At their three-day gathering, pro-Trump conservatives tried to turn \u201ccancel culture\u201d into their new \u201cfake news\u201d and spent little time on policy (either their own or President Biden\u2019s).<\/b>
\nAny lingering belief that Donald J. Trump would fade from the political scene like other past presidents evaporated fully on Sunday as he spoke for more than 90 minutes in a grievance-filled and self-promoting address that sought to polish up his presidential legacy, take aim as his enemies and tease his political future. Here are six takeaway from the first major Republican gathering of the post-Trump era, the 2021 Conservative Political Action Conference, in Orlando, Fla. \u201cI am not starting a new party,\u201d Mr. Trump declared, nixing rumors and making news in the first moments of the first speech of his post-presidency. And why would he? Mr. Trump remains the most influential Republican politician in the nation. The three-day CPAC gathering in Orlando, Fla., showed how fully the Republican Party has been remade in his image in the five years since he boycotted the conference in 2016 en route to capturing the party\u2019s nomination. In a meandering speech guided by a teleprompter and interrupted with cheering that at times read more obligatory than enthusiastic, Mr. Trump lashed out at President Biden and outlined his vision of a culture- and immigration-focused Republican Party while relitigating his specific grievances from 2020. Mr. Trump named every Republican who voted for his impeachment. \u201cGet rid of them all,\u201d he said. And he predicted a Republican would win the White House in 2024. \u201cWho, who, who will that be, I wonder,\u201d he mused. The speech came right after Mr. Trump won a CPAC 2024 presidential straw poll, finishing with 55 percent of the vote \u2014 more than double the percentage of his closest runner-up. But that victory was dampened by the fact that only 68 percent of the attendees at the conference said they wanted him to run again. A second straw poll, without Mr. Trump, was carried by Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who received 43 percent on his home turf, followed by Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota with 11 percent. Those results showcased the challenge that senators face in edging ahead of governors in the 2024 pack of potential presidential candidates. Both Mr. DeSantis and Ms. Noem highlighted their efforts to keep the economy open during the coronavirus pandemic, which proved a more popular r\u00e9sum\u00e9 point than the legislative fights that senators in Washington have been engaged in. In his first presidential bid, Mr. Trump adopted \u201cfake news\u201d as a rallying cry against the traditional news media and then effectively and relentlessly deployed it to position himself as the sole arbiter of truth for his supporters. The lineup of CPAC speakers over the weekend showed how thoroughly a new pair of catchphrases \u2014 \u201ccancel culture\u201d and the \u201cwoke mob\u201d \u2014 are animating a Republican Party that, beyond supporting Mr. Trump, appears increasingly centered on defining itself in opposition to the left. \u201cDidn\u2019t anybody tell you?\u201d Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri began his CPAC speech. \u201cYou\u2019re supposed to be canceled.\u201d The crowd cheered as \u201ccancel culture\u201d served throughout the weekend as shorthand for bashing the news media, railing against the tech industry (in particular, Twitter\u2019s and Facebook\u2019s decisions to bar Mr. Trump from their platforms), and spreading fear about the decline of conservative and religious values in American popular culture. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, one of his party\u2019s most adroit culture warriors, summarized the annoyance and alienation felt by attendees at the right-wing gathering because of the continuing pandemic. \u201cYou can French kiss the guy next to you yelling \u2018Abolish the police\u2019 and no one will get infected,\u201d he mocked. \u201cBut if you go to church and say \u2018Amazing grace\u2019 everyone is going to die.\u201d T.W. Shannon, a Republican from Oklahoma, was the first to say it. Speaking Friday morning on a panel called \u201cTolerance Reimagined: The Angry Mob and Violence in Our Streets,\u201d Mr. Shannon said the reason pro-Trump demonstrators stormed the Capitol on Jan.6 was that \u201cthey felt hopeless.\u201d And that, he said, was \u201cbecause of a rigged election.\u201d The election was not rigged, of course, but by the end of CPAC it was clear that the lie Mr. Trump had promoted vigorously had become canon among the base of the Republican Party. On Sunday, the conference\u2019s straw poll results revealed that 62 percent of attendees ranked \u201celection integrity\u201d as the most important issue facing the country. For those who tuned into Mr. Hawley\u2019s speech, this was probably unsurprising: Mr. Hawley, who was the first Senate Republican to announce his plans to object to the Electoral College certification, electrified the CPAC audience when he reminded them of his defiance. \u201cOn Jan.6, I objected to the Electoral College certification \u2014 maybe you heard about it,\u201d Mr. Hawley said with a wry grin. People erupted in applause. In interviews, multiple CPAC attendees were adamant that widespread voter fraud had led to the election of Mr. Biden \u2014 and some inadvertently suggested the long-term consequences this could pose for the party. Pamela Roehl,55, who traveled to the conference from Illinois, said some of her pro-Trump friends had written off civic engagement for good. \u201cThey voted for Trump, and they said they\u2019re not going to vote again, because they just feel like it\u2019s so tainted,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd that is just so sad.