Hug Trump or get out.

This weekend, as Republicans gathered in Orlando, Florida, for the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, the agenda was not free markets or strong foreign policy. Instead, his focus was on solidifying control of former President Donald Trump’s party. What brought speakers together, including Trump and the party’s key presidential prospects in 2024, was his disdain for public health measures and his adoption of lies about electoral fraud. For any Republican who disagrees with this madness, the conference sent an unmistakable message: Get out.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis kicked off the event by denouncing “blocking states” – those that restricted commercial activity during the pandemic – and boasting that he travels only to “free states”. Another speaker, COVID demagogue Alex Berenson, blamed the blockages on Amazon, Facebook and Google, which “profit from keeping you at home”. A third speaker, conservative provocateur James O’Keefe, denounced Facebook for censoring lies about COVID vaccines. Others scoffed at Dr. Anthony Fauci, the federal government’s chief medical officer.

Several members of Congress, including Congressman Jim Banks, chairman of the 159-member House Republican Studies Committee, boasted on stage and in interviews for not wearing masks. Senator Ted Cruz, addressing the public on Friday, ridiculed the idea that people should cover their faces after getting up from meals in restaurants. South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, whose state leads the country in recent COVID deaths per capita, denounced the masking mandates and noted with pride that South Dakota was the only state that never ordered the closure of any company. “No governor should dictate to his people which activities are officially approved or not,” she said.

Lawmakers and former Trump officials have also spread fantasies about electoral fraud. They claimed or suggested that the election was “rigged” and “stolen” through “mysterious ballot deposits late at night” and cars “unloading piles of votes … in the wee hours of the morning.” They praised Mike Lindell, Sidney Powell, Rudy Giuliani and other conspiracy theorists. Matt Schlapp, president of the American Conservative Union, which hosted the conference, said Trump was the victim of “widespread electoral fraud” in “cities run by the Democratic machine”. Tom Fitton, the president of Judicial Watch, another right-wing organization, told the crowd that Trump “had votes to win” but “vote totals have been changed because of unprecedented and extraordinary counts after Election Day. “Senator Marsha Blackburn expressed dismay that the media had dared to” verify the facts [Trump], the leader of the free world. “

If you are one of those people, the signal from the party leaders in CPAC is that you don’t to belong.

Speakers rejected court decisions that did not confirm their false allegations. Schlapp said he had “first hand” knowledge that “evidence of illegal voting” was never “really examined”. He falsely claimed that the judges “in almost all cases” refused to intervene because (according to their misrepresentation of their written opinions) the whole issue of electoral fraud was “politically too hot”. Trump gave the same excuse in a speech at the conference on Sunday, arguing that the courts failed to intervene because they lacked the “courage” to face the fraud.

Instead of confronting right-wing extremists like those who attacked the Capitol on January 6, CPAC speakers turned to Muslims. Trump defended his ban on travel from Muslim-majority countries. His former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, added a religious note when he celebrated the assassination of Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani, “Allah have his soul.” And a self-promotion video broadcast by the ACU said that “it is not appropriate to build a mosque” near the site of the 9/11 attack in New York.

Many people who identify themselves as Republicans do not share these views. They support security measures and public health guidelines. They do not believe lies about a stolen election and do not tolerate religious discrimination. If you are one of those people, the sign of the party leaders at CPAC is that you do not belong. Banks, whose caucus represents more than three-quarters of the Republican Party, despised anti-Trump Republicans. Fitton classified skeptics of electoral fraud as “losing Republicans.” “We have a lot of RINOS out there,” yelled Dan Bongino, a right-wing radio announcer, as the crowd applauded. “The primary season starts now. … Get them out of here! Go! We won’t miss you! Please get out of here! “

Speakers named their targets, accusing them of imposing restrictions on COVID or of not standing firm with Trump. Friday’s headliner, Donald Trump Jr., unmasked a diatribe against Congresswoman Liz Cheney, the House’s third Republican, and her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney. Rep. Matt Gaetz said that the youngest Cheney should be given priority and purged. Jason Chaffetz, the former chairman of the House Government Oversight and Reform Committee, opened his speech with a attack on Senator Mitt Romney. Schlapp and Josh Mandel, the former Ohio Secretary of State, criticized Maryland Governor Larry Hogan and Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, the two Republican governors best known for taking the pandemic seriously. Congresswoman Jody Hice criticized Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s “horrible secretary of state”, who challenged Trump’s attempts to overturn the election.

Trump ended the conference with a speech against “RINOs” who would “destroy our country”. He recited a list of 10 Republican House members who voted against him, including Cheney, Rep. Anthony Gonzalez (“That’s another beauty”) and Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, who had produced incriminating evidence against him in his second Senate attempts. He also read a list of Republican senators who voted to condemn him, including Bill Cassidy, Susan Collins and “Little Ben Sasse”. “Get rid of them all,” Trump told the crowd.

When Trump ran for president in 2016, many Republicans thought he would not be nominated. When he won the nomination, they thought he would lose the election. When he won the election, they thought the party would control him. And when that failed – when Trump took over the government of the Republican Party and reduced it to a cult of anger and narcissism – they told themselves that the party would recover as soon as he stepped down. But he is out of office now, and the party is still in its grip. It’s in his image too. And the message of the CPAC is that the old party will never come back.