CPAC 2023: The Republican Party is Dying Out
Posted By Cyan Quinn On In North American New Right | Comments Disabled
[1]Ryan Sanchez, aka Culture War Criminal, poses with Greyson Arnold of Pure Politics at CPAC 2023. MAGA Inc.? Or America First?
2,598 words
I asked over the Counter-Currents Telegram channel [2] last Saturday if any of you had questions for the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) 2023 attendees. You people really pulled through. I had so many great questions that I wasn’t able to ask them all, but I tried to pick those that seemed to overlap so I could cover as much ground as I could.
Due to the very unscientific nature of simply wandering around and making conversation with as many people as possible, I can’t pretend this is a completely accurate representation of the average CPAC-goer’s mind, but the questions you sent sparked conversations that were revealing about the state of the GOP and its voters.
Before anybody asks, no, I did not see the vibrating “exercise” board, but I was only there on Saturday, so I probably missed it. If anybody else was there and has pictures, I’m dying to see it.
Your questions are in bold, below.
Do you think groups like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) should be able to get together to support their collective interests? What about white identity groups?
The overwhelming majority of people I spoke to said yes to both questions. Particularly given that others are allowed to organize to defend their ethnic interests, whites should be able to do the same. This was a pleasant surprise, and I doubt the speakers would have given the same answer. It nevertheless reflects recent polling showing that 30-40% of Americans believe that white identity politics is legitimate. Given that non-Hispanic white Americans are 56% of the population, it is reasonable to assume that it’s whites who comprise that 30-40%. This is likely even more so given that 23% of Republican males have a favorable view of White Nationalism; therefore, Republican white males are extremely likely to approve of white identity politics.
What will it take for you to support the National Divorce as proposed by Marjorie Taylor Greene?
There was almost no support at all for National Divorce as suggested by Marjorie Taylor Greene, even among the younger people I asked. Only one person I spoke to supported the idea. The rest said it was impractical and would probably lead to violence, not to mention the fact that it would put financial strain on rural towns that depend on those cities which contribute more to the state coffers and take less in the areas of education and infrastructure. However, most people agreed that Americans are voting with their feet and are leaving the cities for more rural, red areas.
On a scale of 1-10, how afraid are you of being called a racist/unenlightened/stupid? Does that fear influence your views or what you are willing to say or not say? Is a charge of racism more or less damning than it was five years ago?
I was delighted to hear that, although most respondents are still concerned about being labeled a racist, the networking that has popped up over the last five years via various organizations has made them more comfortable with the idea of being honest about their political views. One attendee told me about the Manhattan Project, which was started by the New York Young Republican Club (I assume this is not a reference to the project to build the atomic bomb), and is a recruiting and training program that will place young people in political jobs ahead of the 2024 election. (Check out their press release here [3].)
Do you love Jesus more than Martin Luther King?
This is a great question for a Republican MLK Day event. When the time comes, send me a time and a place around DC or Pittsburgh!
Do you think whites will be discriminated against and denigrated once we no longer constitute a majority of the population? Also, do you agree with Scott Adams?
I asked if people agreed with Scott Adams that whites should “get the hell away from black people.” This made respondents uneasy, and I usually then brought up the subject of the South Africa farm murders. There was almost no awareness of these murders [4], and very little regarding anti-white hate crimes. Although one attendee did remember seeing the video of the 9-year-old white girl who was beaten on the bus by a black teenager in Florida.[1] [5]
Do you feel like your representatives are representing your interests?
[6]You can buy Greg Johnson’s White Identity Politics here. [7]
Boomers were more likely to think Trump could take back the White House and save us from “woke” culture. However, about a third of the people I spoke with said the speakers did not do a good job representing their interests. Matt Gaetz and James O’Keefe were favorites.
People under 40 were more likely to say that they feel that almost none of the speakers represent them. Favorites were Matt Gaetz and James O’Keefe. The mainstream media is reporting that the crowd was wild for Trump.
They may have been wild for Trump merch (I saw a woman carrying a bejeweled purse displaying “TRUMP” in rhinestones), but there was plenty of seating in the ballroom on Saturday evening.
The crowd politely sat through an hour of rambling about his own persecution and accomplishments, but responded positively when he said: “Under my leadership, we will use all necessary state, local, federal, and military resources to carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American History.” This is great, but many are wondering why this operation didn’t happen during Trump’s first two years in office, when Republicans held the Presidency, the House, and the Senate.
Some credit Sam Francis with the quote, “The leadership of the Democratic Party is always farther to the left than their voters. And it’s the same way with the Republicans.”
