Donald in Disney World
March 1, 2021
The prestigious annual gathering of CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, moved out of Washington DC for the first time to Orlando Florida, home of Disney World. It was an appropriate move because the Magic Kingdom is a more fitting venue to launch Donald J. Trump’s comeback campaign given his role in fomenting the murderous rampage of the Capitol Building on January 6. Also fitting was the unveiling of a cartoonish likeness of the former President called “Golden Boy” — a 200-pound fiberglass statue clothed in an American flag bathing suit and flip-flops. Fabricated offshore in Mexico, it was dubbed “Trump and the Magic Wand”.
CPAC is an institution that has hosted annual gatherings for conservative activists since 1974. It’s where Republicans strut their stuff, try out new material, and obtain endorsements that pave the way to political power. Ronald Reagan delivered his inaugural address to kick off days of serious policy debates and speeches. This year, however, CPAC went full-blown Fantasyland with a three-day, televised Trump reset-and-relaunch fest. It featured, among other “cartoon” characters, gun-toting newbie House Representative Lauren Boebert. She became the gun lobby’s poster girl when she campaigned with a pistol and then, after election, made a fuss after she was barred from carrying a concealed weapon into the Capitol Building immediately after the riot without a permit. She got one.
The confab also featured a cameo appearance from Trump’s prize 2016 roadkill — Senator Ted Cruz of Texas — who took the stage, his Stockholm Syndrome symptoms on full display, and articulated Trump’s Tomorrowland mission statement: “He ain’t going anywhere,” he shouted from the stage. “Democrats are radicals… they strangle freedom… destroy jobs… assault the Bill of Rights. They are the party of the rich and big corporations. The Republican Party is pro-worker, pro-American and we are going to build a multi-racial working-class American coalition.”
So far, however, the party resembles the attendees at the CPAC gathering as well as those who attended the January 6 Washington riot, in other words a sea of white guy faces. And Trump’s regime was no different. He could no more create a multi-racial working-class coalition than could George Wallace, the late racist from Alabama. As President, Trump’s multi-racial “coalition” consisted of one black cabinet secretary, Ben Carson, who was so submissive and sycophantic that he made the timid Vice President Mike Pence look like the rebellious James Dean in “Rebel Without a Cause”. Carson’s tenure, as head of Housing and Urban Development, is sure to go down in history as a bookmark. Period.
There were also two more visible minority appointees, both females, who abruptly left. Mitch McConnell’s Taiwanese wife, Elaine Chao, served without distinction as Secretary of Transportation, until she quit in disgust after the Washington riot and Tweeted: “Yesterday, our country experienced a traumatic and entirely avoidable event as supporters of the President stormed the Capitol Building following a rally he addressed. As I’m sure is the case with many of you, it has deeply troubled me in a way that I simply cannot set aside.”
The other was Nikki Haley, of Indian descent, who was appointed in 2017 as Trump’s US Ambassador to the United Nations (a Cabinet-level position) until she suddenly resigned in 2018. There was a whiff of scandal about freebie jaunts on private jets owned by rich South Carolina businessmen, but the real reason she bolted concerned policy clashes. She never squealed as to why, but finally went public against Trump in 2021 after the January 6 riot. “We need to acknowledge he let us down. He went down a path he shouldn’t have, and we shouldn’t have followed him. And we can’t let that happen again,” she wrote.
What’s remaining of Donald’s “Coalition” continues to be incarcerated, under investigation or whittled away. There are the Republican honchos he’s alienated. Neither Senate leader McConnell was invited to CPAC, after he excoriated Trump after the murder and mayhem in Senate Chambers, nor was Senator Mitt Romney, who won CPAC’s prestigious presidential straw polls in previous years. Back in 2020, CPAC Chairman Matt Schlapp, a Koch-head from Wichita, uninvited Mitt for the first time because he said he could not ensure the Senator’s safety after he voted in favor of calling witnesses at Trump’s first impeachment trial in 2020. There were other no-shows.
CPAC’s Chair Matt Schlapp and The Donald are tight. His lobbying firm collected $750,000 in fees from a Trump fundraiser, and convicted fraudster named Parker “Pete” Petit of Georgia, to try and obtain a pardon from the President. It wasn’t granted… neither, presumably, was a refund.
Also missing at CPAC were two major Trump sponsors -- Wayne LaPierre who ran the National Rifle Association (NRA), which has declared bankruptcy, and Jerry Falwell Jr., namesake of the famous Evangelical preacher who founded Liberty University. LaPierre is under scrutiny for spending and management issues, and Falwell recently resigned as Liberty’s President following a sexual scandal. But Falwell appeared as a panelist with Trump’s namesake, Donald Jr. and his girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle, who resembles Melania except she yells all the time on stage and doesn’t accessorize with $75,000 Hermes Birkin handbags.
As the production in Orlando sprawled across the weekend on Fox TV, a long-time Republican, and Wall Street success, Anthony Scaramucci told CNN it was curtains for his party. He worked briefly for Trump as a communications spokesman, had a falling out, and has been an outspoken critic ever since. “He’s taken control of the Republican Party. He is the last White Hope for these people because the demographics of the country are changing. This is becoming the party of people who buy MyPillow products and catheters from Fox TV. And White Power. Unless he’s charged or jailed he’ll get the 2024 nomination. He’s also running because he’s fundraising and this is the most money he’s ever made -- $300 million he’s made off all these rubes he conned about the election being fraudulent.”
On that note, it’s interesting that, for the first time ever, Donald Trump yesterday devoted a portion of his speech to publicly appealing for cash and directing them to his donaldjtrump.com website in order to contribute to his Save America Super PAC. This is new. He’s never directly shilled before which may explain why his speech yesterday was modulated and less crazed than usual. Also, notably, he did not throw his hat in the ring officially but only teased about it.
Trump is either running again or feathering his nest with a new PAC to punish and reward Republican candidates in 2022 and pay the bills. Surely, he must realize that his hopes to leverage a MAGA White Christian Nationalist Party in order to take over the GOP is a long shot and self-defeating. It may sound grand that nearly half of Republicans polled on February 27 said they would follow him to a third party, and 59 percent believed he should play a large role now, but that’s nowhere near enough.
Half of the Republican party is no better than none. Here’s the data: Registrations in the 31 states that require voters to identify party affiliation show that only 28.87 percent of voters in 2020 registered as Republicans, 29.09 as independents (slightly more than Republicans); and 39.66 percent as Democrats. Further, Democrats won over more independents than Republicans did.
All of this means that while CPAC and Trump delivered engaging political theater, boasts about guaranteed victory are pure fiction especially because Trump stays in the game. The reason is simple: if he triumphs, and wins the battle to take over the Republican Party, the party will lose the 2024 election because half its members who dislike him will leave or not vote. Conversely, if he loses the battle to take over the Republican Party, the party will also lose because the other half of its members who like him will leave or not vote.
Either way, he’s a disaster for Republicans, as well as for the country. But win or lose, Donald “Scrooge McDuck” Trump will walk away with plenty of cash to fend off litigation and enough to get even.
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The only difference between the CPAC attendees and the domestic terrorists who stormed the Capitol Building on 1/6 were that the CPAC attendees were wearing suits/dresses. That's what the Republican Party is now.
My photoshop comment on the CPAC worship of the Golden TurdCalf
https://dsc.cloud/ff8db1/Photo-2021-03-01-12-21-pm.jpeg