\u201d As the conference began, House Democrats were preparing to approve a coronavirus relief package worth nearly $2 trillion that was opposed by every House Republican. But inside the Hyatt Regency in Orlando, it was hard to find many conservatives who cared. CPAC in past years has served, at minimum, as a forum for conservatives to unite in opposition to a Democratic policy agenda. But most speakers over the weekend won applause by channeling the preoccupation with personality over policy that animated the party during Mr. Trump\u2019s presidency. The result was an event in which conservatives signaled their disinterest not just in mobilizing against Mr. Biden\u2019s policies, but also in debating the finer points of their own. Mr. DeSantis suggested that the current threat posed by the left was too dangerous for conservatives to prioritize policy discussions. \u201cWe can sit around and have academic debates about conservative policy \u2014 we can do that,\u201d he said. \u201cBut the question is, when the Klieg lights get hot, when the left comes after you: Will you stay strong, or will you fold?\u201d In an illustration of how Mr. Trump has transformed the party, there was strikingly little mention of curbing spending at a moment when congressional Democrats are moving to restore earmarks. And while CPAC attendees ranked immigration as the third most important issue facing the country, few speakers discussed specific policy proposals to shape the party\u2019s stance on the issue beyond continuing to support Mr. Trump\u2019s border wall. Ms. Noem, who came in second to Mr. DeSantis in the CPAC straw poll without Mr. Trump, was one of the standout speakers of the weekend, delivering a staunchly pro-Trump message and highlighting the anti-lockdown and anti-mask policies that in the past year have made her a darling of the base of the Republican Party. She jolted to stardom in Republican circles last year when she refused to issue a lockdown order for South Dakota or to enforce a mask mandate. Instead, she advocated \u201cwashing your hands and making good decisions.\u201d South Dakota now has the country\u2019s eighth-highest death rate from Covid-19. Ms. Noem received a standing ovation at CPAC when she boasted that she had never ordered a \u201csingle business or church to close,\u201d and another one when she attacked Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation\u2019s top infectious disease expert. In the hours leading up to her speech on Saturday, many attendees praised Ms. Noem as their favorite Republican \u2014 apart from Mr. Trump, of course. \u201cI like Kristi Noem because she fights back,\u201d said Sany Dash, who sold pro-Trump merchandise at the conference. \u201cI feel like she\u2019s a female Trump, except not crass or rude. \u201d Senator Rick Scott of Florida, who runs the Republican political committee trying to win back the Senate in 2022, tried to downplay any intraparty disagreements and urged activists to focus on opposing the Democratic agenda. The problem is that some of his party\u2019s biggest names \u2014 including and especially Mr. Trump \u2014 are focused first on exacting revenge for those who strayed from the Trump party line on impeachment. Donald Trump Jr. excoriated Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the top-ranking Republican to vote to impeach his father, as aggressively as he did any Democrat in his speech. Mr. Trump on Friday announced one of his first 2022 endorsements would be for the primary opponent of Representative Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio, another Republican who voted for impeachment. The mere mention of Senator Mitt Romney\u2019s name drew derision. In his own speech, Mr. Trump named every Republican who voted for his impeachment in the House and for conviction in the Senate, focusing special attention on Ms. Cheney, whom he called a \u201cwarmonger.\u201d But even if there are critical parts of the Republican apparatus at war, the activist flank of the party remains firmly behind Mr. Trump. Or, as Mr. Trump put it, \u201cThe only division is between a handful of Washington, D.C., establishment political hacks and everybody else.\u201d There were no more surefire applause lines than those that heaped praise on the former president. When Donald Trump Jr. jokingly called the gathering \u201cTPAC\u201d instead of CPAC \u2014 \u201cIt\u2019s what it feels like, guys!\u201d he said \u2014 it felt less like an awkward joke and more a statement of 2021 reality.<\/p>\n