Bulwark Takes - CPAC 2025: MAGA’s Big Party Was a Festival of Grievance and Boredom

Episode Date: February 24, 2025

Andrew Egger reports back on his experience at CPAC, full of grievances and little euphoria.

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Have fun with the details. Customize what you want the way you want. And manage your whole business from a centralized dashboard with expert AI tools. Build, scale, and enjoy the incredible results. You can do it all yourself on Wix. Hey guys, it's me, Sam Stein here, managing editor at The Bulwark.

I'm joined by Andrew Egger. Andrew has somehow commandeered my office and I'm not sure how I feel about that. Andrew's going to talk about CPAC, which he went to on Friday. But before we get into that, as always, subscribe to the feed. Doesn't take much. Tons of benefits. Andrew, tell us about CPAC. Let's just set the stage. It's the annual gathering. It used to be about conservatism. It's now about Trump and MAGA-ism, if you want to put it that way, Trumpism. And this year in particular seemed crazy because Elon was there. He was brandishing a chainsaw. Trump went. J.D. spoke, I believe. It was just everyone. But you were there on Friday.

What did you see? Yeah, CPAC's always been weird because it's like, it is kind of this media event, right? It's like they put on this big party. They have all these, like, tastemakers and newsmakers in, you know, the right-wing constellation come and speak and kind of hobnob. And all the different, like, right-wing podcasters and shows are all there. And they're all networking with each other. And, you know, people come from, quote quote unquote, real America to like witness these people. And it's like it's kind of like this like Lollapalooza type situation.

And the press covers it a lot because it's like this kind of like one stop shop to get supposedly like the whole right wing experience, like in one hotel south of D.C. and Maryland. And so it's like it's like always been this thing. But yeah, and it's always also always been kind of a zoo as well. I mean, there really is not like this mythical kind of prior CPAC, at least not in the last decade, in my experience of of kind of like it being this, you know, kind of good and pleasant and normal place. It's always been this sort of bizarre phenomenon, right?

Well, yeah, but you should talk to JVL about it. He feels the same way in terms of just having always – not to the same extent. Yeah, it's definitely drifted towards that area. I've been going there for like 15 years. Yes, it's always been sort of a grifter central and Radio Row especially. But I was there when I think – I'd have to correct my memory. But I was there when Mitt Romney dropped out of the presidential primary one year and people in the CPAC audience, which didn't have cell service at the time, were shocked. I saw people crying like, you know, it was like it used to be a big newsy newsmaker event.

And now it's just, you know, it's always been a cross section of the the biggest news junkies on the right. Right. So like before that was like, yeah, you'd have people who are like really into Mitt Romney, but who are like really into Mitt Romney, who like alluded to me so they could like see Mitt Romney speak. You know what I mean? It's not exactly like a median voter situation. But anyway, you are correct. It has gotten way weirder, way crazier. What does it say from your vantage point about the state of the conservative movement or Trump, the Trump movement? Those are two distinct things, just to be clear. Go ahead. Yeah, it's a little hard to tell.

And the reason it's a little hard to tell is because CPAC, I don't mean to just like keep doing all this like ruminating on CPAC, but like it's this one guy's thing, right? Matt Schlapp, he's this lobbyist. He's been putting it on, you know, for years. And he likes it because it, like, lets him proclaim himself sort of like the grand poobah of conservatism. And there's a lot of, like, self-congratulatory stuff there every year. And he is not like a dyed-in-the-wool, like, internal MAGA guy. He's a lobbyist. He's like a schmoozer. He's a handshakes guy.

Well, he's made himself into one for purposes of advancement. That's what's been interesting about it is that, like, CPAC was kind of on the vanguard of like letting all these people in. Like he invited Donald Trump to speak before it was clear that Donald Trump was going to like be welcome on the right. He invited RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard to speak as soon as they kind of made themselves members of the MAGA coalition. He's like kind of like a way for these people to kind of come in and ingratiate themselves and, and be on the team. He's not to his bones, a MAGA guy because he's kind of an establishment guy.

