10 takeaways from CPAC 2026

Last week, the annual conference of the Conservative Political Action Conference was held in my back yard in Texas. So of course I attended.

This isn’t my first time venturing into MAGA territory. I attended the National Rifle Association’s annual meetings in 2018 and again in 2024. Both times I attended the Trump rallies associated with them. I thought these experiences had prepared me for CPAC. I was wrong.

The attendees of CPAC are the true MAGA faithful, and the alt-right speakers at the event are the priests of the movement.

Spending roughly 25 hours over two-and-a-half days with them was truly disturbing. As I was leaving the convention for the last time, I posted a video of myself trying to articulate what I was thinking and feeling. Upon seeing it, my friends, fellow clergy and church members reached out to check on my well-being.

“What struck me most about the atmosphere of CPAC was how truly angry, hateful, resentful and cruel everyone was.”

What struck me most about the atmosphere of CPAC was how truly angry, hateful, resentful and cruel everyone was. Online commentators often have said that cruelty is a feature of MAGA, not a bug. I now know this to be true.

I am continuing to process what I experienced in their midst. In the meantime, here are 10 takeaways I’m still thinking about.

The MAGA faithful are deeply unhappy, angry, unhealthy people. While the MAGA vendors, speakers and some attendees sparkled with joy, the majority of the attendees carried a darkness about them. Occasionally it would bubble up.

During a panel titled “Cigars, Steaks and Ivermectin: A MAHA Survival Guide” all eyes turned to a man in the audience who had become unhinged by the chatter near him. He yelled at those seated behind him to “shut up” because he was trying to listen. He was so loud and the episode was so jarring that some in the crowd were unsettled for the rest of the talk.

The panelists he was so intent on listening to included a board-certified doctor and rancher (Brooke Miller), a media personality with a Ph.D. in human and organization systems from an online university (Gina Loudon), a professional rodeo rider (Luke Branquinho) and a homeopathy advocate (Barbara Lowry). The advice offered by this panel included making nicotine and ivermectin a regular part of one’s wellness practice because they are cure-alls that the U.S. government doesn’t want the public to know about.

The cost of health care in the U.S. and the dangers posed by artificial intelligence are two areas we can all find common cause in. The MAGA faithful are just as worried about health care and AI as the rest of us. Even so, finding common cause does not necessarily mean we will find common policy solutions.

While one of the vendors present was the nonpartisan organization Humans First, which advocates for citizens rather than tech oligarchs to be empowered to make decisions about the future of AI, there were still lots of people present who cheered for Elon Musk. Musk’s AI Grok was just ordered by a Dutch court to stop creating AI nudes of real people.

And, while the panelists and speakers who addressed the high costs of health care got lots of applause, the blame was laid squarely on the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) rather than the recently passed One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which cut health care for 10 million Americans and limited Medicare’s ability to negotiate drug prices, among other measures. Still, these issues are ones MAGA cares about.

We have underestimated how radicalizing COVID lockdowns were to the MAGA faithful. Time and again at CPAC, speakers referenced COVID lockdowns. These priests of the movement used the traumatic memories of the lockdown to discredit scientists, to assert that Christianity is under attack in our society and to warn that if “the radical Left” comes back to power the assault on individual freedoms including freedom of religion will intensify.

Every time COVID lockdowns were mentioned by one of the MAGA priests onstage, a collective shudder of fear and anger swept through the dimly lit ballroom we were seated in.

Any attempts to hold the president and those in his orbit accountable for misdeeds are “lawfare.” I’d never heard the term “lawfare” before I ventured into CPAC. It’s the concept of using the legal system to wage war on one’s opponent, and the term is used to discredit attempts to hold MAGA elite accountable for breaking the law.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who was appointed to his position after representing the president in his numerous criminal proceedings including his felony convictions trial, appeared onstage in a fireside chat with CPAC Chairman Matt Schlapp. Schlapp has had his own legal troubles after facing multiple allegations of groping and sexually assaulting young men and even settled one case with a male staffer for Herschel Walker.

