Matt Schlapp tried to go on background after the fact with Politico. He refused to answer questions about CPAC losing sponsors. Then, when Politico emailed sponsors, the general counsel of Schlapp's organization accused Politico of "tortious interference." https://t.co/vAVhPsxGPY
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) January 27, 2021
Could not happen to a more deserving grifter!
I know, it’s Politico, but this is too schadenfreudelicious not to share — “A top MAGA gathering finds life complicated after Trump”:
… For decades, the Conservative Political Action Conference has been a staple of Republican politics. In recent years, the conservative confab has been the go-to stop for rising GOP stars, grassroots organizers and luminaries in the Trump movement.
But President Donald Trump’s election loss has created hurdles around programming and guest booking. Stringent coronavirus guidelines in Maryland have pushed the conference outside of the Washington area for the first time in nearly 50 years. Previous sponsors aren’t yet committed or have decided to forgo sponsorship entirely because of changes to the event’s format or disappointment in the return on their investment last year. And the president that attendees adored so much may not show up to the event at all.
Senior Trump adviser Jason Miller said Trump, whose Mar-a-Lago abode is less than 2.5 hours away from the Orlando hotel where this year’s conference will occur on Feb. 25-28, is not currently scheduled to make an appearance. Meanwhile, a senior American Conservative Union official would not answer whether Mike Pence, who drew MAGA world’s ire for certifying Joe Biden’s election, had been invited to speak. A spokesperson for the former vice president did not respond to a request in time for publication.
ACU Chair Matt Schlapp said he is convinced this year’s conference will be no different from past years. “CPAC is going great,” he told POLITICO on Tuesday, before then saying that his quote needed to be attributed without his name. Schlapp did not address questions about why some sponsors were not continuing their CPAC sponsorship. But after those questions were posed and additional questions were sent to CPAC sponsors — including whether the Jan. 6 Capitol riot impacted their thinking about sponsoring again this year — ACU general counsel David Safavian accused POLITICO of “tortious interference with business relationships” and attempting “to ‘cancel’ both CPAC and the American Conservative Union itself.” The group then tweeted a copy of a letter from Safavian that included a litigation threat…
[These three are all, as the polite phrasing goes, longshot contenders for a GOP presidential run. None of them, assuming they could find enough sponsors to make it that far, will ever get past the first 2024 primaries — but CPAC-as-it-used-to-be would at least provide a friendly audience for their grandious delusions.]How well CPAC goes this year will provide one of the first public indications about the health of the MAGA movement with Trump out of office and with the Republican Party divided over just how loyal to the former president it should be.
One year ago, CPAC was in a far different place. The 2020 gathering was, for a brief moment, a crowning achievement for the conference’s organizer, Schlapp. Delivering a 90-minute, chest-beating victory speech, Trump showed up to hype his survival of his first impeachment. Pence came as well. More than 30 Trump aides and officials in all spoke at the conference, ranging from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to senior White House advisers Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.
But within days, the appearances were overshadowed by news that an attendee who’d been in direct contact with Schlapp had tested positive for Covid-19. Organizers were forced to warn nearly 100 conference-goers of potential exposure and the president’s chief of staff went into self-quarantine, though only one case ended up being traced to the event…
CPAC organizers did announce three speakers after POLITICO began inquiring about the lineup. In separate tweets on Tuesday from the @CPAC2021 Twitter account, it was revealed that former U.S. Ambassador to Germany Ric Grenell, former deputy national security adviser K.T. McFarland and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a possible 2024 hopeful, would all deliver remarks at the conference next month. No other speakers have been announced as of the time this article was published…
As for this year’s sponsors, some of whom spent as much as $250,000 in past years for exclusive benefits and branding opportunities, several said they were still evaluating the benefits or had decided not to sponsor at all because of mediocre returns on the investment or changes to the conference structure. Gryphon Editions operations manager Michael Hawkins said his company did not plan to sponsor the conference this year after being informed that the CPAC bookstore, which has been set up for attendees in past years, would no longer be available because of Covid-19 precautions…
Other past sponsors — including the Washington Examiner, Republican National Committee, Turning Point USA, Heartland Institute and Save our States — said they had yet to make a decision as of last week about sponsoring again. Gerrit Lansing, president of the GOP fundraising platform WinRed, said his company would forgo a sponsorship this year, unlike last year, because they “don’t need to” be a sponsor.
“I didn’t even know they were having a CPAC this year,” he added in a text message…
[UNKIND!]
The Orlando Hyatt Regency, where the conference will be held, requires guests to wear protective face coverings inside the complex, but neither the hotel nor conference organizers specified whether social distancing practices would be implemented or an attendee cap imposed. According to its website, the Florida Department of Health encourages people in the state “to avoid congregating in groups larger than 10.”
Which may not be a problem, this year, Mr. Schlapp.
They already had CPAC, it was at the capitol on Jan 6.
— New Year, Same Meredith ?️⚧️?️? (@Meredith_VA) January 27, 2021
schrodingers_cat
Anne Laurie to the rescue! We get a politics post!
Just Some Fuckhead
If they’re worried about coronavirus, they can always wear their klan hoods.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Yeah, but it’s about losers.
Zzyzx
I don’t know if Kristi Noem is a long shot. She pushes all of the Sarah Palin buttons for the MAGA crowd. I could see her having a chance.
trollhattan
Strange bedfellows, proud boys edition.
Was happier before I knew all these douchecanoe organizations existed. Assholes with guns and lots of spare time.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: True but Rs in disarray posts give me schaden freude.
Steve in the ATL
@Baud: you rang?
Major Major Major Major
Love how everything is a cancellation now.
dmsilev
“Cry me a river” headline of the day:
Senate Democrats and White House fast-track pandemic relief bill, frustrating Republicans
The poor babies are upset because, remarkably, the Democrats seem to have gotten wise to their tricks:
People will no doubt be shocked to learn that Susan Collins has expressed her concern.
debbie
So I’m enjoying the Twitter war between AOC and Cruz, which started with this tweet:
She then refers to a second Capitol policeman committing suicide yesterday and ends with this:
I’m beginning to think Cruz sees the path to the presidency is best navigated as a troll. He’s not up to it when it comes to AOC.
MisterForkbeard
@Major Major Major Major: I very occasionally listen to conservative radio while driving. Over the weekend I listened to a radio sermon talking about how Democrats were going to ‘cancel culture’ Jesus and Christians needed to fight back because Democrats were the devil.
It was even more ridiculous than I’d expected. I don’t know how people listen to that and take it seriously.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@dmsilev: was Amy Coney Barrett “fast tracked”? tax cuts? did they really not see that reply coming?
featheredsprite
CPAC always did rile up my working class rage. Snobbishness, self righteousness, utter selfishness, and social Darwinism.
This year, we may have to cope with real, biological Darwinian forces.
zhena gogolia
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Do they have filters?
MisterForkbeard
@debbie:
He might be, though. There’s this core conceit among the right that AOC is stupid and classless and terrible at twitter, while Republicans are super good at it. So getting publicly disemboweled by her might actually work for him, if he just says something like ‘so much for the Tolerant Left’ and then fucks off.
Just Some Fuckhead
@MisterForkbeard: Most of the divide in politics now is because Republicans have turned “conservatism” into a religion that cannot bend to the infidels.
Mike in NC
Hold CPAC at Mar-a-Lardass and make it a super spreader event.
debbie
@MisterForkbeard:
Because they know there are lizard people just around the next bend.
schrodingers_cat
@MisterForkbeard: Oh I am not a big fan of AOC, the Congresswoman, but she is masterful at Twitter
MattF
So… Schlapp says that everything is fine. It’s… conceivable that he’s not being absolutely, totally, completely… honest. Considering… that he’s now using lawyer-like words when he’s quoted. It’s a tell.
debbie
@MisterForkbeard:
They may have adopted Twitter before others, but that doesn’t make them experts. I remember the days when they insisted they were experts, but then would post pre-scripted tweet without filling in the “(name here)” sections.