There's also this weird like tension always like on day one of CPAC, there was a lot of like a kind of mini controversy because January 6th defendants were showing up and like expecting to have the red carpet rolled out for them and then being like turned away. They weren't able to like come in. There was like, right. But he then, he then like then like say oh no you're welcome here yes because it blew up on right wing twitter uh and and they quickly kind of covered their

butts and we're like no you know we love our january our january 6th patriots uh you know come on in what's the nut graph here what do we what's the big picture takeaway oh i never know you make me go to cpac you know you you you in the – I mean, the craziest thing to me about CPAC was a couple things. First of all, we are exporting election denialism now. There was like a CPAC Hungary and like a CPAC Brazil and a CPAC Korea, all of which, you know, the kind of like theme was like the leftists in our countries are trying to steal all of our elections, and they're illegitimate, and we need to prop up these kind of God-Emperor figures like you guys have successfully done now in America. Congratulations, American CPAC patriots.

We need to see that replicated in Korea or whatever. Not exactly framed in those terms, but that's sort of the gist. The weird thing, yeah, it was all Trump, but it was not as like ostentatiously all Trump as it has been in past years. I think like, like in, in previous years, there was sort of this, this, uh, like active deliberate, like we are the Trump people. We're going to like say that every sentence. And they were still saying it a lot, obviously, but like, that's just in the water now, you

know, it's Trump's party. And like, there isn't this kind of need to reaffirm that nine hundred thousand times, except that they, you know, they still do. But do you understand what I'm saying? Like, it's a little bit. Yeah. Well, I'm kind of curious how much of it is. Well, maybe you could say, are they more Elon ish than Trump ish at this point or are we not there yet? Yeah. I mean, it's it's the thing about CPAC. Like I don't keep saying the thing about CPAC. It's not it's not like it's not like it's that thoughtful. Right. It's not like it's not like you can get a sense of what's going on. If you go to CPAC, you are never going to be presented with like a piece of programming that makes you think, huh, am I more of a Trump guy or am I more of an Elon guy?

Right. It's like it's this whole big cheerleading thing. Right. What were were there any actual points of tension in the room, right? Like it used to be, you go to CPAC, there'd actually be some sort of intramural debates, some, maybe, you know, it could be about trade. It could be about, you know, social issues like gay marriage, right? Was there any sense of sort of internal debate or conflict or tension even in the halls at the, what is it, the Gaylord Hotel? Yeah, the Gaylord National in Oxon Hill. So with the caveat that I was there for one day, you know, there might've been stuff on Thursday, there might've been stuff on Saturday. I did not see a lot of internal conflict other than the stuff I was just describing of like the, is CPAC,

you know, kicking out our January 6th. Should we embrace January 6th or should we just hug them tightly? You know? Yeah. But like, but, but I mean, I mean, it really is crazy how much events like this have now kind of self-selected for their people, right? Like, like if you, why would you show up? Why would you show up if you disagree with these people? They're not the straw poll. They put out this straw poll every year and it used to be kind of an interesting thing. It used to actually be kind of like, you know, you'd look at it and maybe you'd get some insights in how various cliques of conservatism were feeling about various people or various issues. And more recently, it's become just this bizarre sort of cheerleading event. They take the straw poll and then they read

the results of the straw poll off from the stage and kind of revel in their unanimity about everything. You know, it's like a sample straw poll question. Have the opening weeks of the Donald Trump administration been the best weeks for conservatism in your lifetime? Ninety nine percent say yes. Whoa. You know, like USA, USA, CPAC. And that's the sort of thing. It really is just this. I mean, it's it's it's not just an echo chamber. It is like a it's a cultivated echo chamber where it's all like, how fun is it that we're all in this echo chamber and we're winning is kind of the energy. Right.

