The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), the largest annual gathering of conservatives in the United States, drew thousands of activists to Florida this past weekend, where conservative thought leaders and elected officials discussed the future of the conservative movement and some of the most pressing issues facing the nation.
This year’s conference was once again headlined by former President Donald Trump, who is widely recognized as the leader of the Republican Party. A few of the other notable speakers included Governors Ron DeSantis of Florida and Kristi Noem of South Dakota, along with Senators Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, and Marco Rubio. Former Trump administration officials, including former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and other conservative media personalities, also took the stage before a raucous crowd.
The theme of this year’s conference was “Awake, Not Woke”—a mantra that pushes back against the progressive, or “woke,” cultural priorities of leftism, which have increasingly come to define the agenda of the Democratic Party. “A lot of people around the globe have seen government just come in and dictate almost every aspect of their life—when a church can open, when a church can close, or school can open, when a parent can even learn what’s going on in school,” said Matt Schlapp, Chairman of the American Conservative Union, which organizes the annual event. “In America, we’ve woken up to this idea that we’ve been teaching our kids to hate our country. And it really pisses us off.”
In his keynote address on Saturday evening, Trump railed against President Joe Biden’s handling of the Russia-Ukraine crisis and the Biden administration’s mounting series of crises—foreign and domestic. “We are praying for the proud people of Ukraine. God bless them all,” Trump said in his remarks. “They are indeed brave.”
“Under Bush, Russia invaded Georgia. Under Obama, Russia took Crimea. Under Biden, Russia invaded Ukraine,” the former president continued. “I stand as the only president of the 21st century on whose watch Russia did not invade another country.”
Trump also took aim at the Biden administration’s open border policies, COVID-19 mandates, inflation-inducing spending bills, and botched withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan. He also emphasized the importance of a Republican midterm victory this November and repeatedly teased another run for the White House in 2024. After saying that Democrat policies are a disaster, Trump warned that Democrats are “going to find out the hard way starting November 8 and even more so starting November 2024.”
“When we win, we will defeat this corrupt political establishment, we will save our republic, and we will restore constitutional government of by and for the people,” Trump said. “The Washington swamp knows that we are coming to break their grip on power forever. That is why they are so desperate to stop us. They will go to any lengths.”
Other prevailing themes at the conference included opposition to Critical Race Theory, an attitude of skepticism mixed with outrage towards COVID-related restrictions—or what DeSantis derided as the “biomedical security state.” In his remarks, Trump expressed solidarity with the Canadian Truckers’ protest and slammed Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s mandates as amounting to “woke tyranny.”
Trump convincingly won the conference’s 2024 GOP presidential straw poll for the third consecutive time, capturing 59 percent of the vote—up from 55 percent in February 2021. DeSantis came in a distant second with 28 percent of the vote, followed by Pompeo, who captured 2 percent of the vote.
CPAC will convene again in Dallas, Texas, this August for the final iteration of the event before the November midterms. Following the end of the conference, Trump’s leadership of the Republican Party and his kingmaker status going into the 2022 midterm elections appear to be stronger than ever—further solidifying his transformative influence over the trajectory of the GOP and the American conservative movement.
As the Biden agenda continues to collapse and Joe Biden’s popularity continues to fall to new lows, the themes, ideas, and policies expressed at events like CPAC are starting to resonate strongly with the American people. Facing record-high gas prices, skyrocketing inflation, international instability, and a growing list of other impediments, Americans of all political affiliations are finally coming to see the far-left agenda of Joe Biden and Congressional Democrats for what it really is. And as the countdown to the midterms this fall continues, that trend is sure to accelerate.