Biden v. CPAC

March 6, 2023

          To the extent that the ultra-conservative CPAC convention over the weekend tells us anything, it is encapsulated in this fact: “Governor-in-her-own-mind” Kari Lake placed first in the polling to be Donald Trump's running mate in 2024. That’s right, a woman whose most significant life accomplishment is not conceding an election she lost was selected to be the vice president for a man whose legacy will be not conceding an election he lost. If you add “refusal to concede” to the “war against woke-ism,” “retribution,” and “Hunter Biden’s laptop,” the result is a fair approximation of the GOP 2024 platform.

          While we should not dismiss the attraction of that platform to 20% of the electorate, it does not roll trippingly off the tongue. If CPAC 2023 is a mirror into the soul of the GOP heading into 2024, Democrats have plenty of reason to be hopeful—but no reason to be complacent!

          Before reviewing what happened at the CPAC convention in DC, it is reasonable to ask whether CPAC remains relevant to the fortunes of the Republican Party. It does. True, CPAC is receding back into the dark corners of the GOP from whence it emerged in the 1980s, but it remains aligned with a plurality of Republican voters (which includes Republican-leaning Independents). As such, the straw polls and jeering of non-Trump candidates over the weekend suggest a bruising fight in the 2024 GOP primary.

          I cannot cite poll numbers that address the specific question of whether CPAC is representative of the Republican Party, but other polling demonstrates that the conspiratorial beliefs on full display at CPAC animate the majority of Republicans. See, e.g., Philip Bump's op-ed in WaPo, Figuring out how many ‘MAGA Republicans’ there actually are. As explained by Bump, if you consider four common beliefs (the Big Lie, supporting Big Lie candidates, support for J6 insurrectionists, and support for violence to effect political change), Republican support for those beliefs ranges from 50%+ (Big Lie) to about 20% (violence).

          Given that election deniers Kari Lake and Donald Trump won the straw polls at CPAC by capturing 62% and 20% of the vote, respectively, probabilities favor a Republican election denier nominee in 2024. DeSantis garnered only 20% of the vote, with Pompeo, Haley, and others claiming the remaining 18%. Projecting a roughly equivalent result in the GOP primaries, Trump is the odds-on favorite to secure the GOP nomination, despite his waning support. Indeed, the CPAC straw poll closely tracks Trump's favorability ratings in the PBS News Hour poll last month.  

          It is, of course, too early to rely on polling to predict election outcomes in 2024, but the themes espoused by candidates trolling for votes at CPAC will not change. Nikki Haley—whose proudest moment was being forced to remove a Confederate flag flying over the South Carolina Capitol—based her CPAC pitch as a war against “wokeness.” In a truly thoughtless statement, she claimed that “wokeness” is a virus “more dangerous than any pandemic”—an affront to the families of 1.1 million Americans who died from Covid.

          Other CPAC speakers echoed similar themes, with one conservative radio host saying “transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely.” See Rolling Stone, CPAC Speaker Calls for Eradication of ‘Transgenderism’ — and Somehow Claims He’s Not Calling for Elimination of Transgender People.

          [It is appropriate to pause here and reflect on how closely the speaker’s words came to a call for the eradication of transgender people. For everyone who is exhausted by the fight or unwilling to support the transgender community, the call for “eradication” should be the clarion signal that if we do not stop the hate against the transgender community, similar calls against the broader LGBTQ community will be next, followed by other religious, ethnic, and racial groups that have been the traditional targets of white supremacists. We must draw the line here.]

          The calls to hate, division, and denialism that dominated the CPAC convention were the themes that led to GOP losses in 2020 and 2022. But the GOP seems unable to quit its symbiotic relationship with those vices—no matter the political cost.

          This brings us to Trump's speech at CPAC. You have seen his speech before, dozens of times. The fact that he recycled hateful memes and phrases does not make it less dangerous. See The Guardian, ‘I am your retribution’: Trump rules supreme at CPAC as he relaunches bid for White House.

          I will not dwell on Trump's speech. You can read the details in The Guardian, linked above. But the straw poll that Trump won convincingly was taken after the speech. I do not believe that the CPAC straw poll should cause fear and anxiety among Democrats; instead, they should re-affirm our conviction that we have plenty of reason to believe that Democrats will retain the White House in 2024. And as Trump drags down the GOP hope of recapturing the presidency, he will hurt down-ballot Republicans who will be forced to defend his hate, division, and anti-democratic messages.

