Donald Trump’s presidency has ended and his Twitter has been silenced, but at the first big conservative meeting of the year, the message is clear: Mr. Trump is here to stay.
Elected officials and activists who spoke on the first day of the Annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) held in Florida this year, focusing on the restrictions of COVID-19, the so-called cancellation culture, how the 2020 elections were conducted and threats that they see in democratic politics. Although there was hardly any mention of the attack on Capitol Hill last month, speakers protested the “liberal mob” and unrest over the summer.
The conference does not offer open criticism of the former president, so praise for Trump, who still has the support of most Republican voters, was the theme of the opening day.
“There are many voices in Washington who just want to erase the past four years,” Texas Sen. Ted Cruz told the crowd. “Let me say now: Donald J. Trump is not going anywhere.”
Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton told a story about an immigrant attributing his economic success to the former president and celebrated Trump’s ability to attract Latino voters in the 2020 elections.
And Missouri senator Josh Hawley was given a standing ovation when he told the crowd his objection to the January 6 election results. He criticized Twitter for banning Trump and ended his speech with: “America now, America first, America forever”.
Many speakers asked the Republican Party against a return to its pre-Trump origins and criticized some of the policies that Republican leaders in the past have made.
“We will not win the future by trying to get back to where the Republican Party used to be,” said Florida Senator Rick Scott, who also chairs the Republicans’ campaign operation in the Senate. “If we do, we will lose the base of work that President Trump has so excited. We will lose elections across the country and, ultimately, we will lose our nation.”
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is running for re-election in 2022, has established his own brand for conservatives in the future, saying the party rejects open borders, “weakness” against China and “military adventurism”.
“We are not going back to the days of the failure of the former Republican establishment,” he said. “Hold the line, hold your position, and never, never give up.”
Hawley told people who attended the CPAC that they “represent what is to come”.
“For people who say to us, ‘Oh, you are the past. Your moment has passed, it’s over. Now it’s Joe Biden’s America,'” he said. “I just want to say, ‘We are not the past. We are the future,'” he said.
At the event, Hawley received widespread criticism of his objection to counting the votes of the Electoral College on January 6 as a medal of honor.
“I was called a traitor, I was called a seditionist,” he said of the reaction to his vote. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m right here. I’m going to defend you, because if we can’t have a free and open debate in this country, we won’t have another country.” His phrase echoed a remark made by Trump to his supporters that day: ” If you don’t fight like crazy, you won’t have a country anymore. “
Almost a dozen speakers at the event were mentioned as possible candidates for the presidency in 2,024. “For a second, I thought we were in Des Moines,” Cruz joked about the lecture schedule.
Cotton, among the likely White House aspirants, suggested that Republicans would not run against Biden in four years. “They want to give amnesty to 15 to 20 million illegal immigrants. No strings attached, entitled to vote – presumably in time for what they hope will be Kamala Harris’s reelection campaign, ”he said.
But while a list of Republicans vies to improve their profiles, it is Trump who is the keynote speaker, set to make his first public comments since he left office at the conference on Sunday.
Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., joked that the conference should be called “TPAC” because of the support that the former president has among the public. He offered a brief preview of his father’s speech, saying to the crowd: “I imagine it will not be what we call a ‘low energy’ speech. And I assure you that it will solidify Donald Trump and all his feelings about the MAGA Movement as a future. of the Republican Party. “
Polls show that Trump still maintains firm control over the Republican Party base. A Suffolk University / USA Today poll published earlier this week revealed that almost 6 out of 10 Trump supporters said they would like to see him run for president again in 2024 and 76% said they would vote for him if he sought the Republican nomination.
Saturday’s notable speakers include Florida Senator Marco Rubio, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, who were named as potential candidates for the presidency in 2,024.