What I saw last Thursday at a MAGA conference

When people breaks laws and create chaos, my first instinct isn’t typically to seek out large crowds supportive of these actions and spend the day together cheering the results.

Yet, this is exactly what I did (all but the cheering) last Thursday just outside of Washington DC by attending CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference. (Two days later, I attended the anti-Trump Principles First conference. Here’s my report).

To be fair, I registered for CPAC before Elon Musk vaporized USAID, before Donald Trump fired top military brass without cause, before the Department of Justice threatened FBI agents for following lawful orders, and before we learned about the hundreds of other unconstitutional, illegal, and un-conservative assaults on bedrock American norms and traditions.

Yet, before signing up for CPAC, I did understand two things about CPAC: one, it had long been the “red-meat” conference for the Right (less about intellectual engagement than punchy speechmaking) and, two, in recent years the conference had become entirely a MAGA and Trump affair.

As a result, I wasn’t expecting to bump into Nancy Pelosi or David Frum there, nor did I imagine I’d hear any criticism of Donald Trump and his new Administration.

Nonetheless, after years of hearing — and holding negative mental images — about CPAC, I wanted to check out for myself what all the fuss was about. Who shows up? What’s the energy like? What storylines recur through speeches and panels? And, perhaps most importantly, what does it feel like for me to spend eight hours in the midst of a movement that in my assessment is pushing the country I love off of a cliff?

I didn’t go in with the intention of writing a “hit piece” or summarizing my observations at all. But several friends and acquaintances wanted to know what it was like, and it was truly a one-of-a-kind experience, so I decided to write this essay.

As it happens, a couple hours into writing this, I tested positive for Covid. Based on the timing of my symptoms, it’s likely I caught Covid at CPAC. Perhaps this happened while sitting next to a guy wearing a “Make America Healthy Again” button. Or maybe it occurred while leaning in to watch a right-wing podcaster interview two January 6 “patriots.” Of course, given MAGA’s visceral opposition to vaccines and masks, I could’ve caught it from any one of the several thousand anti-vaxxers present. Covid denial goes hand-in-hand with Covid spread. And so now I have a headache.

But enough about my symptoms. Let’s talk about what I was looking for going into CPAC and what I saw.

My Intentions Going In

When I walked through the doors of the Gaylord Convention Center, a large hotel-convention complex ten minutes south of Washington DC, I held three intentions.

1. I went in with curiosity. Knowing my own propensity for confirmation bias, I deliberately looked for things that disconfirmed my assumptions. I listened for dissenting voices. I looked for magnanimous embrace of liberals and Democrats. I searched hard for true dispositional conservatives, people who value tradition, continuity, and order and embody humility and prudence.
2. I went in cautious about my personal safety. My big fear was that people there would figure out that I voted for Kamala Harris and verbally harass, if not physically threaten, me. So, I didn’t want to “show my cards.” But I’m also committed to honesty, so even for the sake of my safety, I didn’t want to deliberately deceive people. To reconcile these competing values, I resolved to simply not get too close to anyone — to engage in small talk, but not do what I typically do, which is reach out to folks and have real conversations. The way I connected with people was through simple factual discussions. “Where in the app can I find the agenda? Oh, you get there from that tiny link at the bottom. Good to know!” “Who is speaking now?” “How do we get to the main ballroom?” The closest connection I made was when I was trying to correct a tie malfunction in the bathroom mirror. (I almost never wear ties but wanted to dress like College Republicans used to at Duke). A guy with a Spanish accent saw me struggling and offered a few valuable tips.
3. I went in with conservatism on my mind. Since the modern conservative movement launched in the United States in the 1940s, it has contained multiple strands. There are the libertarians who prioritize personal liberty and believe that government intervention in the economy inevitably leads to tyranny. There were the anti-Communists (and, later, anti-terrorists) who found common cause fighting a shared enemy abroad and at home. And there are the traditionalists, who value continuity, respect for the past, and order and are suspicious of change that threatens these values. After Trump’s election in November, I started reading one of the landmark books in the traditionalist school. Right before attending CPAC, I finished it. The book is Russell Kirk’s The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Santayana. Over the course of 534 pages, Kirk walks through 250 years of thinkers who respect “traditional wisdom” and the “restraints of custom” and seek “to moderate inevitable change by prudence and good nature.” My hope, in attending the conservative political action conference during a time of chaos in Washington, was to find some evidence of such conservatism. Alas, as we shall see, I found a group of people less interested in conserving than disrupting and utterly unaware of the grand conservative tradition they and their party were usurping.

