Oxon Hill played host to the muted sounds of MAGA last week. The Conservative Political Action Conference returned from Florida to the Washington, DC exurbs — but the conference was a shadow of its former self.
While CPAC has been MAGA territory since 2017, some of Donald Trump’s intra-party foes sensed blood in the water. Perhaps none more so than Perry Johnson. Johnson, a Michigan businessman who was booted from the ballot during his failed 2022 gubernatorial campaign, has announced a long-shot presidential bid that has so far consisted of a cringe ad in the Super Bowl, and a third-place finish in CPAC’s vaunted “straw poll” for president.
A number of “Perry Who?” Johnson shirts could be seen around the conference. One of the wearers (is it presumptuous to call them staffers?) told Cockburn that the campaign paid to fly them all out here and walk around. You can’t argue with the results; CPAC attendees seemed to love the Johnson. On an unrelated note, CPAC has been under siege for months following anonymous accusations that its leader, Matt Schlapp, pummeled a man’s junk in Georgia while having the misfortune of having to campaign for Herschel Walker.
The rumor mill was aflutter all conference long, with many telling Cockburn that there’s no way Schlapp slapped a man’s johnson. The allegations seem to have been enough for Fox News to pull out (well, the allegations plus the billion-dollar lawsuit it’s facing for promoting many of the false claims about election fraud that were echoed this weekend). This was welcome news to Newsmax, which boasted the largest studio in media row by far.
Throughout the weekend, vanquished candidates took to the stages to their adoring fans. Donald Trump, Kari Lake and Jair Bolsonaro don’t want to admit defeat — and at CPAC, they don’t have to.
Trump overwhelmingly won the straw poll, Lake was the headliner at the event’s Ronald Reagan Dinner and overwhelming favorite for Trump VP (her team’s vaunted legal advisors told her that she will have to refuse, since she can’t be governor and vice president at the same time) and Bolsonaro teased another presidential run of his own during his speech in Portuguese. Cockburn assumes this bid would take place in Brazil, even though he fled to Florida after his most recent defeat.
Perhaps due in part to the crotch-pummeling allegations, there was a much-diminished after party scene at CPAC this year. These parties are so infamous that disgraced journalist Stephen Glass straight up made them up in the 1990s; this year, however, the after party scene was more tumbleweed than the Wild West. One of the many usual suspects, Project Veritas, skipped out on hosting anything, probably because the group was beset with its own problems (which Cockburn’s colleague Amber Athey details here). But, in what was becoming a theme throughout the conference, Johnson filled the void, hosting a well-attended open bar one of the nights.
Lest our readers look on the CPAC works and despair, Cockburn can report that the usual crowd of eccentrics showed up, albeit in fewer numbers. Supporters of Ashli Babbitt, who view her as the martyr of January 6, walked around in shirts to support her. The Atheists for Liberty hosted one of the event’s few after parties — and fraudster Jacob Wohl roamed around (Cockburn learned that Wohl avoided prison time, and has picked up trash as part of his community service). They joined B-list MAGA celebrities such as Steve Bannon and Mike Lindell, who posed for selfies with adoring fans. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene was escorted around by a phalanx of security.
Not everyone was welcome at CPAC, however. Kanye West’s errand boy, Nick Fuentes, was booted due to his “hateful racist rhetoric and actions.” In kicking Fuentes out, CPAC removed a not-insubstantial amount of those gathered for the conference.
As we hurdle towards the 2024 Republican primaries, Cockburn has but one request for next year’s GOP confab: make CPAC Fun Again.
