Two days with former Republicans who won’t bend the knee for Trump

Two weeks ago, after searching unsuccessfully at a MAGA gathering, amidst the madness of Trump/Musk, for prudence and humility, I noted the irony. If you can’t find conservative virtues at the Conservative Political Action Conference, where can you find them?

A couple days later I found my answer at a conference called Principles First. Held just 15 minutes north of CPAC by car, this coming together of mostly former Republicans — yet more than a few independents and Democrats — was lightyears away in terms of both content and mood.

In 2019 Heath Mayo and a small group “on the right and center-right” started this grassroots, almost entirely volunteer-led organization. The idea: to offer an alternative to CPAC for people not down with demagoguery. Over the years, the event has grown rapidly.

The 2025 rendition, held at the JW Marriott, a few blocks from the White House, had a capacity of 1,200 people. I was fortunate to get in off the wait list, especially because I hadn’t even heard of Principles First until a few minutes before I registered. Many others remained stuck on the wait list — or, in the case of a few Proud Boys recently released from prison, were informed at the entry point that the event was full.

The conference lineup featured bright and thoughtful luminaries. I had heard of nearly everyone. More than a few I had admired for years. Speakers and panelists included political journalists, campaign strategists, current and former elected officials, ex-FBI and Justice Department leaders, DC Capitol Police you’ve seen on TV, a chess grandmaster (yes, you guessed it: Garry Kasparov), and a Mark Cuban (who gets his own category).

What this disparate group had in common were two things: a willingness to see the new Trump Administration with clear eyes, and a commitment to working together to make things better — or, at the very least, contain the damage.

Here is a summary of my observations from the event.

1. “We will not bend a knee.”

Heath Mayo opened with this, and it set the tone for the entire gathering. After spending time at CPAC with an army of loyalists for Trump, Vance, and Musk — with much fawning and narry a word of dissent—I was relieved to encounter at Principles First such fierce resolve to stand for principle. It offered evidence, I felt, of not only strength, but also dignity. Whereas at CPAC I couldn’t shake the sense of feeling sullied, Principles First offered cleansing. (Obligatory caveat: the CPAC crowd would say the exact opposite, and in less respectful terms. They saw their job as ridding America of the supposed rank corruption of Biden).

Nearly everyone I met had a story of the moment they realized that Trump and MAGA weren’t for them. In many cases, this awakening meant leaving the party to which they — and, in some cases, generations of their family — had belonged for decades. Not an easy decision to make. But far better to set themselves apart than supplicate themselves to a man and movement they couldn’t stomach. As former RNC chair, Michael Steele, put it: “Back in 2015, I looked the devil in the eye and said ‘Hell no, we ain’t doin’ this!’”

Some at Principles First came to this much later. One man, Rich Logis, was a true-believing MAGA activist until 2022. Now he runs an organization called Leaving MAGA. People who have stepped away from MAGA or contemplating doing so reach out to him for guidance. His advice to anyone whose friend or family member one day announces they’ve left MAGA: whatever you do, don’t say, “I told you so.”

Mark Cuban put this more colorfully: “You marry someone your family hates. For the first six months, you discover that there are dead bodies in the basement. You don’t admit anything.”

2. “Look to your left and to your right. You are not alone.”

According to neuroscientists, one of the brain’s social needs is for relatedness — connection with other human beings. When denied this nourishment for even brief periods of time, the brain goes into fight, flight, and freeze mode. Humans start to act like lizards.

For Republicans who felt abandoned by their party, independents who voted for Kamala Harris, and Democrats, Trump’s second election has evoked, among many other reactions, a feeling of aloneness. How, with everything we know about this man, could the American people have put him back in the White House? Am I the only one who see this that this is mind-blowingly wrong?

Even though 74 million people voted for Harris, and even though Trump fell short of a popular majority, it has been easy to look out at the rest of America and wonder: has everyone gone mad? Is there nobody here sane enough to have my back?

The answer from Principles First: yes, someone’s got your back. Lots of people have got your back. They may have voted for the other guy in 2012 or 2008 (or 2004 or…). They may believe in a strong safety net while you favor smaller government, or vice versa. They may be someone whose views you once distrusted. (Bill Kristol graciously agreed to pose for a photo with me).

But, given the chaos, corruption, and sheer madness of the Trump Administration, we can set aside those differences. With a cause as urgent as it is great, we’re all in this together. And we will all get through this together.

