Unfair Park from p10 speech to some 400 attendees. At the time, Republican President Richard Nixon was wading through he Watergate scandal. Throughout the conference that year, A participants expressed concern about whether Nixon could lead to the party’s de- mise at the polls. “Why should we go down with the ship?” one asked, The Associated Press reported. Howard Phillips, the Office of Economic Opportunity’s former acting director, warned that there was a “very great danger of people identifying the conserva- tive movement with Nixon.” Many conference speakers skirted those concerns, and Reagan ignored them alto- gether. Ray Humphreys, a Washington cam- paign consultant, suggested that attendees tell anyone who pressed them on Nixon, “Hell, I wasn’t within 500 miles of Watergate.” If a Republican president’s supporters’ attempting to undermine the opposing party at the expense of democracy sounds like a familiar scenario, that’s because it is. Five decades after Watergate, CPAC Dallas comes amid increasingly worrisome revela- tions about Trump’s actions during the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. In June, former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchison testified before the Congressional committee investigating the pro-Trump riot. She painted a picture of an erratic president who hoped to overturn the results of a democratic election. According to Hutchison, Trump had ap- proved of the Capitol rioters who chanted death threats against then Vice President Mike Pence. She said Trump knew that some of his supporters were armed in D.C. that day but urged them to head to the Capi- tol anyway. He attempted to wrestle the steering wheel away from a Secret Service agent who refused to drive him to the Capi- tol, Hutchison claimed. (The Secret Service denied that story, as did Trump.) But that’s where the broad similarities stop. In 1974, the Republican Party might have worried that the Nixon administration’s moves against democratic norms would tank their party. In 2022, at CPAC Dallas, Trump still reigned supreme. Just browse the vendor booths: You’ll find T-shirts that say Trump 2024, “Make America Great Again” flags and even a cardboard cutout with the bizarrely ever-present Trump’s head on Rambo’s body. Or simply listen to the speakers, who in- clude, a Jan. 6 Capitol riot defendant named Brandon Straka, who participated in a panel called the “The Rise of the Democratic Gu- lag.” (In fact, Straka spent no time in lockup and reportedly provided “significant infor- mation” to the FBI about “Stop the Steal” rally organizers as part of a plea deal.) “Ten years ago, CPAC was the Star Wars bar scene for the Republican Party. Now, they’re the main cast,” the Lone Star Proj- ect’s Angle said, arguing that Republicans like Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick are there “auditioning feverishly to try to be in that main cast.” Angle added that CPAC’s evolution mir- 12 12 rors broader shifts within the GOP. “CPAC really is a reflection of the point of view that t the first CPAC conference in Janu- ary 1974, then California Gov. Ron- ald Reagan delivered the inaugural in “precious metals,” such as gold. One table sold a board game simulating the “stolen” 2020 presidential election. Back in the ballroom, Republican heavy hitters took the stage for the final day. U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert fired an opening salvo that left the crowd wild. “It is so good to be in a room full of patriots who love freedom, who love this country and who love the greatest president in my lifetime: Donald J. Trump,” she said, pacing the stage. Boebert ran through a list of grievances: COVID-19 vaccine mandates for military members, lockdowns, the so-called “invasion” on the border. “We need to investigate Fauci, we need to defund Fauci and we damn well need to prosecute Anthony Fauci,” she shouted, the audience erupting. She held up her phone and fired off a tweet to Twitter, Ins- tagram and Facebook, which she threatened would “pay the price for silencing Americans.” Capping off the conference, Trump ar- Patrick Strickland guides the actions, the words, the decisions made by Republican elected officials, and we see that from the front row in Texas,” he said. “I mean, Greg Abbott’s whole scams and schemes and stunts on the border are directed to the types of people that attend the CPAC convention.” O n Friday morning, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, who went on Tucker Carl- son’s show earlier this year to apolo- gize for once calling Capitol rioters “domestic terrorists,” addressed the crowd. The Texas senator’s speech was mostly made up of limp jokes he’d recycled from previous appearances, including at a conser- vative summit last month. Nancy Pelosi would eventually lose an election and fly away from D.C. “on a broom.” Anthony Fauci is “only 5 feet tall.” Cruz’s pronouns, he shouted to a raucous audience, were “kiss my ass.” Cruz wrapped up by describing his audience as “the vanguard,” “courageous heroes” and “dangerous radicals.” Later that afternoon, Texas Attorney Gen- eral Ken Paxton served up what was possibly the driest speech up until that point. He ig- nored the podium, walking back and forth on the stage, and touted his failed efforts to over- turn the 2020 presidential election results. When it came to the supposedly widespread problem of election fraud, he blamed — sur- prise — George Soros. If Paxton’s speech strikes you as repeti- tive, that’s because CPAC Dallas is, like many political gatherings, an echo