One of our paywall insiders shared the graph below, where this sentiment was actually plotted out in the United Kingdom:
[8]
This is certainly true at CPAC.
Don’t you think Israel can take care of itself by now?
Sometimes it takes a while to get people to feel comfortable enough to say what they really think. For example, the answer to “What do you think about Kanye West?” typically started with a comment along the lines of, “Well, he went off the rails . . .” but usually meandered into acknowledging the massive Jewish power behind the main culprits of cancellation: the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). One gentleman who was relatively young and well-spoken, after first expressing the same general statements, ended up explaining to me that the world is run by a cabal that is 95% Jewish.
After I started “noticing,” as they say, I counted eight yarmulkes, and was told many more wore them under their Trump hats. I’m not surprised by this, given that Orthodox Jews are socially conservative, and generally Trump is considered one of the most pro-Israel presidents in history. Others wore the United States/Israeli Friendship Flag lapel pin.
At one point, when Trump mentioned the Deep State, someone in the audience shouted, “The Jews!” Trump emphasized how extremely dangerous an alliance between Iran, Russia, and China would be to Israel.
Ron DeSantis is equally pro-Israel, and he again made his allegiances clear here [9], at a competing Club for Growth event in Florida the same weekend, where referenced the occasion when he was quick to sanction Ben & Jerry’s and Unilever over their boycotts of Israel. [2] [10]
What is the most important issue?
The majority of people believed election fraud is the biggest issue, with many of them asserting that immigration is tied, or a close second.
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I was tickled to run into a reporter from BorderHawk News [11]. We chatted about how immigration should and must be the number one issue, because while election fraud may be rampant, it is only exacerbated as the American people are replaced by immigrants who vote Democrat.
The GOP is still pandering to Hispanics. Earlier in the week, there had been a panel discussion on “Getting Out the Vote in Latino Communities.” The Republican leadership seems to be convinced that Hispanics are natural conservatives due to their Catholicism, but it’s been statistically proven over and over again that most of them vote Democrat.[3] [12]
One kind man who had just retired said he was looking for something to be involved in. He was moved by the panel on the January 6 prisoners. But when I asked what he thought the biggest issue of the day was, he said we needed a convention of the states to impose things like term limits on Congress and restraints on increasing the national debt, which would limit corrupt federal power. These are fine ideas, but none of the speakers addressed why the federal government is corrupt — or why government regulations are increasing. (According to Turning Point USA, “Big Government Sucks!”) It’s interesting that, according to the chart below, which ranks countries in terms of a “human freedom index” from highest to lowest, the population gets darker as the human freedom index grows smaller.
[13]Source: World Population Review [14]
Gender issues were a top issue, just behind election fraud and immigration, and on this CPAC actually delivered. Saturday’s breakfast was sponsored by Moms for America, whose keynote speaker was Riley Gaines, a competitive swimmer who lost an National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) championship to a biological male transsexual, Lia (formerly Will) Thomas. Matt Schlapp has been notably vague on this issue in the past, but the base won’t tolerate it:
[15]
Michael Knowles, a commentator on Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire, won the crowd over in his speech by saying that “transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely.” Leftist journalists, of course, reacted by making it seem like a call for another holocaust:
[16]
Nick Fuentes was barred entry to the conference on Thursday, but the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Hannah Gais was welcomed, as was this [17] woman, Amanda Moore. Moore’s claim to fame is that she stopped wanting to kill herself every day when she discovered that she has a purpose in life: sleeping with minor figures in the MAGA-sphere in order to expose them by revealing that they say the same things in private that they do in public.[4] [18]
I was happy to bump into Ryan Sanchez, aka Culture War Criminal [19], and Greyson Arnold of Pure Politics [20], as well as a handful of “groypers” who joyously heckled the journalists who had been hoping to “expose” them, including the aforementioned Moore.
[21]Scene from the future? Greyson Arnold poses at a Trump Oval Office Replica at CPAC 2023.
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Fuentes hosted a party across the street that evening despite having lost his original venue. The Residence Inn by Marriott ended up being a last-minute option. Marriott has been criticized for accepting it [22], and according to some, hosting his event was even more egregious a sin given the presence of a Shabbat celebration at the same hotel that evening. Fuentes’ event was nevertheless so well-attended that the Fire Marshal had to ask 25 people to leave.
[23]You can buy Greg Johnson’s The Year America Died here. [24]
In the final analysis, the GOP’s current ideology as represented at CPAC seems just as empty as its seats. Speakers spoke incessantly about family, freedom, and patriotism (also defined as “freedom,” according to CPAC presenters). But what is the substance behind these values?
As for family, there are families everywhere, so what makes American families exceptional? And despite the speakers’ claims, most people tolerated drag queen Lady Maga’s presence. The homosexual agenda is, at least nowadays, primarily an American export. In 2022 the US government allotted $200 million for gender equity and equality programs in Pakistan alone, for example. But lest we are tempted to blame all of this on the Biden administration, in 2020, still under the Trump administration, the US allotted $10 million to Pakistan for the same causes.[5] [25] And, of course, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy makes appeals to LGBTQ rights as a way to win over more American dollars.[6] [26]
When it comes to freedom, it is a safe value to promote. How could anyone possibly be against freedom? But freedom to do what exactly? “Freedom” is a meaningless value in itself, since allowing freedom to some individuals inherently limits the freedom of others. According to the CPAC attendees and presenters, should Americans be free to carry firearms? Yes! Should Lia Thomas be free to compete as a woman? No! Freedom means freedom to pursue the self-actualization of the nation’s founding people. What people does our country exist to serve?
Do these GOP headliners have the courage to acknowledge the people for whom and by whom the country was created? What is it exactly that makes America great? Steve King paved the way by doubling down after being cancelled in 2017 for saying, “You cannot rebuild your civilization with somebody else’s babies.”[7] [27] In extraordinary fidelity to the truth, King then addressed the 2022 American Renaissance conference.
Americans created Liberia for former black slaves, complete with a constitution modeled after America’s and a flag [28] which still resembles our own. It doesn’t seem to have done much good, however, given that Liberians now represent the largest share of African refugees currently enriching Philadelphia.[8] [29]
The Haitians likewise inherited the French constitution, yet it is still in a state of ongoing catastrophe causing Haitians to flee to white countries. The average IQ of a Haitian is 67 [30]. Up until 2014, the minimum IQ required for a defendant to stand trial in Florida was 70. These are not small differences, and radically different peoples create radically different societies.
[31]
In a panel titled “A Rabbi, A Christian, and a Cardinal Walk into a Bar,” former National Football League player Jack Brewer explained that “kids can’t read and write” because “our land, right now, is cursed.” Brewer was referencing statistics [32] showing that 23 schools in Baltimore, Maryland have zero students who are proficient in math.[9] [33] Are we cursed? Or is it genetic?
* * *
At the hotel bar that evening, I leaned into the mid-century modern teal couch and studied our surroundings. The hotel bar was staffed exclusively by blacks and Latinos. All the hotel’s hospitality staff who served us that day were either black or Hispanic. At the dinner we’d had earlier, all the servers were black and Hispanic except for one tattooed woman sporting short, dyed hair. Washington, DC is majority black at 55.1%. Non-Hispanic whites make up only 29.9% of our capital city.
My sink was leaking when I returned home. I chatted with an older contractor — still white in this town –who taught me how to fix it. During our conversation, I mentioned I had been at CPAC and he told me, “We’ve got to save America!” He and most of the older CPAC attendees earnestly believe that America is in dire peril and trust that the featured CPAC speakers are going to save it.
Judging by this conference, the GOP is dying out. More importantly, Americans are dying out. Who will “save” America? Or is it already too late?
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Notes
[1] [35] “Video shows 9-year-old Florida girl savagely beaten by two boys in school bus attack [36],” Selim Algar, New York Post, February 2, 2023
[2] [37] “Florida Gov. DeSantis threatens to sanction Ben and Jerry’s, Univever over boycott [38],” i24News, July 22, 2021
[3] [39] “Latinos support Democrats over Republicans 2-1 in House and Senate elections [40],” Gabriel R. Sanchez, Brookings, November 11, 2022
[4] [41] “The MAGA infiltrator is sad, not brave, [42]” Bill Zeiser, The Spectator, October 27, 2021
[5] [43] “US provides $200m for gender equality [44]” Anwar Iqbal, Dawn, December 24, 2022
[6] [45] “Zelenskyy notes LBGTQ rights support in Golden Globes speech” [46] Michael K. Lavers, Washington Blade, January 11, 2023
[7] [47] “Rep. King: ‘I meant exactly what I said’ with ‘babies’ tweet” [48] Louis Nelson, Politico, March 13, 2017
[8] [49] “More detentions, deportations, abuse: The challenges Black immigrants face [50]” Eric Edi & Lilah Thompson, The Philadelphia Inquirer, February 28, 2023
[9] [51] “23 Baltimore schools have zero students proficient in math, state test results reveal [32],” Chris Past, February 8, 2023 WBFF