Those were my intentions. Here is what I saw.

What I Saw

1. Multinational, multilingual

As you might expect, there were a lot of light-skinned “white” people at CPAC. However, as I walked down the hallways and around the ballroom, I noticed many different shades of skin color and heard multiple languages spoken, from Spanish to Korean to German. On the main stage, every continent was represented by at least one (right-wing nationalist populist) official. Romania and Hungary were in the house. So, too, were Great Britain and Germany, Brazil and Argentina. In fact, Argentina’s President Javier Milei was the one who handed Elon Musk the chainsaw that you might have seen in the news. (Note: the chainsaw isn’t a common metaphor for how traditional conservatives like to approach societal change).

CPAC and MAGA may be violently opposed to “globalists,” but they welcome far-right nationalists from around the globe.

2. Lots of normies

CPAC, like MAGA, attracts more than a few people in loud outfits with patriotic colors, Trump paraphernalia, and confrontational tatoos. Although nothing should surprise me at this point, I wasn’t expecting to see so many “Trump 2028' buttons. Yet there they were.

Having noted this, the majority of attendees looked like everyday people. Except for the fact that not a single person among the thousands there wore a mask, they wouldn’t have stood out at my grocery story or public library or at the airport. Most folks were less interested in standing out than in fitting in. This, after all, is what the MAGA community provides: solidarity, friendship, and status. It’s what draws people in. It’s what makes leaving the community, even for those inclined to, so difficult.

3. No viewpoint diversity

CPAC used to welcome different strands of the Republican Party and conservative movement. Libertarians, traditionalists, and anti-Communists (later, anti-terrorists) all showed up. Although long a “red-meat” affair, CPAC attracted people with varied viewpoints to chew on the meat.

No more. I am able to confirm that just as the GOP is now Trump’s party, CPAC is now Trump’s conference. Every speaker and panelist praised him, some subtly, other brazenly. The crowd clearly had little appetite for even the mildest of dissenting opinions.

One of the biggest moments of applause happened when a speaker took glee in Mitch McConnell’s coming retirement. McConnell is a lifelong conservative who has stymied Democrats for years. Nobody has ever mistaken him for a liberal or progressive. When, during Trump’s second impeachment trial, McConnell had the Constitutional “kill shot” that would’ve disqualified Trump from running again for President, he didn’t take it. In many ways, McConnell is as responsible for Trump’s second election as any other single human being. However, McConnell has never hid his scorn for Trump, so the general attitude in the room was, “Screw him.”

4. An absence of conservatism

True conservatives in the mold of Edmund Burke, Russell Kirk, or George Will value tradition, continuity, and long-held community norms. Nothing is more threatening to the conservative disposition than revolutionary change and chaos.

CPAC may have “conservative” in the name, but conservatism was absent from the conference. Trump, Musk, Vance, Rubio and the rest of the Administration are destroying federal agencies, firing employees without notice or cause, cancelling contracts, belittling allies, breaking laws and norms, and creating chaos at every turn. Not a single CPAC speaker raised concerns about these actions. Not one. On the contrary, everyone praised these developments over and over again. Participants responded by hollering and cheering. Now, I did notice a group of students from a traditionalist conservative college who didn’t clap once in the two hours I sat behind them. Perhaps they were dissenting silently. Or maybe they were too immersed in taking notes and chatting with friends on social media to respond physically to events in the room.

I listened hard for words like “stability,” “continuity,” “prudence,” and “humility.” No luck. Conservatism was missing in action. I saw much more conservatism at a conference I attended after CPAP called Principles First, where half the crowd and most of the speakers were former Republicans who felt unwelcome and uncomfortable in Trump’s GOP. (Want to hear my reflections on Principles First? Let me know in the comments).

