide-sebastian-gorka-breitbart-steve-bannon-donald-trump-a7915936.html" href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/white-house-aide-sebastian-gorka-breitbart-steve-bannon-donald-trump-a7915936.html" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">Sebastian Gorka</a>, Brexit Party Chairman&nbsp;<a title="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/may/22/nigel-farage-discussed-fronting-far-right-group-led-by-steve-bannon" href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/may/22/nigel-farage-discussed-fronting-far-right-group-led-by-steve-bannon" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">Nigel Farage</a>, Brazilian politician&nbsp;<a title="https://theintercept.com/2019/08/13/eduardo-bolsonaro-pro-trump-son-brazils-president-track-ambassador-u-s/" href="https://theintercept.com/2019/08/13/eduardo-bolsonaro-pro-trump-son-brazils-president-track-ambassador-u-s/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">Eduardo Bolsonaro</a>&nbsp;and China critic&nbsp;<a title="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/02/28/cpac-conservatives-china-1194212" href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/02/28/cpac-conservatives-china-1194212" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">Gordon Chang</a>.</b></font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The American Conservative Union, which stages CPAC, reported last week that one this year’s CPAC attendees—<a title="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/new-york-doctor-at-cpac-was-coronavirus-patient-zero" href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/new-york-doctor-at-cpac-was-coronavirus-patient-zero" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">revealed today</a>&nbsp;to be the Republican donor Alan Berger—tested positive for the virus after attending the conference.</font></font></font></p><div class="at-below-post addthis_tool" data-url="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/trump-uses-coronavirus-fears-to-advance-bannons-far-right-agenda/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; line-height: 1.5;"><div class="layout-constrain--narrow" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-width: 47.2222em; padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em;"><div class="tags" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; border-top: 5px solid rgb(239, 243, 243); margin-bottom: 2em; padding-top: 1em;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; font-weight: 700;">Tags:</span>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/donald-j-trump/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">Donald J. Trump</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/donald-trump-jr/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">Donald Trump Jr.</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/eduardo-bolsonaro/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">Eduardo Bolsonaro</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/gordon-chang/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">Gordon Chang</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/guo-wengui/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">Guo Wengui</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/ivanka-trump/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">Ivanka Trump</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/jared-kushner/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">Jared Kushner</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/matt-schlapp/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">Matt Schlapp</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/mercedes-schlapp/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">Mercedes Schlapp</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/michael-wolff/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">Michael Wolff</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/miles-kwok/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">Miles Kwok</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/nigel-farage/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">Nigel Farage</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/rebekah-mercer/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">Rebekah Mercer</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/robert-mercer/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">Robert Mercer</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/sebastian-gorka/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">Sebastian Gorka</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/steve-bannon/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">Steve Bannon</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/topics/bannon-world/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">Bannon World</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/topics/coronavirus/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">Coronavirus</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/topics/european-travel-ban/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">European travel ban</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/topics/global-far-right/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">global far-right</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/organizations/american-conservative-union/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">American Conservative Union</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/organizations/bbc/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">BBC</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/organizations/committee-on-the-present-danger-china/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">Committee on the Present Danger: China</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/organizations/department-of-homeland-security/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">Department of Homeland Security</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/organizations/european-union/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">European Union</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/organizations/politico/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">Politico</a></font></font></font></p></div></div><div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></font></font></p></div></div></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">=</font></font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>