The Review at CPAC: A Dispatch From the Heart of the Conservative Movement

This is the first in a series of articles in which senior staff of The Dartmouth Review comment on their visit to CPAC in Orlando as members of the media.

Today is the third day of CPAC, and a sense of anticipation is clearly pervading the conference, held at the Rosen Shingle Creek hotel in Orlando. Former President Trump will be speaking at 7pm, and the preceding twenty-some-odd individuals who have spoken so far today have all made references, both direct and indirect, to this fact.

In a spirit marking an increasingly confident and coherent political opposition, Wednesday and Thursday showed the right-wing speakers and audience to be vehemently anti-Biden and anti-Fauci. From the start, speeches were combative, and masks were effectively nonexistent.

While these have remained constants today, there has also been a shift in the dynamics of the conference. Since the late morning, a seemingly endless line for general admission, with a wait time numbering in the hours, has weaved in and out of the hotel and wrapped well into its massive parking lot. Security has also been very tight, with uniformed secret service members (doubtless present because of Trump’s arrival this evening) performing methodical checks of bags and people at the entrance to the conference.

Since at least the early afternoon, members of a packed crowd have refused to give up their seats. One may safely presume that they are desperate to maintain their spots to hear Trump this evening. Today’s many speakers, for their part, have been steadfast in playing to a Trump-loving audience and have suggested in determinedly unsubtle ways that Trump could, should, or will run in 2024. To this end, a reading of the room suggests an unabashedly pro-Trump atmosphere, both on the stage and in the audience. It is worth noting, though, that there are also far more media outlets here today, a fact that reinforces the palpable anticipation at the conference. Today’s speakers are functioning as mere hors d’œuvres precipitating a particular main course. They are whetting the Trumpian appetite of an audience, donned in audacious and patriotic garb, that has been deprived of its favorite America First entrée.

One of the most delectable speakers in this vein was Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), who received a thunderous standing ovation upon his introduction to the audience. Jordan began in his typically rough and forceful fashion, defining the base of the Democratic Party as “the super mega-wealthy and people who don’t work.” The Republican Party, he declared to great applause, consists of “everybody else.” In so doing, Jordan evoked something in the nature of the “real America” argument that is becoming central to the populist right.

Jordan criticized Biden on a wide range of topics, including the border, inflation, and increased crime in inner cities. The most intriguing, however, was his assertion that Democrats are breaking democratic norms in their quest to attain power and implement far-left policies. This portion of his speech was, in effect, a potent response to the Democrats’ newest campaign platform: that the Republican Party is a threat to democracy, and this necessitates the election of Democrats to “save” democracy. Jordan was convincing and compelling as he declared the opposite, casting the anti-democratic shadow instead onto President Biden and the Democrats. The point that Jordan made here is a good one—the Democrats can hardly be described as saviors of democracy. Jordan submitted that they are undermining democratic norms.

Jordan highlighted attacks on the First Amendment, by way of cancel culture, that have become all too commonplace in recent years. He warned also of elected Democrats’ overwhelming preference to pack the Supreme Court, abolish the Electoral College, and eliminate the filibuster. This is likely an approximation or preview of sorts, in capsule form, of the GOP’s response to the Democratic platform to come in 2022 and 2024.

Another compelling speaker today was Sen. John Kennedy [“no, not that John Kennedy”] (R-LA). Kennedy has made a name for himself in the Senate as a fiercely intelligent and tough questioner on the Judiciary Committee, who nevertheless espouses a good deal of homespun common sense that is often hilarious and endears him to the ordinary American. Kennedy’s speech had a loose framework, to be sure, but it was one which any conservative would find appealing: he deeply respects the brilliance of our founders, and he dislikes seeing ill-considered and generally illogical policies being instituted by our current leaders. Or, as Kennedy bluntly put it, our country was “founded by geniuses” and is “run by idiots.”

Kennedy gleefully expanded upon this premise and applied it to various pressing issues today, including inflation (“I don’t like to brag about the expensive places I’ve been to, but this morning I went to the gas station”) and voting reform (“We need an election day, not an election month … I believe you should have to prove who you say you are when you vote”). These and other modest yet insightful witticisms were met with enthusiastic applause by the audience, and altogether I think Kennedy was so well received by the Trumpian audience because his pointed observations align very closely with the Trumpian maxim of “telling it like it is.”

I spoke to several conservative reporters near me in the media filing center as well as some ordinary attendees in the general seating area, and I found that many of them were supportive of possible 2024 presidential runs from Jordan, Kennedy, and other speakers. Nevertheless, most suggested that these popular (principally congressional) Republicans wait until 2028. The CPAC consensus seems to be that Trump is going to run again, and at least some people think that other Republicans should stay out of his way. (That, of course, is unlikely to happen. But among high-profile speakers at CPAC, I doubt that many, if any, will enter a primary against Trump.)

It remains to be seen what will transpire this evening at 7pm. I am told that Trump often enjoys arriving “fashionably late.” He will certainly receive a roaring welcome; I and my fellow Reviewers fully expect him to hint at a 2024 run as well. The extent to which he references the 2022 midterms will also be telling—will he be a Republican first, or will he speak primarily of himself?