This may be one reason why it was easy at Principles First to connect with folks. From smiles around the coffee table to long conversations about political origins, I rarely went more than a few minutes without genuine connections. And this happened without me needing to take all the initiative. In this respect, the contrast with CPAC couldn’t have been more stark. At CPAC, although I made myself available for small moments of mutual recognition — a smile, a glance, a simple comment — the people around me were rarely game. After that experience, whose lack of warmth was obvious only in retrospect, the people at Principles First were refreshingly inviting.

3. “Our founders gave us three independent branches of government. We now have two. Congress is gone.”

There was widespread sentiment among the speakers and audience that the GOP-led Congress wasn't just derelict in its most basic duties, like guarding the power of the purse, but had actually given up its status as an independent branch of government — offered it, submissively and fearfully, to the Trump White House.

This is an astonishing claim. Yet, nearly everything Elon Musk is doing — shutting down agencies, destroying programs, canceling grants, and firing people — is stepping on Congress’s turf. He’s doing things he has no business doing. It’s just plain unconstitutional. Once Congress appropriates money, the executive branch doesn’t get to decide on a whim to stop spending it. That’s not how the Constitution works. And that’s not how the country has functioned for most of the past two and a half centuries.

Former GOP Congressman Joe Walsh, who was in the Tea Party and voted for Trump in 2016, put the case bluntly: if you think the Republican Congress is going to do anything to stop Trump, you are fooling yourself.

Ouch.

And: no shit.

Yesterday, I mentioned this point to an old friend who teaches American history. He sees things differently. If Congress cuts Social Security, he told me, then there will be hell to pay from seniors…and there are a lot of them! This could make GOP members of Congress switch tacts on a dime. Good point. Yet, if you’re a Republican congressman or senator, bucking Trump to regain seniors’ trust means placing the following bet: I’m more likely to lose the general election by pissing off seniors than I am to get primaried because I’ve crossed Trump.

Which risk is greater? Only time will tell. But right now, the Republican Congress is looking mighty pliant. If they have a backbone, they’re really good at hiding it.

4. “You’ll go from 100 cents on the dollar to zero by the time you’re done”

This was Chris Christie’s advice to General John Kelly during Trump’s first term. Kelly had just been named White House Chief of Staff, replacing long-time GOP Party Chair Reince Priebus. Kelly reached out to Christie with a question: you know Trump as well as anyone. How can I work well with him?

Christie said it’s very simple. “You’ll go from 100 cents on the dollar to zero by the time you’re done.” Here he was referring to the value Trump placed on Kelly. At the start, Kelly was solid gold. But by the time they parted ways, Trump would consider him worthless.

Although Christie didn’t say this explicitly, the same shift of valuation can happen in the mind of the general public. After you’ve worked for Trump, your reputation gets soiled. Nobody comes out looking better than when they went in. That’s why they call it a devil’s bargain. Sacrificing your reputation and integrity is in the nature of the beast.

Sure, some Trump loyalists like his former attorney Michael Cohen see the error of their ways and then go to great lengths to clear their names. But the stench of Trump’s corruption and meanness follows them for the rest of their lives. Think about it: would you hire Cohen to represent you legally?

5. “The opportunity: create calm and order out of chaos.”

Democrats and Never-Trumpers seem to have settled on a word to describe the new Administration: chaos. I hear it in nearly every podcast interview and talk. Principles First was no different, and for good reason.

The first six weeks of Trump 2.0 has contained more disruption in more places affecting more people than I can recall in my lifetime. Each day, when I look online at the Washington Post or New York Times, I discover stories — at the bottom of the page, well below entertainment news — that in any other Administration would have been the lead story for weeks, if not months.

Remember in George W. Bush’s second term when he fired seven U.S. Attorneys? It was a shot heard around the world. People talked about it constantly for weeks. Yet, in the new Trump Administration, two or three equally momentous (and often unconstitutional or illegal) events happen every single day. It’s nearly impossible to keep up with the number of agencies that Musk and his team of 20-somethings has sought to decimate. I recently learned that the CDC no longer provides data on Covid, the measles, or other communicable diseases. You have to go to the American Medical Association web site for that. Meanwhile, Trump announces across-the-board tariffs one day — saying they’re definitely going to happen — then cancels some of them the next. And then there are the dozens of actions that Trump and Vance have taken to switch teams in the international arena (more on this below).

And this is just a snapshot of the madness.

That’s the bad news. But within it is an opportunity.

If you’re surrounded by chaos, be a voice of calm. Walk with a steady gait. Speak slowly and calmly. Let it be known that although you may be angry, you will not be thrown off center (at least not for long). Unlike Trump, you are a rock. Dependable. Someone to count on.

