It is time again for the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC. There was a time when CPAC was a core hub of conservatism, back in ye olden days, but for at least the last decade it has been devolvingd very steadily into the current grift-o-rama, a live puppet show version of Fox & Friends-styled conspiracy shouting interwoven with extended bouts of maudlin self-pity. So it is still a core hub of conservatism, in other words—but of the new variety. Gone are the pretenses of ideological hills worth dying on; in their place are long-winded explanations of how Actually Whatever Trump Just Said Is Good Now.
Shall we take a look at this year's schedule? Here: Feast your eyes on the best minds conservatism has to offer. Amongst the heavy hitters:
• Former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who finds himself with a lot of time on his hands these days, so you're going to have to bear with him for a while.
• Oliver North, a conservative hero best known for engaging in high treason. He'll be there to talk about What Makes America Great. The surprise answer? Gun-running. Lots and lots of gun-running.
• Dr. Sebastian Gorka. Gorka is best known around D.C. for "accidentally" attempting to bring a gun onto an airliner, for links to Hungarian Nazi sympathizers, and for being terrible at parking. What the man actually does as day job is, as always, less clear.
• Charlie Kirk and Candace Owens. You may best know them as omnipresent online gaffe-machines, artisanal-quality truffles of stupid tweets and ridiculous claims. They are there to lower the IQ of the room, pass around the donation bucket, and explain where Hitler went wrong.
• Diamond and Silk. I'm going to come out and admit here that I still have no idea what a Diamond and Silk is, but from what I can piece together, it appears to be the conservative version of Bert and Ernie, if Bert and Ernie were held at gunpoint and forced to do 23 hours of YouTube commentary per day on topics chosen by meth addicts?
• Sen. Lindsey Graham, who for two dollars will become your new best friend.
• Someone from Breitbart appearing on a panel titled "Can Journalism Be Saved?"
• A tag-team pairing of Rep. Devin Nunes (not yet indicted) and Judicial Watch's prize ham Tom Fitton, who will be explaining why the investigation into Russian election hacking must end absolutely immediately now with no further questions and definitely no more indictments of Trump-allied Republicans who may or may not have done things in or around that general time frame. Don't miss Nunes' dramatic opening, in which he hurls himself from a moving Uber and lands with perfect positioning in front of the venue podium.
• Jerry Effing Falwell Jr., now famous as the man who detached evangelicalism from its Christian pretenses for once and for all.
• Trump Secretary of Labor Alex Acosta, who will most emphatically not be asked about the sweetheart deal given to serial child molester Jeffrey Epstein. This is a Roy Moore sort of crowd: They don't ... discuss ... such unpleasantries.
• Michelle Malkin, who apparently still exists? Is that right? Who knew?
• James O'Keefe, who will appear on a panel premised on the belief that not giving James O'Keefe attention is tantamount to censorship. About four-fifths of all conservatism is variations on this same bit, so you’ll be excused if you want to skip this one in favor of one of the infinitely many YouTube versions.
• A session on Stopping the Progressive Drift of Evangelical Voters, sponsored by arch-climate-denier group CO2 Coalition. No, really. I'm not making that up. Why is the ocean-acidification-is-good-for-you crowd particularly keen on wooing evangelicals? Is it just because Jerry Falwell has proven American evangelicals to be by far the most gullible group of voters, people who will literally believe anything you tell them, no matter how ridiculous or how many times you've told them the exact opposite? Yes. Yes it is.
This year's conference seems to be particularly stacked with events intended to highlight the dangers posed by China, from which we can infer that at least the wing-nut base has landed on where they believe our next shooting war should be. (Similar saber-rattling against Iran, curiously, is mostly absent, and you'll have to search high and low for a mention of the wars our soldiers are currently off fighting. Warmongering is a fashion-based industry, and America's Greatest Enemy pronouncements seem to go in and out of style.)
Other trends for the trendwatchers: Charlie Kirk's Big Bag o' Youthful Grift, aka Turning Point, is very in; the National Review is mostly out. The Heritage Foundation is in, or at least flush with cash; the Log Cabin Republicans are still hanging in there, by a fingernail or two. Panic about gun rights is always very big with this crowd, and may or may not have something to do with the very large percentage of loud, twitchy conspiracy devotees in the audience and onstage. Planned Parenthood is aggressively targeted, as usual, and with the usual (cough) measured rhetoric. Brexit good; immigration scary.
Well, there you go. That's the state of conservatism in 2019, in the Trump era, in the era when the entire Republican Congress patriotically stuffed their heads into burlap sacks rather than stand up for any of those ideals that they so loudly screamed about during their last CPAC appearances. It consists of the green room at Fox & Friends. Gone are the days of heady principles, never to return. Good bye, lean government. Farewell, intolerance for corruption. Get your ass out and don't come back, whatever will we tell the children? There’s a new sheriff in town, and his name is Shut Up And Give Me Cash.