CPAC and the Future of Trumpism

A golden statue of Trump. Rampant conspiracies regarding voter fraud circulating. Potential candidates seeking to succeed Trump. As much as the Trump presidency seems like a fever dream in light of the perceived return to normalcy under Biden, the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) demonstrated that Trumpism, and perhaps Trump himself, will remain mainstays in American politics and have supplanted the traditional conservative establishment as the face of the Republican Party.

Traditionally providing a platform for prospective presidential candidates to test the waters, CPAC provides valuable insight into the overall direction of the Republican Party. Headline speakers at this year’s conference included Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr., South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, Missouri Senator Josh Hawley and Florida Governor Ron Desantis, among others. Noem, Cruz, Hawley and Desantis have been floated as potential candidates for the Republican nomination, bolstered by a flurry of media appearances, and in the case of Hawley and Cruz, opposition to the certification of Biden’s election.

Thematically, the speakers at CPAC offered little beyond Trump’s core messages throughout his presidency. The media and the left were often linked together and criticized as unfairly denigrating conservatives and the new, Trump-style conservatism. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, in a bizarre analogy, compared the new, Democrat-majority government to the Galactic Empire from Star Wars, while attempting to unify the audience and listeners as rebels against the Biden administration, albeit scarcely mentioning Biden by name (Cruz 2021). Traditional libertarian values of individual liberty pervaded discourse, particularly through outcry against public health measures put into place to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, despite U.S. cases significantly outpacing any other country (Cruz 2021, Noem 2021). Kristi Noem described the quarantine measures as tyrannical, while both Noem and Trump made the case that quarantine measures failed students by keeping them out of the classroom (Noem 2021, Trump 2021). Cruz, in a cavalier manner, described mask wearing as virtue signaling, while arguing that Black Lives Matter protests over the summer, and closures of churches and restaurants, in addition to current restrictions and mask wearing mandates in some states, renders liberals hypocritical, all the while ignoring findings that COVID-19 is far less transmissible when outdoors (Cruz 2021). Keeping in tone with Trump’s populist approach, speakers, particularly Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, were staunchly critical of big tech companies, and their decision to moderate hate speech and ban Trump (Hawley 2021). Trump struck a similar tone, setting the tone of the convention as steeped in anti-establishment and anti-lobbyist sentiment while lashing out against quarantine measures. Additionally, Trump spouted baseless claims that the Biden administration is “anti jobs, anti-family, anti borders, anti energy, anti-women, and anti science,” and celebrated his handling of the border while criticizing Biden’s approach (Trump 2021). The criticism of these companies thematically aligned with Trump’s desire to portray himself as a populist figure fighting on behalf of the blue-collar worker rather than large companies, despite the friendliness of Trump’s tax cuts towards corporations and the general corporate-friendly stances of the traditional Republican establishment. Criticism of censorship in social media further connected to the theme of individual liberty, applied to quarantine measures as mentioned above. Finally, emphasis fell on election security and Trump’s repeated lies that the election was stolen, reiterated by his apparent disciples.

Despite approval rankings consistently below 50% throughout his presidency, and widespread concern over his handling of the pandemic, Trump’s anti-establishment message clearly continues to resonate. While Biden won the popular vote by over 7,000,000 votes, he won in a shockingly close election due to the electoral college. In Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia, all of which voted for Trump in 2016, Biden won by margins of 2.8%, 1.2%, 0.6%, 0.4%, and 0.3%, respectively. In fact, Trump only needed to win Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin in order to secure reelection, amounting to an extraordinarily tight race. Trump’s message particularly appears to have taken hold in the traditionally blue states in the Rust Belt, as Ohio and Iowa remained firmly in Trump’s column in 2020. While Biden recaptured Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, he did so with significantly slimmer margins than Obama had previously done in both of his presidential campaigns. Meanwhile, Republican representation in Congress has shifted right under Trump’s presidency, likely due in part to fears of primary challenges from the right. While no longer beholden to Trump, many House and Senate Republicans failed to repudiate Trump despite his incitement of riots shortly before Biden assumed office. Furthermore, with a populist energy unleashed by Trumpism that has consistently driven turnout and spurred voter enthusiasm, Republican candidates will likely adopt many Trumpist positions in order to appease the politically engaged far right. Through creating this robust, enthusiastic portion of the electorate, Trumpism has redefined and shaped the Republican party, supplanting the traditional Republican establishment as the face of the party.

Ultimately, the reminders brought about by CPAC that Trumpism is far from defeated begs a simple question: how can Democrats combat Trumpism? As the 2022 midterm election and 2024 general election approaches, in which speakers at CPAC such as Cruz, Hawley, Noem, or perhaps even Trump himself may become the Republican nominee, Democrats must be prepared to battle Trumpism once again. Trumpism is perhaps defined most staunchly through its anti-establishment rhetoric; essentially, it feeds into frustration that the political establishment has failed the electorate other than the elite, allowing for more extreme rhetoric such as Trump’s to resonate. Ted Cruz encapsulated the idea on which Trumpism attracts its supporters, stating in his CPAC speech that the Democratic party is “of the lobbyists, by the lobbyists, [and] for the lobbyists,” emphasizing the notion that the Democratic party has failed the American public, favoring special interests. Democrats must work to dispel this notion through aggressive, tangible policy maneuvers to make inroads with this frustrated segment of the electorate, and must not be afraid to incorporate some left-wing populist policies into their platform. Investment in infrastructure and alternative energy, with the potential to generate a myriad of jobs, may serve to stimulate the so-called Main Street economy. An additional policy that may resonate with these Main Street oriented voters would be a minimum wage increase, particularly given the economic hardships brought about by the pandemic. While this bill may not pass through the Senate given opposition from Democratic Senators Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) and Joe Manchin (WV), criticism may be lobbied at Republican incumbents who vote against a minimum wage bill with the potential to benefit working class voters. Basic, but bold prescriptions such as these have the potential to provide tangible evidence to dispel the notion that the Democratic Party has become a party of elites and “of the lobbyists, by the lobbyists [and] for the lobbyists.”

Democrats must brace for a resurgence of Trumpism in the coming years, as backlash against the current administration is inevitable, and midterms tend to disfavor the incumbent president’s party. The first two years of the Biden administration present a unique opportunity to advance its agenda, as Democrats control the House, Senate and Presidency. This is in spite of reliance on moderate to conservative Democrats such as Manchin and Sinema in the Senate, to create tangible change and present an alternative to Trump’s populist backlash against the political establishment. In order to achieve this, some of the populist policies advocated chiefly by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren in the Democratic Primaries would help to break the image of the Democratic Party as a party of the elites. While Biden himself tends to consistently align himself with the Democratic establishment and tends to take moderate stances, he must realize the need for some bold, yet basic, common sense and tangible policy prescriptions to build the democratic resume for upcoming elections to prevent the election of a Trump disciple, or perhaps Trump himself, in 2024.

Works Cited:

Cruz, Ted. “Bill of Rights, Liberty, and Cancel Culture.” Conservative Political Action Conference, 26 February 2021, Hyatt Regency, Orlando, FL. Address.

Hawley, Josh. Conservative Political Action Conference, 26 February 2021, Hyatt Regency, Orlando, FL. Address.

Noem, Kristi. Conservative Political Action Conference, 27 February 2021, Hyatt Regency, Orlando, FL. Address.

Trump, Donald J. Conservative Political Action Conference, 28 February 2021, Hyatt Regency, Orlando, FL. Address.