This is what happened when MAGA people at CPAC thought I was one of them.
Exiled from the press pen, I was just part of the audience, a space previously off-limits to reporters.
To say the least, it was enlightening.
On Friday, for instance, I listened to a main-stage speech from Chris #Miller, a Republican running for governor of West Virginia.
Because of its tax-exempt status, CPAC bans speakers from openly campaigning there, so he was listed on the program simply as “businessman.”
Like virtually every other speaker at the event, Miller devoted several of his allotted five minutes to railing against #transgender#healthcare.
“Woke doctors are literally making boys into girls,” he declared.
“They’re practicing #mutilation, not medicine. They should be in prison.”
At that point, a burly man in a giant black cowboy hat sitting next to me leaned over conspiratorially and proclaimed,
“I think we should #hang them all! I really do.”
And he laughed like we were in on the same joke.
I confess that I was too cowardly to tell him I was with the left-wing fake news
Later, during a speech by South Dakota Governor Kristi #Noem, I was sitting next to a woman in full-on MAGA gear.
When Noem declared, “There are some people who love America, and there are some people who #hate America,” my neighbor gave me a small heart attack.
“Get the FUCK OUT!” she yelled furiously, ready to rumble. “Get the FUCK OUT!”
Meanwhile, the old man in the camo Trump hat next to her had somehow fallen asleep.
In the hotel lobby outside the CPAC main stage, the right-wing cable network Real America’s Voice had set up a studio. #Bannon spent most of the conference holding court there and interviewing various MAGA celebs like Kash #Patel, who President Donald Trump had once put in charge of counterterrorism at the National Security Administration, or Rep. Byron #Donalds (R-FL), the rare Black conservative in the mix.
The studio often drew a crowd that rivaled that of some of the speakers on the main stage. It certainly rivaled the convention in volume.
While I was taking in the spectacle, a middle-aged man in a gray suit came up to me and pointed to a nearby 7-foot-high poster of Tucker #Carlson’s face.
“Do you know why that’s here?” he asked.
I explained that it was an ad for Tucker: The Biography, a book written by Chadwick Moore, a gay journalist and former liberal.
“Oh, I see,” he replied. The man clearly wanted to keep talking, asking me what I was here for, which was unusual since in the past my press badge said it all.
My inquisitor had come to #CPAC to see what people were saying about school choice and was disappointed to discover that the answer to that question was nothing.
Education policy, he lamented, was nowhere to be found at this event. Indeed, what passed for policy discussions at CPAC this year was largely limited to mass #deportations and attacks on #trans athletes.
The sober panels about the national debt, balancing the budget, or Social Security reform that once commanded top billing were a relic of another era before CPAC became an extension of Trump Inc., devoted to all the MAGA grievances like racial #equity, the evils of #windmills, or bans on gas #stoves.
When I finally was able to explain that I was a reporter who’d been denied a press pass, the man launched into an earnest yet incomprehensible spiel about how the government is #censoring people. Politely, I fled into the crowd watching Bannon. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/02/being-denied-a-press-pass-at-cpac-was-the-best-way-to-cover-the-conference/
The challenge theme on Night Café was Windmills. When I created this one, I included a couple different styles in the prompts, such as matte painting, watercolor and steampunk.