          We can never count on Republicans to beat themselves, but we should not ascribe to them superpowers or invincibility they do not have. We can beat them—especially if they spend another two years in the echo chamber of Trump's empty, grievance-filled mind.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden acknowledges the nation’s debt to the civil rights marchers on the anniversary of Bloody Sunday.

          As Trump was spewing hate at CPAC, Biden was preaching healing and remembrance in Selma, Alabama, on the 58^th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, a day of infamy in America’s history. Historian Heather Cox Richardson has already written eloquently about the backdrop of Biden’s speech, so will I not retread that ground. See Heather Cox Richardson, March 5, 2023 (Sunday).

          It was ‘fitting and proper’ for Biden to deliver remarks in Selma on the day of remembrance for Bloody Sunday. He spoke as the leader of a nation still attempting to reconcile its promise with its past. As Biden spoke on Sunday, many of the promises of the Constitution remain unfulfilled or under attack. By calling for the nation to honor those overdue promises, Biden was being alert to the continuing injustices faced by Black citizens in America—the very definition of “wokeness” condemned by Nikki Haley, Donald Trump, and other CPAC speakers.

          We must assume that unlike Joe Biden, Nikki Haley (if she becomes president) will refuse to observe similar anniversaries because of her campaign against “wokeness”—days like Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Black History Month, or Loving Day. The latter celebrates the end of laws that prohibited marriage between “whites” and “Blacks”—laws that were applied against immigrants from India after the US Supreme Court ruled in 1923 that an immigrant from India did not meet the “common sense” definition of “a free white person”—and could not, therefore, become a naturalized US citizen.

But for the “wokeness” of Mildred and Richard Loving, some states might still prohibit marriages between US citizens whose ancestors immigrated from India and “white” Americans. See The India Forum, The ‘Hindus’ and Anti-miscegenation Laws in the United States.

          Joe Biden’s remembrance of Bloody Sunday is not only an “alertness to discrimination” against Black Americans but a reminder that the liberties that the Freedom Riders redeemed with their blood are gifts to all Americans—including Nikki Haley and her husband, who enjoy those freedoms in their personal lives even if they choose not to acknowledge their debt to Black civil rights activists who secured those rights for all Americans.

          If remembering the sacrifice of the civil rights marchers of the 1950s and 1960s is wokeness, we need more of it, not less. And bless Joe Biden for acknowledging our national debt to those brave Americans who walked stoically into the waiting batons, whips, and rubber tubes wrapped in barbed wire on Edmund Pettus Bridge fifty-eight years ago. Each of us owes them a debt of gratitude that can only be repaid by vigilance in protecting the rights they secured at great personal sacrifice.

Concluding Thoughts.

          Jessica Craven’s blog for today is a great way to begin your week—especially the section of her newsletter titled “Celebrate this!” listing accomplishments that should make every American happy. See Chop Wood Carry Water, Extra! Extra! 3/5 🎉 - by Jessica Craven.

          The New York Times has reported that of the 26 most popular conservative news outlets, only four have mentioned the shocking revelations that Fox News deliberately lied about allegations of fraud in the 2020 election. See NYTimes, Conservative Media Pay Little Attention to Revelations About Fox News.  

          The failure of the conservative news media to cover the story is hypocritical and outrageous. But it is also a concession that the story is so bad that conservative pundits can’t spin the news in a way to make it sound innocent. When Trump said outrageous things, his advisers frequently dismissed the statements by suggesting that Trump didn’t really mean what he said. (“That’s just the way Trump talks.”) But Rupert Murdoch made his statements under oath, and the texts by Carlson, Hannity, and other Fox infotainers are self-authenticating.

          It is rare that a story is so bad for conservatives that they won’t lie about it to reduce its sting. So, what should we do? We should do our best to ensure that the story gets into the news ecosystem by posting and re-posting, writing letters to the editor, emailing, and telling friends and neighbors about the story.

People don’t like to be lied to; it makes them feel like chumps—which is how every view of Fox News should be feeling today. Let’s fill the information gap. We don’t have to change everyone’s mind—just enough of them to make a difference in a handful of elections. That can be the difference between regaining control of the House, or not. Let’s do our part!

          Talk to you tomorrow!