Congress, Jamie O, Political Crack, So Called Liberal Media

CPAC = Crazy People Acting Crazy

A very normal and not insane at all merch table at this year’s CPAC.

The Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) held its annual shindig last week. It was, as always, a display of insanity.

In case you missed hearing about it given Everything Else, no worries. Famous Trump Antagonizers The Lincoln Project, in response to CPAC, did the only thing they do well, create social media content. Here’s a helpful 105-second summary of the batshit madness that is CPAC:

Thanks, folks. That video points out some (but not all!) of the craziest of the crazy moments. I think it’s important to note, that while there are some people in there you might not recognize, there are elected Republican officials featured in the video.

Among the events that went on at CPAC included an awful lot of pride regarding “Let’s Go Brandon,” the obscene code they came up with about Joe Biden which they apparently think is the cleverest thing ever created. This included Smarmy Senator Ted Cruz, who seemed positively over the moon about it (see the above video).

You might think that this would cause political harm to the party, turn off “suburban moderates” and all that. But nope, not much of that talk. Needless to say, if there were an equivalent of CPAC for liberals/progressives, every move made and word spoken by The Squad or Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren would be hyper-analyzed and condemned by the Chuck Todds of the world as What Shall Bring Down the Party in the Midterms.

At the same time, the America First Political Action Conference was holding their big event nearby (known as AFPAC, think like AFLAC if the duck in the commercial was a neofascist). This event was created by Groypers because gosh darn it, CPAC isn’t racist enough. What on Earth is a Groyper? Well, they’re a group of sad white nationalists and far-right activists (read: awful trolls) who use that terrible Pepe the Frog meme as their symbol.

These days, the AFPAC folks are less about upstaging CPAC and more about melding the two together. The two events shared as a speaker Perennially Horrifying Human Marjorie Taylor Greene, who was introduced by AFPAC organizer and King Hate Nerd Nick Fuentes. To give you an idea of what sort of swell guy Fuentes is:

Heh.

To her “credit,” Margie denied knowing much about Fuentes, taking the tact of fellow Republican Congresscreatures who used to claim after Trump posted some terrible thing on Twitter, that they “didn’t see the Tweet” when asked about it by reporters. No idea who that guy even is, even if he did introduce me! He just was there!

There were other cross-pollinations between the two events that were wonderfully outlined by Steven Monacelli in Rolling Stone. This melding of the two events no doubt will continue, and will likely become like the end of “Animal Farm” where the pigs and the cruel humans become pretty much the same thing. Those who doubt this should watch Ted Cruz’s speech and imagine such a thing happening in the 1990s. Keep in mind, at one time CPAC was considered a fringe event, and now it is a mainstream GOP gathering.

I didn’t even bring up Trump’s bizarre speech, which included this moment:

And this one:

Other than this being absolute nonsense, once again the “lock her up” chants startup, because of course they did. They are aching to imprison their political opponents.

There are some cries for the GOP to censure or otherwise discipline Margie but of course, this isn’t going to happen. It won’t happen because 1) the GOP doesn’t want to anger its base, 2) there are enough people in party leadership who agree with her, and 3) it’s not hurting them politically.

That last point is hard to ignore. If a progressive politician get more grief over outrage that not enough is being done to help disadvantaged Americans than these loony Republicans get for clearly espousing elements of fascism, well, that’s not a good look for the nation.

The last word is not about this post but goes to Stas Namin, the Russian rock musician who worked to bring peace between the US and the USSR during the 1980s via Peace Child (and came to my hometown of York, PA!), showing he never lost his idealism by performing John Lennon’s “Give Peace a Chance” in Russian, Ukrainian, and English in 2014: