CPAC has become the very thing Trump hates

Before the fun began officially began at the Conservative Political Action Conference, a handful of supporters began chanting “Free J6” after a trailer ran for a documentary. This documentary concerned the supposed persecution of inmates arrested for their actions at the January 6 riot at the US Capitol.

Most planners would see such a chant at a major gathering of conservatives to be a public relations headache. But instead, in their opening address, Matt Schlapp, the ringleader of CPAC, and his wife Mercedes Schlapp both specifically mentioned January 6.

“If you call yourself a journalist, or you spend all your time trying to destroy Americans who love America and trying to destroy conservastives and patriots, people from MAGA, and yes, J6,” he said to rupturous applause. “If that’s what you do, we don’t want you here.” Certain journalistic outlets had been barred from the conference, and it was clear Schlapp saw that as a selling point.

Despite this, the the press area was just as big, if not bigger, for this year’s CPAC than last year’s gathering. But the actual attendees were fewer.

Indeed, there seemed to be much less of everything this year at CPAC than there was last year. Fewer booths for right-wing media outlets and ideologues peddling their latest products put up shop outside the main conference hall. Only a fraction of the radio row tables from 2023. And the vendors selling fun paraphenalia seemed almost sliced in half. One of the only entertaining products that remained was a conservative hammock company that joked it “swings right”.

Absent, too, were heavy hitters like the right-wing firebrand Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, or Senator Ted Cruz — who is up for re-election in a purpler