Throughout their chat, Schlapp and Blanche framed and reframed previous attempts by the Justice Department and Special Counsel Jack Smith to hold the president and others accountable for crimes against the United States as “lawfare.” Blanche noted the government had just announced a $1.25 million payout to Gen. Michael Flynn for “malicious prosecution.” This even though Flynn twice pled guilty to lying to the FBI over conversations he had with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. in the weeks before the president’s first inauguration.

MAGA wants vengeance for the president and, by extension, themselves. It isn’t a big surprise that people like Attorney General Pam Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanch and FBI Director Kash Patel are submitting to the president’s desires for seeking vengeance against those who attempted to hold him accountable to the law. What was surprising was witnessing the MAGA faithful goading, chanting and cheering for the MAGA priesthood to commit the very lawfare they say was done to their supreme leader.

Much ink has been spilled in the last decade about the white grievance politics driving MAGA. The MAGA faithful are unhappy with their lives. They feel like they’ve been left behind economically, and the world they once dominated through the adherence to white Christian patriarchy has fallen away.

“The angry, bitter masses are continuing to look for scapegoats.”

CPAC took place just days before Palm Sunday and the beginning of Holy Week. With that context, watching attendees cheer for the blood of those whom Trump hates held resonances of those who chose Rome 2,000 years ago. The angry, bitter masses are continuing to look for scapegoats.

MAGA is scapegoating Muslims and falsely claiming there is a coordinated effort to build a caliphate governed by Sharia Law in this country. At one point, it was said from the stage that CPAC chose Texas for this year’s conference specifically because last year Gov. Greg Abbott signed House Bill 4211 into law. That law solved a nonexistent problem: Banning Sharia Law from being imposed upon Texans.

But as the speakers at CPAC confirmed time and again, there’s no need to let truth get in the way of telling tall tales. Time and again speakers referenced Muslim attempts to turn this country into the next caliphate. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a Muslim and a Democratic Socialist, was repeatedly conjured as the boogeyman of the movement as was the Muslim community in North Texas.

In a panel titled “Don’t Sharia My Texas,” Bo French, a Republican candidate for Texas Railway Commission, declared: “I’m gonna say something that’s gonna make some people uncomfortable. The problem is we call it Sharia, but the problem is actually Islam.” He and the other speakers, including Jenny Story, COO of Patriot Mobile, spent the next 20 minutes denigrating Muslims and calling for their exclusion from civil life in America.

The MAGA elite are doubling down on the end of our liberal democracy and pushing fascism as the next political structure in our country. Sure, we’ve all heard right-wing politicians make off-handed comments about Democrats being Marxists, socialists, communist or all three at once (which actually makes no sense) but the framing at CPAC was different.

Historians and intellectuals who have dedicated their careers to studying political and economic systems are generally in agreement that the United States is experiencing democratic backsliding at a rate not seen in the modern era. Fascism and communism are opposing totalitarian political systems — meaning they both use unlimited state power to exert total control over the public and private lives of their citizens. Both ideologies are undemocratic and a threat to liberal democracy.

Whereas in communism “all are equal under the eyes of the government except the ruling class, which is in charge of the redistribution of wealth,” in fascism there is “an unequal redistribution of wealth to reinforce a rigid class structure.” And, whereas communism relies on a ruling party, fascism is a cult of personality in service to a dictator.

To that end, CPAC repeatedly brought onstage far-right, fascist-leaning politicians from around the world, including Sen. Flavio Bolsonaro, son of Brazil’s ex-president Jair Bolsonaro, who is under house arrest for a failed coup attempt after he lost reelection. The junior Bolsonaro is currently running for president, and CPAC threw their support behind him.

They also championed Hungary’s Viktor Orban in his current reelection campaign. In the 16 years he has been in power, Orban has turned the democratic Hungary into fascist state — consolidating the media, art institutions and universities under the control of the state.

CPAC clearly sees fascism as the next iteration of government in the United States and repeatedly contrasted that with communism. In repeatedly linking Democrats with communism and threatening that as the next form of government in the U.S. unless MAGA remains in power, CPAC painted their fascist dreams as the more desired choice. Expect to see more of this in the lead-up to the midterms.