Was there – I mean, do they just feel like they're having like the time of their lives now because they finally are back in power? And do they actually – is there – could you like sense any trepidation at all I suppose about how things are going or no? No trepidation. But also weirdly not quite as much euphoria as you might expect. And I don't know. I was actually thinking about this a lot. I don't know if it all felt a little bit kind of tired and going through the motions. And I don't know if that's because I was there for the lamer content, you know, like I was there on like for the Friday matinee and the and the Saturday primetime showing was Donald Trump. I'm sure

they got it. He got a warmer reception than the stuff I was doing. But also, like, I don't know. I do think that there is something in the kind of – in the water for a lot of these people where because the whole thing is just built on this kind of permanent state of grievance, it's just kind of hard to turn that off. Well, that's what I was wondering is because everything is about a plot against them or a rigged system against them or a deep state against them and now they are the deep state and they've beaten the rigged system and they have all the power it's like when you build your entire or most of your movement on grievance and then suddenly you are granted the kingdom like what else do you do yeah. I mean, we are still so early in the whole Trump show. I feel like it's been years. Yeah, well, yeah.

But, like, all the programs are just, I mean, they haven't passed a single piece of legislation. You know, all the cabinet secretaries just got confirmed. And so, like, we are still kind of in this moment where, like, the dog just caught the car and is still kind of, like, exulting over that. There hasn't been a ton of, like, what's, okay, what's the next thing? What's the next thing? And yet, like I was saying, like still weird little, like holding onto weird little grievances

from like a few days ago. Just this one panel, the first panel I saw when I walked in was like, you know, against woke culture in Hollywood. It was like inclusion delusion, you know, Hollywood survivors. And it was like this guy

who used to be the CEO of the Hallmark Channel who was like on this jag complaining about how when the Hallmark Channel aired the Christmas tree lighting for Donald Trump back in his first year in office, there were people who complained about that. And he's like, well, I just thought this Christmas tree lighting would be this kind of beautiful little thing. And and people were so mad. And, you know, it's incredible that that's still. Yeah, I know. I know. Like, I don't know how he's on the stage, I don't know why... Because there are no dead grievances. Things from like ten years ago, they still get mad. That's true of anybody, right? You can kind of dust off a thing you used to be mad about and kind of get yourself mad about it again.

But also, the whole political movement's built on that, right? It's like you have this whole library now and you can take down any book from the shelf and kind of re-trigger yourself all over again. And you never have to, you never have to stop feeling, feeling grievance. So that's, I guess, the weird thing about CPAC is, yes, they are winning. But yes, there is still so much, so much grievance there, despite the fact that they're in the driver's seat. The last thing I got to ask you, because Matt Schlatt has a few scandals and stories surrounding him. Let's speak carefully here because we want to make sure that we don't say anything we don't regret.

But was that in the air at all? Were people discussing these? And Pete, if you're watching this, I don't want to get into the details because this is a PG-13 YouTube channel. But you can Google it. A PG-13 youtube channel but you can google it youtube channel yeah you can google he was involved in an altercation there was a police people that people can do the googling was that the answer is not on stage um i i hope not yeah i did not see uh it litigated weird if it was on stage buddy hey matt well he is so much on stage

i mean like he he himself yeah but even who cares that'd be very weird if like It'd be weird if it was on stage, buddy. Hey, Matt. Well, he is so much on stage. I mean, like he himself. Yeah, but even, who cares? That'd be very weird if like, it'd be very weird if a speaker got up there and said, oh, now that I'm done exalting Robert F. Kennedy, hey, Matt, can we talk about what happened at that bar in Virginia? That'd be weird. No. Right, right, right.

But it wasn't in the audience. No, I did see, I did, I did overhear just one interaction outside of CPAC kind of in the media row. Um, and it was just very quick. Like Matt was, Matt Schlapp was walking past, uh, and he just kind of got buttonholed by like a random guy, um, who was kind of like, Hey Matt, you know, like, sorry, sorry, your wife had to, had to come out and defend you again and kind of laughed about it a little bit.

Um, and that was it. That was the whole interaction. But it was like, it was weird. Cause it's like plainly, this is on at least some people's mind as they're going into this. But I mean, what are you going to do? Like he runs CPAC and you're not, are you not going to go to CPAC? I mean, come on. I'll send you there regardless. I'm shocked that they let you in. All right, Andrew, I know you got a lot to do. Thank you for your dispatch. Thank you for your service. Thanks, Sam. No hazard pay for this one, but thank you for your service.

We will be checking in with you on all of your writings on Morning Shots, which people should get. And we'll see you soon.