Baud
@MisterForkbeard:
These are people who viewed Trump as Rambo.
MisterForkbeard
@Just Some Fuckhead: I used to talk about this a lot. Even back in the 00’s and the 90s you could see this HUGE divide between the left and the right in how they regarded each other.
The Left generally thought the right was misguided but trying to do the right thing, or corrupt and working for money and power. This made sense and was pretty reasonable. The Right thought the Left was the tool of the devil and regularly called them “evil” and were destroying america/religion for fun, said they “hated America” and so on. It never made any sense.
It’s gotten worse because evangelical Christianity had decided it needs to back up Republicans, full stop. And the only way for a church to do that is to insist that the Democrats are the tools of The Enemy and trying to destroy everything that’s godly about the nation.
I don’t know what you do about this, because it really is a captive cult audience. If you revoked their tax-exempt status they’d just collect more money from their parishioners by pretending they’re victims rather than crooks.
MattF
@Baud: AOC is a girl. And she was a bartender. And… attractive.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@MisterForkbeard: if Ted Cruz isn’t already fund-raising off being “attacked” by Brooklyn socialist police-defender AOC, he will be by this time tomorrow
If somebody can figure out how to translate this into an argument for Wall St reform that can A) be understood by people who don’t look at twitter and B) get passed, I salute them.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
And Matt Schlapp is the sound of two raw pork chops landing on a linoleum floor, as the last Simon Maloy observed.
Ken
That seems remarkably direct, even honest.
Just Some Fuckhead
@MisterForkbeard: I read somewhere that something between 1 and 2 in 10 Republicans thought the Capitol Coup attempt was a bridge too far and switched their voter registrations. I imagine we’ll need increasingly unhinged behavior from the right to disenfranchise more Republicans (along with the attrition of time.) By the time we succeed in rendering them a runt group too small to affect national politics, the Millennials will be voting Republican reliably. :
I grew up in that rightwing / religion as politics culture and every time I see a new poll highlighting a new higher number of “nones” on the religious affiliation scale, I rejoice. The fact is, we need to destroy the religion.
Ken
Trump will make that a condition for his appearance, then overbill the organizers for meeting rooms and catering services.
Zelma
@MisterForkbeard:.
But they do take it seriously! That’s the problem. And it’s in the air. I had a member of my mainline Protestant church comment about the persecution of Christians in America. He certainly didn’t hear it from the pulpit (the pastor was quite liberal), but he’d absorbed it from somewhere. And he is an intelligent man. An old fashioned Republican but not a crazy.
I told him his was full of it, but nicely.
Just Some Fuckhead
We could invent a CPAC CPAP and make millions.
Brachiator
More reasons why Trump should be convicted, to remove him as an inspiration for these weasels.
And if Republicans refuse to convict, make them own their complicity in the mid-terms and in 2024.
Just Some Fuckhead
This is where it gets tricky. We saw with the Obama campaign, followed by the Biden campaign put way, way too much emphasis on attracting Republican voters. That’s going to play a role in how we present the Capitol Coup attempt. Don’t wanna piss ’em off, ya know.
Miss Bianca
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I was just wondering who came up with that formulation, because once heard…it cannot be unheard. And now I always think of it whenever I see his name.
Matt. Schlapp.
Miss Bianca
@Zelma: I always like to tell people, “you know…it’s been almost 2,000 years since Christians were last actually martyrs. That’s a hella long time to hold a grudge.”
Just Some Fuckhead
@Miss Bianca: When I hear “Matt Schlapp” I think of the hundreds of times I saw him on Hardball just lying. Just simply cynically lying with no shame and no sense of decency, like it was all a game.
Brachiator
@Just Some Fuckhead:
And if Republicans refuse to convict, make them own their complicity in the mid-terms and in 2024.
Even though I think that attracting Republican voters is a good thing, I don’t care about pissing anyone off.
Trump should never be able to run for any office again because of his instigation of sedition. The idiot GOP politicians who insist on backing Trump should be mocked since they won’t resign.
It is probably inevitable that someone will try again at populist autocracy. The idea is to make the attempt as painful as possible by sending a message that it will not be tolerated.
And since the GOP is intent on putting party before country, we should slap them around good and hard in the mid-terms and in 2024.
John Revolta
@Miss Bianca: When I was back there in Catholic school, they told us many times about the priests and nuns in Commie China who were martyred. They even had a comic book about it (guess today it’d be more of a “graphic novel”)!
SiubhanDuinne
Another great one gone.
RIP, Cicely Tyson, age 96.
Just Some Fuckhead
@John Revolta: Yeah, we were forced to sit through films of all the persecution of Christians in Communist China, tortured and killed “because they would not renounce Christianity” and that was when I figured out end-times Christianity was sort of a damned if you do, damned if you don’t proposition.
Sm*t Cl*de
Calling out for an anti-Schlapp motion.
Martin
@MisterForkbeard: This isn’t about the GOP, not exactly. White christians have had the run of the nation since 1607 (at least in our telling, conveniently ignoring the millions of indigenous peoples that already lived here just fine).
They never had to fear the lack of ability to call the shots, and until the 1960s, had two political parties to do that from. As important as the Civil War was, it didn’t fundamentally alter who had power. It was white Christians before, and it was white Christians after, ever so mildly diluted. And even after the 1960s, the Democratic party wasn’t exactly eager to put minority interests up front. But Obama changed that. It was clear, both in effect and in measurable demographics that white Christians were now able to be outvoted – for the first time in 400 years. The GOP is nothing more now than the political, or if necessary, violent preservation of that historical authority.
White Christians will be no more than 40% of the voter demographic in 2024. That’s the GOP base, and you can’t carry a national election with a 40% demographic that is outwardly hostile to the other 60% joining them. This is not an unknown dynamic – go look at the CA GOP right now. They can’t even get enough votes to field a candidate for Senate.
The GOP has been co-opted by those whose only goal is white Christian supremacy – it wasn’t a hard takeover, mind you, the GOP volunteered for that role with the Southern Strategy, it just took 50 years to reach the logical endpoint. There are no policy objectives here. It’s purely a cultural play – white Christians demand to be privileged in this nation. Period.
But it’s also not a new dynamic (ask any POC). The only thing that’s different here is that the moderating forces in the GOP are almost completely neutralized, and that the situation for white Christians has gotten so desperate that they’re no longer limiting themselves to pushing political norms, they’re willing to commit to acts of violence to achieve it. The question now is whether the GOP has any interest in preventing that.
Their only mechanism, btw, is opening the party to non-white, non-Christians, which is impossible in the current state. They cannot coexist. So I don’t see how some sort of split doesn’t happen in the party. This has been building for 400 years. It’s not going to go quietly into the night.
HumboldtBlue
@SiubhanDuinne:
Just catching that news now.
Wapiti
@Zelma: In fact the Democrats have elected a much more “Christian” President than the Republicans’ last attempt, and they have an overtly devout Speaker of the House. The core of the Democratic Party, if there is such a thing, is the Black Protestant churches. Unless your friend doesn’t believe Blacks or Catholics are Christians, he’s willfully blind.
Martin
@Brachiator: You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.
Trump gained 8 million votes from 2016 to 2020. Dems gained more. There was no meaningful migration. There was only increased intensity on each side. Dems need to maintain that intensity and they do that by passing Dem legislation.
Polling shows that a massive percentage of the GOP is ride or die on white supremacy. Their goal is clear and unacceptable. You can’t reach them. Bury them. You can’t negotiate with them. They are as a famous man once said demanding anthrax and tire rims.
Amir Khalid
@Miss Bianca:
Is he any relation to Mercedes Schlapp?
Elizabelle
@SiubhanDuinne: I remember her reading the poem at — I’m pretty sure it was Aretha Franklin’s funeral, just a year or two ago. In that wonderful big hat, that was not wearing her.
