CPAC Struggles to Move Past 2020

Former president Donald Trump speaks to media at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., July 7, 2021. (Eduardo Munoz/Reuters)

The latest gathering was a missed opportunity.

The Conservative Political Action Conference meet-up known as “America UnCanceled” wrapped up over the weekend with notables such as Kristi Noem, Glenn Beck, and Donald Trump delivering fiery speeches. The conference, hosted by the American Conservative Union, addressed a wide range of topics, but no single issue was more important than the 2020 election cycle. And while panelists and speakers positioned themselves as future conservative leaders, they often seemed more interested in justifying previous losses than planning future victories.

Take Big Tech regulation. There has been a great deal of conservative concern about Big Tech’s influence over our political discourse. So, unsurprisingly, it was a recurrent topic of conversation for the panelists at CPAC. North Carolina congressman Madison Cawthorn, the first speaker at the conference, immediately moved into a discussion of Big Tech, calling social-media platforms a “modern town square.” Panelists blasted large tech companies for censoring certain views. The issue was particularly salient given that a video of “America UnCanceled” was removed from YouTube. This perfectly typified the frustration many conservatives have with Big Tech.

However, even the rhetoric here seemed to revolve around the 2020 presidential loss. Speakers did not so much discuss how conservatives should advance to change the culture in Silicon Valley, or how to more effectively use social-media marketing, as they did use the issue to re-litigate the 2020 election. While the latest Trump lawsuit generated a great deal of attention, conservative speakers complained often about Big Tech’s alleged role in helping Joe Biden get elected, such as the cover-up of the Hunter Biden laptop scandal.

I talked to numerous people in attendance about their thoughts on the election. They ranged from highly skeptical to downright incensed about the “stolen election.” While some were holding out hope for a Trump 2024 bid, others believed that Trump would be reinstated by later this year or next. One had remade a “Trump 2020” sign to show “Trump 2021,” and he was hardly alone in this hope. One supporter assured me that Trump would be in the White House by the end of July. (Charles C. W. Cooke has already explained how this is not possible.)

The speakers and panelists at CPAC dabbled in election skepticism almost as much as the audience did. T. W. Shannon, a former speaker of the house in Oklahoma, said he was tired of the fact that “Democrats always say the Republicans cheated” whenever they lose. He said he was glad Republicans are finally learning to employ the same tactic. Bubba Saulsbury, an industrialist and major Republican donor, added that big donors are “nervous to donate to anything that isn’t [about protecting] election integrity” because of voter-fraud fears. Trump himself aired his grievances about his 2020 loss.

To be sure, the CPAC agenda was packed with Republican activists eager to hear about hot issues such as immigration, critical race theory, and the failures of the Biden administration. In more grounded moments of actual policy discussion, elected officials talked in detail about criminal-justice reform and the border crisis. It is important that conservatives advocate for greater election integrity. Yet, for a conference designed to increase support for conservative causes, it was disappointing to hear so much energy directed still at the previous cycle.

After a disappointing end to the 2020 election for many pro-Trump voters and a highly divisive end to the Trump presidency, conservative leaders need to connect the Trump base to the broader Republican base, which is fractured even without them. They could have looked to future Republican victories in the 2022 midterm elections. Instead, many of the CPAC speakers focused on airing past problems and attacking fellow party members. Republican leaders will need to do better in the coming months.

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