chamber. Panels are populated with people who agree on almost everything. Stage interviews are made up of softball questions. The audience is almost entirely Republican. Speakers mostly go unchallenged. It’s a constant reel of rightwing politicians, media figures and activists recycling buzzwords. Cancel cul- ture, the amorphous “woke mob,” Black Lives Matter, immigration, socialism and Democrats are all bad. Faith, family, country and Trump are all good. If you were to pick a random speech or panel on any day and at- tend, you may as well have attended every event on the program. Repetitive or not, the show plods on. Af- ter all, people pay good money to listen to that three-day loop of conservative talking Panels at the CPAC gathering in Dallas shared a long list of grievances. points. Tickets range between $98 and $3,000. Those who attended Friday night’s finale, the Cattleman’s Ball, forked over $375 for that event alone. Bigshots who spon- sored a table dished out between $5,000 and $10,000, according to CPAC’s website. And what do they get for all that cash? Some grub, a drink or two and a chance to hear former Trump advisor Steve Bannon shout much of the same fear-laden rhetoric he spouts on his podcast every week. As the attendees dined, Bannon issued an apocalyptic battle cry: “We’re at war. I like our odds as long as every one of you is com- mitted.” He added, “Divine providence works in mysterious ways. I was there — Donald J. Trump is providential. God worked through Trump.” C PAC lists Sunday as the final day, but truth be told, that’s a day of the Lord, and the Lord only directs CPAC at- tendees to show up for an hour-long Protes- tant prayer service at 8 a.m. When it came to speeches and panel discussions, Saturday was the last day — and what a day it was. Among the vendors, business was steady. At a booth for the Trump Store USA, a popup shop off Interstate 35 in Gainesville, customers perused Trump hats, bejeweled Trump purses and Trump shirts. A man be- hind the table said of Trump, “When daddy comes to town, everything gets to hopping.” Nearby, another booth had pamphlets for the Convention of States Action, a Houston- based advocacy group. Cyndie Phillips passed out U.S. Constitution booklets already dog- eared to the page bearing Article V. Their goal, she said, is to persuade states to call a convention where they’d be able to propose constitutional amendments, but she insisted that the group was “nonpartisan.” Later, in the main ballroom, a Convention of States Action commercial blasted on the screens put it a little differently, calling on attendees to help them stop “the radical left.” Behind another booth, a banner cele- brated the “post-Roe generation,” offering anti-abortion T-shirts and apparel. Yet an- other booth encouraged attendees to invest rived to deliver the closing remarks. He launched his nearly two-hour speech by showering his most loyal Republican sup- porters with praise. Trump moved onto a long list of com- plaints. He repeated the false claim that the November 2020 election had been fixed. He complained of “radical left socialist lunatics and fascists.” He tallied off violent offenses he said were committed by undocumented migrants. He warned of “terrorists” and “criminals” crossing the border. He griped about Biden’s presidency, which, he as- serted, would cause “American civilization to collapse.” He said that the U.S. was “on the edge of abyss,” turning into “Venezuela on steroids” and promised to “throw off the shackles of globalism.” It was much like most of his speeches: apocalyptic and dark. He said the country needs more police, more Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, more Border Patrol officers, more military power in the world. Police need to readopt stop-and-frisk policies. Drugs dealers need to be executed. Cities around the country need to clamp down on crime, he added, claiming that the “blood of innocent victims” flows through the streets thanks to “stabbings, shootings, stranglings, rapes and murders.” He attacked “the homeless and the drug addicted and the dangerously deranged.” Outside the Hilton Anatole, some polls sug- gested Trump was losing support among the GOP. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has emerged as his greatest potential contender in the Re- publican primary. In July, a study conducted by The New York Times and Siena College found that nearly two-thirds of Republicans 35 years or younger would vote against the for- mer president, as would 65% of those with a college degree. But inside CPAC, around 69% of some 1,000 attendees who participated in a straw poll picked Trump. It was familiar rhetoric from the former president, but he had sandwiched the most telling moment in the middle of his speech. He had thought hard about the question of who constitutes the most persecuted Ameri- can. That person is, he said, Donald Trump. “I’m always being persecuted,” he declared. He is, in fact, “the most persecuted person in the history of our country.” As for the crowd at CPAC Dallas, who broke out in “USA” chants here and there, they all agreed. MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2014 AUGUST 11–17, 2022 DALLAS OBSERVER DALLAS OBSERVER | CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | MOVIES | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | FEATURE | SCHUTZE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS | CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | CULTURE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS dallasobserver.comdallasobserver.com