5. Everything was upside down

Over eight hours, I listened to dozens of speakers. Here are the messages that consistently came through. Sometimes, people shared them as assessments and made at least some effort to ground them in evidence. More often, however, these messages appeared as taken-for-granted facts that should be “obvious” to everyone in the room.

• The Democratic Party is corrupt. Trump and Musk will clean up the corruption.
• Unlike Democrats, Republicans follow the rule of law.
• Biden’s Department of Justice was weaponized. There was no legitimate reason to investigate or prosecute Trump or any of his allies. It was all partisan. Kudos to Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel (whose confirmation that day received a standing ovation) for promising to end this weaponization.
• The 2020 election was stolen.
• The people who attacked the Capitol on January 6 are heroes and patriots. Their release from political prisonhood was a victory for justice.
• The Republican Party is the party of peace. Democrats want war.
• Unlike Biden, Trump is hiring people based on their competence and experience.
• Democrats and liberal journalists are overreacting. Trump isn’t threatening democracy or the rule of law. He is restoring them after four years of antidemocratic lawlessness.
• When Trump, Vance and Rubio meet unilaterally with Russia, make promises to Russia without asking for anything in return, condemn Ukraine, and taunt America’s European allies, they aren’t capitulating. They are being strong negotiators.

Everything was upside down.

Yet, if I believed what I heard, it is Democrats who have things upside down. At least one speaker cited George Orwell to characterize the supposed lies and double-speak of the liberals, progressives, and so-called RINO (Republican In Name Only) Republicans. It reminded me of Putin calling Ukranians the fascists. Or, more comically, Donald Trump saying to Hillary Clinton in one of their debates, “No puppet. No puppet. You’re the puppet.”

If I didn’t have my feet firmly planted on the ground, if I was a lonely man looking for a tribe to join, or if I simply stuck around for the full three days of the conference, I might have left the event agreeing with these views. (OK, in my case, that’s an exaggeration, but you get the point.)

CPAC participants aren’t bad people. There is nothing unhealthy about their desire for a tribe. There is nothing unusual about their conforming to other’s views or even placing trust in a savior. Their beliefs, in most cases, are sincere. They truly believe the election was stolen. They truly believe Musk is making government work better. They truly believe Trump’s approach to Russia will bring peace to Ukraine.

These views, in my assessment, are wrongheaded and dangerous. They will ruin lives, disrupt communities, and possibly turn this country autocratic.

But people have a right to be who they are.

And I have a right to say, “That’s upside down, and it’s going to hurt a lot of people.”

6. Pam Bondi is deceiving herself

At one point, someone asked Attorney General Pam Bondi if she would go after Biden for the “crimes” he committed. Her response was clear and matter-of-fact. No, she said, that’s how the Democrats do things. We follow the rule of law.

Given her department’s many illegal and unconstitutional actions (e.g. threatening FBI agents involved in the Trump investigations, even though those agents were merely following lawful orders), I had to restrain myself from laughing out loud.

Sadly, Pam Bondi was deceiving herself and the crowd.

Perhaps, one day, she will follow in the footsteps of many officials from the first Trump Administration by owning up to her self-deception and making amends. But, for now, her words don’t match what she is doing. And what she is doing is causing enormous damage to national security, the rule of law, and the safety of the American people.

7. Steve Bannon can rouse a crowd. Elon Musk can’t.

For much of the morning, the big question circulating the room was whether or not Elon Musk would make a surprise appearance. When he finally showed up late in the afternoon, he got a hero’s welcome. Folks stood and cheered when he raised the chainsaw above his head. Apart from that, his appearance was flat. His words were mostly terse gibberish. His tone and body language were that of a smug stoner. People laughed a few times at his humor, but mostly the room was unmoved.

Ironically, this was the first and only moment in the day when I got emotionally triggered. As I watched Musk casually joke and brag about DOGE, I thought about the wife of a USAID employee whose prenatal care was cut off in the middle of a high-risk pregnancy and the thousands of lives disrupted by his mass firings and crazy threats. I felt enraged.