Will the public notice? Will it make a difference? Who the hell knows? But there is intrinsic value in being a rock. It feels rewarding. Like you’ve stayed true to center while everything around you has sought to drag you off course.

6. “The United States has changed teams.”

Principles First took place a week before Trump and Vance tag-team mugged Zelensky in the Oval Office. (See my transcribed interview with Boston College philosophy professor David Storey: Why Trump and Vance looked weak and Zelensky looked strong). Before the U.S. announced it was halting all military aid to Ukraine. Before Trump decided to suspend all intelligence sharing with Ukraine. (Retribution for Zelensky speaking up for his country? Think again. Mexico just agreed to all of Trump’s demands and still got hit with tariffs. That’s why Timothy Snyder calls it “sadopopulism.”.

Yet, even then, signs were apparent in Washington and Munich that the Trump Administration had changed teams — from Europe to Moscow, from liberal democracy to dictatorship, from rule of law to rule by force, from the invaded to the invader, from the courageous Zelensky to the vicious Putin.

JD Vance had recently met with the leader of German’s extreme far-right AfD party, endorsed that party as a political partner, and shamed German political leaders for refusing to interact with AfD. Bill Kristol, now at The Bulwark, a sponsor of the conference, made a revealing comment about this: “Marine Le Pen [leader of France’s far-right National Front] will not sit in the European Parliament with AfD because they are such far extreme fascists. So it is astonishing that Vance and Musk have endorsed it.”

Tom Nichols of The Atlantic pointed out that the U.S. is “running interference for one of the most dangerous war criminals of our time.” He was referring, of course, to Putin. This conjured in my mind the image from football of Trump, Vance and their 350-pound foreign policy linemen physically blocking the U.S.’s long-time allies out of the way — literally knocking them to the ground — to enable Putin to reach the strong man end zone untouched.

Garry Kasparov, chess grandmaster and long-time critic of Putin, shared an interesting observation about dictators that I had never before considered: they “often lie about what they’ve done. But very often, they tell you what they’re going to do. Russian propaganda has been saying 24/7 that Ukraine does not exist.” If a country doesn’t exist, then there is no border to cross, no invasion, and no crime. Just let Russia be.

Events in the past few days have further strengthened these assessments. The entire post-1945 system of global alliances and security agreements seems about to fall apart — or at least lose the U.S. to the other side. These are uncharted territories indeed.

This reminds me of the people who have been confidently writing for years that Russiagate was obviously a “hoax.” I wonder: do they still?

7. “I don’t know if the FBI will open up a counterintelligence case against Russia ever again.”

One of the most revealing panels was on the topic of law enforcement and national security. This is a world with language, rules, and norms all of its own, one that I do not know well enough even to fake like I understand it. Two days before, Kash Patel had been confirmed by the Senate to run the FBI (to the standing applause of the CPAC crowd, which I witnessed with a grimace I could barely hide). So, it was incredibly useful to hear the perspective of Frank Figliuzzi, former counterintelligence chief for the FBI, and former U.S. Assistant Attorney Glenn Kirschner, on a panel moderated by Asha Rangappa, formerly an FBI agent and Associate Dean at Yale Law School.

My key takeaways:

• The charge by Trump, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and Patel that Biden’s Justice Department was “weaponized” is not only ungrounded, but the opposite of reality. In Kirschner’s words, “Feds don’t bring cases unless they are damn near rock solid.” If anything, former AG Merrick Garland was far too meticulous, dragging the department’s feet and delaying the process until it had outlived its potential impact.
• Kash Patel is worse than I thought. He was not only unqualified professionally and a poor choice because he despises FBI agents. He’s also completely untrustworthy. A judge in a recent case refused to allow him to testify because the judge assessed him to be a “non-credible witness,” based sheerly on his record of untruthfulness. Two months ago, I wrote that this is a Cabinet of buffoons, bombthrowers, and bottom-feeders. Patel appear to be all three.
• The FBI is ripe for being turned upside down and used to punish enemies, because it operates not on strict and enforceable rules, but on “guidelines.” These guidelines work because of systematic oversight at every level. Under Kash Patel, Figliuzzi said, “You can kiss that goodbye. We are destined to repeat the abuses of J. Edgar Hoover and maybe even worse.” Remember that this isn’t a paranoid leftie speaking. It’s the FBI’s counterintelligence chief. (Patel would have you believe the FBI is filled with lefties. He’s wrong. Remember: a judge declared Patel a non-credible witness.)
• Not everyone agrees with Timothy Snyder’s advice to government employees to stick around as long as possible. For Snyder, this falls under the heading of “Don’t obey in advance.” It’s also a way to delay bad things from happening. For Kirschner, “the principled resignation is the best route to preserve democracy.” He cited the examples of Danielle Sassoon, the U.S. Attorney who quit to protest the Justice Department’s order to cancel corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams (an obvious quid pro quo related to Adams’s immigration decisions) and Denise Cheung, the veteran prosecutor who refused to faciliate the rescinding of $20 billion in climate and clean energy grants. Figliuzzi responded by noting that everyone is in a different situation — as I often like to say about leadership development: different strokes for different folks. Here’s how I see it: these are excruciatingly hard choices to make. What matters most is how government employees decide. Are they acting purely on emotion or a single criterion? Or are they taking all of these perspectives into account?

