The clown and Trump adoration show at CPAC in Orlando got off to a thundering roar when Trumpie stooge Pete Hegseth opened the fanfare by screaming: "Don't forget what we are fighting for! God, country and flag!" But then, when one beheld the golden statue of Trump being wheeled around inside the cavernous space, one grokked that was all B.S.
The assembled multitude was really there to worship the golden idol of Trump and praise the insurrection of January 6th.
That CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) is now dedicated to obeisance. asslicking and worship of Donald Trump is beyond doubt. In only a few clips from FOX News on Saturday one watched spellbound and in disbelief as dozens of speakers declared their fealty to the orange pestilence even as hundreds of attendees posed for selfies with a golden statue of his likeness. The analogy to the "golden calf" idol worhipped by the Israelites in biblical lore could not be missed.
Even before the orange maggot's appearance Sunday afternoon- in an orgy of continued election lies - CPAC's deranged speakers continued to fan disinformation and conspiracy ideations about the 2020 election. This mass lie fest featured panels dedicated to amplifying false claims of mass voter fraud that have been roundly dismissed by the courts, state election officials and Trump’s own administration (Including his AG, William Barr).
Indeed, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., another potential 2024 hopeful, drew among the loudest applause and a standing ovation when he bragged about his role in sedition, challenging the election certification on Jan. 6. And doing this despite the storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters trying to halt the process.
Hawley's and Cruz' display of groveling sycophancy comes as no surprise given the prominence of the golden Trump idol. Which, btw, inspired jokes and political commentary of biblical proportions across social media on Friday. Many called out conservatives for worshiping a “false idol” by continuing to follow a criminal traitor who was impeached twice. Also, a sore loser who has undermined the U.S. presidential election process by pushing debunked, baseless claims that an election he claimed to have won handily had been stolen from him, even as President Joe Biden racked up 7,058,909 more votes.
Which even a recent WSJ editorial conceded ('Trump Lost To Himself', Feb. 18, p. A13) citing Trump's own pollster Tony Fabriozo who reported (ibid.): "Trump lost largely due to a massive swing among independents and erosion among Republicans."
Ultimately, the swing was due to millions more voters simply having had enough of Trump's chaos, Twitter attacks and other unhinged antics. The WSJ editorial itself adding: "The former president lost ground with nearly every age group across the states where coronavirus was the top voter issue."
Yet in his 1 1/2 hour appearance Sunday afternoon he refined and amplified his false losing claims by tossing out political bromides and past trends as if these were proof he had to have won. For example, "No candidate who won both Florida and Ohio ever lost an election before!" Well, there was always the first time, sonny!
Again all this shows that Friday FOX contributor Jessica Tarlov hit the nail on the head when she said this was merely a "red meat" event. It was tossing red meat in the form of lies and grievance in spades to the delirious base, while renouncing reality. No wonder Ms. Tarlov- the only honest commentator on FOX - could conclude that CPAC featured all the hallmarks of a cult celebration, especially with the golden statue of Trump being wheeled around. Good for her also for blistering assorted CPAC stooges for claiming "the Dems have no one as popular as Trump" and that "the Democrats are not religious!"
In regard to the last, Ms. Tarlov cited Joe Biden's devout Roman Catholicism and an ability to quote the bible "without being spoon fed like Trump." She also noted, consistent with religious doctrines, the new president had actually been tested by terrible loss and trials in his life - including the loss of his first wife and a child in a horrific 1978 car accident. This is something "Trump knows nothing of." Why would he when all he's done is lied, cheated and grifted his entire con man life?
But Ms. Tarlov's most potent observation was in respect to Trump's followers and the CPAC faithful who'd surrendered their brains and will en masse. She noted how they still embraced the bald faced lies about the election and put Trump on a worship pedestal - what with the "golden idol being wheeled all around."
FOX commentator Karl Rove on Sunday also made an astute observation based on a straw poll taken at the conference. That is, that even in this "Trumpiest of places" Trump only got 55% endorsing another campaign run in 2024. (Though this is nearly coincident with the "half of Trump voters in a Suffolk University/USA Today poll who thought the GOP should be "more loyal to Trump" )
As Rove said: "Unless he comes up with a new policy agenda and a definite vision there won't be a realistic path to being a second time winner."
Trump's pathetic speech - which even the FOX crew complained "lacked energy"- proved he doesn't have it and in 3 1/2 more years will be even more a hollow shell of the loser he is now.
Which brings up the question of what the Republicans even stand for if they are so far up Dotard's 'golden' ass most can't see reality? Is it merely to glorify Trump in all his pestilential aspects? To blindly do his bidding, and to celebrate his insurrection? Do they even have one original idea or concept of actual governance? Say apart from trolling Dems, grievance grousing and playing the Lee Greenwood ditty 'Proud to be an American', when real ones don't commit- or celebrate- insurrection?
Not according to Financial Times columnist Simon Kuper ('Do Republicans Even Want Government To Exist?') who noted:
"Republican officials are now asking themselves: what do we want from a Democratic-run government when defence no longer matters much? Their answer: almost nothing. They didn’t even put together an infrastructure bill under Trump, although the government could get paid for borrowing money. Republicans in Washington and state capitals mostly stood by while Covid-19 killed more than 500,000 Americans. In Texas this month, Republicans couldn’t even lay on power and drinking water.
Only when a catastrophe affects Republican voters will the office holders suddenly pony up fortunes: after Hurricane Katrina, after the financial crisis and after Covid-19 sank the economy. In George W Bush’s words: “When somebody hurts, government has got to move.” As a governing philosophy, this is like living in a straw house and rebuilding it every time the wolf blows it down. Otherwise, the only branch of federal government the Republicans treasure is the judiciary, because it’s the only one they expect to control, through their advantage in the Senate."
Excerpt:
William Kristol wrote in The Bulwark what a number of us have been saying for a while now, and it dovetails cleanly with the current Republican attempt to suppress voting.
Kristol warns that our democracy is in crisis. For the first time in our history, we have failed to have a peaceful transfer of power. The Republican Party launched a coup — which fortunately failed — and “now claims that the current administration is illegitimately elected, the result of massive, coordinated fraud. The logical extension of this position would seem to be that the American constitutional order deserving of our allegiance no longer exists.”
“So,” he notes, “we are at the edge of crisis, having repulsed one attempted authoritarian power grab and bracing for another.”
At the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) conference this weekend in Orlando, Florida, Trump supporters doubled down on the lie that Biden stole the 2020 election. From a stage shaped like a piece of Nazi insignia, speakers raged that they were victims of “cancel culture” on the part of Big Tech and the left, which are allegedly trying to silence them. To restore fairness, they want to stop “voter fraud” and restore “election integrity,” and they want to force social media giants to let them say whatever they want on social media.
In the Washington Post, commentator Jennifer Rubin said the modern conservatives at CPAC had no policy but revenge, “resentment, cult worship and racism,” and no political goal but voter suppression. It is “the only means by which they seek to capture power in an increasingly diverse America,”
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