After Musk was done, I got up and walked down the hall to the water fountain to rehydrate and collect myself. When I returned to the ballroom, the next speaker, Steve Bannon, was just beginning.

Having just finished Joshua Green’s outstanding book about Bannon, Devil’s Bargain, I was familiar with his life story and prominent role in creating MAGA and Trump. I also knew his reputation for rousing crowds with an energetic populist message. And that is exactly what we got. Bannon was electrifying. He moved the crowd’s energy like nobody else that day. I myself felt the molecules of air vibrate at a higher frequency. Donald Trump may be the figurehead of MAGA, I thought, but Steve Bannon is the heart.

Although I found some of Bannon’s words repellent, I listened closely as he framed the road back from the 2020 election as a hero’s journey and noted his rhetorical techniques, body language, and energy. On a substantive level, I was reminded that I share Bannon’s revulsion at the way both political parties handled the 2008 financial crisis, rescuing bankers rather than homeowners and holding absolutely nobody accountable.

A Lesson for Democrats

There is, I thought, a lesson here for Democrats. Take the same populist rage that Bannon expressed at that historic debacle—which cost six million Americans their homes, drained bank accounts, ended jobs, and disrupted lives — and channel it in a more constructive direction than MAGA has done.

This means two things: reigning in Wall Street and stepping off of Woke Street. This is a topic for another essay, but let me offer a summary:

1. Reigning in Wall Street. For three decades, Democrats made a bargain with Wall Street: fund our campaigns, and we’ll let you manage our economic policy. Goldman Sachs alumni ruled the Treasury Department under Clinton and Obama. Even when the housing bubble crash sank the U.S. economy, making Americans irate at big banks, Obama followed Geithner’s plan to bail out banks, rather than homeowners. The rise of Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and AOC started to shift this, but they are imperfect messengers. Bernie and AOC attached themselves to the word “socialist,” and the otherwise refreshing and credible Warren let herself get caught on Woke Street. In the words of Boston College philosophy professor, David Storey, Democrats need to “channel the Bernie message but in a way that doesn’t get coded as socialist/leftist.” One way to do this is to frame economic populism in new ways. It’s not only about making a corrupt system fairer. It’s also about social stability — protecting workers and consumers so that when they lose their jobs, get divorced, or have a medical emergency, they don’t go off economic cliffs. Social safety nets and public protections from market excesses aren’t radical. They’re actually conservative. They conserve families and neighborhoods, offering stability and continuity. And they are perfectly compatible with (conscious) capitalism, (mostly) free markets, and thriving businesses that create jobs. Here’s the irony: if economic populists are in charge, lots of people on Wall Street will still be making a mighty good living. It just won’t be at the expense of everyone else.
2. Stepping off of Woke Street. Here I have to be careful, because Republicans have weaponized the word “woke.” They use it to refer to anything progressive. I support many progressive policies and ideas, so that’s not what I mean. To me, Woke Street is where left wing groups dogmatically pressure people into adopting their most extreme, maximalist positions and terminology. Promising equal rights, safety, and dignity to trans people is progressive. Insisting that people born biologically male, who are on average faster and stronger, have the right to compete in girls’ sports is woke. Honoring Latino culture and the Spanish language is progressive. The term “Latinx” is woke. Referring to people by the pronoun they prefer is progressive. Requiring everyone to declare their pronouns is woke. Recognizing that men still dominate the senior executive ranks of large corporations is progressive. Referring to men without college degrees as “privileged” is woke. And so on. It’s time for Democrats to stop bending a knee to pressure groups whose ability to raise funds depends on taking maximalist “woke” positions. Be caring and inclusive AND set boundaries.

What I’m proposing is precisely the inverse of how the Democratic Party has operated for the past 35 years. It has favored Wall Street while veering culturally left. The time has come for it to reign in Wall Street while shifting its cultural engines into neutral. The prescient Michael Lind advocated for precisely this in his 1996 book Up From Conservatism. Democrats didn’t listen then. Now, perhaps they will.

Your Thoughts?

So, that’s what I saw. What do think? I welcome constructive questions and reflections in the comments section.

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