8. “Don’t underestimate your own voice”

I have to admit that the conference was more sobering than inspiring. Such is life when there is much to be sobered by. Yet amidst the many informed assessments of the brutal reality that is Trump 2.0, words of wisdom and encouragement periodically broke through.

Followers of my writing will know that I’m not a fan of betting the farm on hope — of treating it as the one and only alternative to despair. Hope is useful, just limited, and by constantly looking for signs of it, we miss other ways of relating to the world. We miss other moods, like resolve and curiosity.

Principles First was filled with resolve. I’ve already highlighted multiple expressions of that above. Perhaps the most impressive example appeared when four Capitol Police (three former, one active) took the stage. Daniel Hodges, Aquilino Gonell, Michael Fanone, and Harry Dunn. These are men who defended the Capitol on January 6, who protected Senators and members of Congress from the violent mobs ready to tear them to shreds — at great personal cost.

Hodges was assaulted and pinned against a wall. Gonell fought with 40 people over 6 hours and at one point was trapped beneath the crowd, losing so much oxygen he thought he was going to die. Fanone was dragged down steps, beaten with pipes, and stunned with a Taser. Dunn was attacked physically and with racial slurs. All suffer with PTSD. All continue to get harassed by MAGA supporters.

The moment they took the stage, each with a different demeanors yet resolute in his own way, my eyes started to tear up. Here they were, only days after their attackers had been pardoned by Trump, showing up in public to speak about the principles they had defended. Hodges remains on the force and — get this — was on duty during Trump’s Inauguration on January 20. He stood in protection of the man who released his tormenters and all who cheered this release.

This is resolve.

It also highlights the power of small numbers of people to save a democracy, at least for a day. This is something that Simon Rosenberg, longtime Democratic Party strategist and founder Hopium, emphasized. “The legacy media,” he noted, “is a laundromat of normalcy for Trump.” Relying on legacy media, as Democrats have for much of the Trump era, is therefore a mistake. The voice of the pro-democracy movement, he said, isn’t loud enough.

This makes new media, like MeidasTouch — which I had never heard of yet which he said had just beaten out Joe Rogan that week — so crucial. Rosenberg challenged each person in the room to take steps each day to protect democracy. On Hopium, in which I am a paying subscriber, he encourages people to call their member of Congress each day with clear and succinct requests, to show up at town halls, to make their voices heard, and to tell others. The Hopium comments section each day contains reports of what people have tried and how it turned out. As Rosenberg said at Principles First, “Don’t underestimate your own voice.”

A new old game: power through force

This review would be incomplete without mention of the most newsworthy part of the conference. On the afternoon of the second day, John Bolton was preparing to speak. Bolton is Trump’s former National Security Advisor. He recently lost his security protection (instituted in response to an Iranian assassination attempt), an act of revenge by Trump for refusing to bend the knee. As I was entering the ballroom, a flood of people steadily walked out. After we ascended two escalators, we learned that the reason for the evacuation was a bomb threat from an email account under the name of Enrique Tarrio, one of the Proud Boy seditionists who had tried to enter the event the day before (and, after refused entry, had shouted slurs at the Capitol Police who were exiting the conference).

After a delay, we returned downstairs and resumed the event. Heath Mayor said that we would not be cowed by threats. We weren’t. Having said this, the bomb threat was a reminder of the extraordinary shift happening in our government and country. A strongman is in charge. Although he may be weak compared to Putin and arguably Musk, he and his team are willing to use force and incite others to do the same. It is this regression to what feels like an earlier period of human history yet actually exists in each of us at every moment as the primal power drive instinct, that has shocked so many people. Although power through force rather than law is an old game, for generations of people who grew up taking liberal democracy and the rule of law for granted, it feels new.

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