CPAC organizers are linking arms with right-wing authoritarians around the globe. If I had to guess, I’d estimate a third or more of the roughly 400 attendees were from countries other than the U.S. And, throughout the conference, far-right, authoritarian politicians were given the stage to reinforce the same narrative: We’re living in a post-liberal democracy world and it’s time for something new.

In a panel titled “Europestan: Can Europe Survive?” former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss, former Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Secretary General of the far-Right party of Poland, Antonio Giordano, each lamented migration in Europe, the decision of the European Union to take in migrants, “wokeism,” and the diversification of their countries.

Chris Salcedo of right-wing Newsmax posed the question to Morawiecki, “How is Poland dealing with Western Europe that seems to be on the precipice of abandoning Western civilization?” Each framed their country’s democratic pluralism as a danger. Each advocated for “conservatives” around the globe to remain united in the fight against the dangers of the political left. The same message was delivered by Bolsonaro of Brazil and the current president of Poland, Karol Nawrocki.

Rumors that the MAGA coalition is breaking apart are true. Cracks in the coalition first came to light with Charlie Kirk’s assassination, escalated when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene publicly stood with Epstein survivors and called on the president to release all the files, and has reached a fevered pitch with the president’s choice to join Israel in waging war on Iran. All those fissures were on full display at CPAC.

“Rumors that the MAGA coalition is breaking apart are true.”

Conservative political commentator and Newsweek Senior Editor-at-Large Josh Hammer took aim at “the conservative influencer class, those who dwell in Podcastestan as some now call it.”

“These black billing doomsdayers are engaged in a conscientious brain-rot op to make the right retarded. … The right denizens of Podcastestan reject the fundamental essence of MAGA. Much like the neo-Marxist left, the retard right doesn’t think America was ever great and they certainly don’t think that America is capable of being great once again. They are therefore explicitly anti-MAGA. In fact, they are actually just anti-American.”

Hammer then went on to call out Matt Geitz, Tucker Carlson, Megan Kelly, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Candace Owens, saying, “Their goal is to destroy the MAGA coalition and the current iteration of the American Right. It’s stupid. It’s evil. It’s flaming, stinking garbage.”

Every other conservative speaker before and after Hammer tried to downplay this division within the coalition. Franklin Graham, Benny Johnson, Steve Bannon, Jack Posobiec, Michael Knowles and Brandon Straka each took to the stage calling for — and in some cases pleading for — unity among the MAGA movement. This is certainly not the last time the fissures in MAGA will come to light.

The MAGA faithful will continue to support the president no matter the mental gymnastics required. Over the last several years, I’ve refrained from referring to MAGA as a cult because I didn’t want to overstate the motivation of Trump’s base. But after attending CPAC, I’ve come to realize that is exactly what MAGA is.

MAGA is an identity beyond red hats. The aesthetic MAGA adherents adopt depends on whether they are MAGA elite or simply the masses. At CPAC, the elite sported spray tans, “Mar-a-Lago faces” (cartoonishly big cheeks, taut faces and plump lips), and tailored suits while the masses donned sequins and red hats. More important than the aesthetic, though, was the identity.

The folks at CPAC are not abandoning the president no matter how badly he hurts them or their families. They rabidly support his immigration policies. They loathe those who dare oppose him or his policies. They embrace his cruelty and make it their own.

One speaker — one of the few Black men at the event — called Renee Good, the Minneapolis mother shot to death by an ICE agent, a “deranged wench,” and the crowd went wild with glee.

Throughout the convention, there were spontaneous eruptions of chants honoring Trump. More than one speaker affirmed the Christian nationalist perspective that he is anointed by God.

For the MAGA faithful, their identity as a member of the club is more important and influential than their religious identities. Donald Trump is their god.

 

Mara Richards Bim serves as a Clemons Fellow with BNG and as the first Justice and Advocacy Fellow at Royal Lane Baptist Church in Dallas where she recently was ordained to the gospel ministry. She earned the master of divinity degree and a certificate in spiritual direction from Perkins School of Theology at SMU. She also is an award-winning theater artist and founder of the nationally acclaimed Cry Havoc Theater Company, which operated in Dallas from 2014 to 2023.