Should Conservatives Care about CPAC?

Now a MAGA carnival, the event is not the movement’s forum for debate that it once was.

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President Donald Trump attends the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas, Texas, August 6, 2022.

Shelby Tauber/Reuters

The annual Conservative Political Action Conference opens its doors next week, sure to garner its normally outsized attention from the mainstream media. That’s a shame, because CPAC is now only a shadow of its former self.

This event was once a calendar highlight, as people from all factions and all parts of the country gathered to meet, debate, and network. Now, under the leadership of its embattled chairman Matt Schlapp, it has devolved into a MAGA carnival where only one part of the conservative movement is welcome and dogma has replaced debate.

Henry Olsen

About the Author

Henry Olsen

Henry Olsen is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and the author of The Working-Class Republican: Ronald Reagan and the Return of Blue-Collar Conservatism.

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