Cicely Tyson was in the house. Such elocution.
96 is a long lifespan. Ms. Tyson and Cloris (Frau Blucher!) Leachman, back to back. Close in age.
Martin
@Wapiti: But Biden and Pelosi are not acting to protect white Christian supremacy, which is so much of the point of white Christianity.
I think the high point of Trump messaging was the Lafayette Square disaster. He was telling the base he would commit acts of violence against black people and people demanding an equitable society for the sole purpose of holding up a Bible. He could have been skull fucking a fetus while doing it and they would have been with him 100%.
Emperor of Ice Cream
@Martin: This is such an insightful
post.
Martin
@Amir Khalid: Yes. She’s his wife.
Martin
@Emperor of Ice Cream: Thank you. It’s a dark day when you realize you’re cheering for Liz Cheney to succeed, but I genuinely am. We all should be.
I’m not saying she’s going to cooperate with Dems in any way, but I think she’s smart enough to understand where the current trajectory leads. If the GOP is to succeed, they need to expand the tent, at least a little.
HumboldtBlue
@Martin:
Yes, that was an excellent take, thanks.
SiubhanDuinne
@Elizabelle:
Yes, a fine hat for a fine woman memorialising another fine woman.
It’s getting on for half a century (1974, okay, 47 years) since “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman” first aired. I remember watching it in amazement at her acting chops.
Ms. Tyson was a strong, gifted, beautiful woman who graced us with her presence.
Dan B
@Amir Khalid: Husband and wife. Which is most appalling?
Both annoy me more than Trump. Tangerine Monster is several notches below Schlapp Outrage@
I see Martin beat me to it.
Miss Bianca
@SiubhanDuinne: Oh, no! Cicely Tyson too?
I too remember “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman”. Haven’t seen it since 1974, but never forgot it. Or lost a sense of awe at what an amazing presence CT had.
Geminid
Baptists used to have a strong tradition of separation of church and state. Ambitious preachers sold that birthright for a mess of political pottage. Besides earning the resentment of everyone else, this is ruining the churches as churches. A similar trend occurred last year when some orthodox American rabbis publically endorsed trump. Asked about this, the late Jonathan Lord Sacks, former Chief Rabbi of England, said that “when you start to mix politics with religion, you get terrible politics, and even worse religion.”
Just Chuck
So is the ACU hitting Politico with a Schlapp Suit?
(dammit, #41 beat me to it)
HumboldtBlue
Ruby orders lunch and delivers the best giggle ever.
NotMax
Cannot decide whether Florida deserves CPAC or vice versa.
//
Brachiator
@Martin:
This is not entirely true, but it’s not worth arguing the point.
How many people voted for Trump? 74 million? You can’t bury them all.
I don’t know how coexistence can be achieved. The challenge of democracy is to achieve this peacefully.
smedley the uncertain
@Miss Bianca: 3000 years ago cats were worshiped as gods. They have not forgotten.
Booger
@Sm*t Cl*de: Schtrategic Litigation Against Plummeting Pork?
danielx
@dmsilev:
Right. After all the good will and fair play for which Mitch McConnell is so justly famed, they’re upset when somebody says “Hardball? Okay by us.”
Fuck those guys and their warnings of regrets to come.
Just Some Fuckhead
@danielx: Imagine if Democrats decided not to give an upperdown vote to a president’s SCOTUS nominee. Would Mitch McConnell have an issue with that?
Just Chuck
@Just Some Fuckhead: Moscow Mitch would be upset at anything that lessened his power to hurt as many people as possible.
Brantl
@Just Some Fuckhead: Make the filters out of dog shit, & spray them with mint.
Martin
Sure you can. They’re a declining demographic whose core mission is denying political power to all other demographics, all of whom are growing. Their ability to win national elections will only diminish. So long as Dems keep their base energized – best done by pushing through Dem legislation – the GOP won’t be able to recover political power until they figure out how to open the tent. Once that happens, all bets are off.
The GOP then needs to figure out how to reconcile their declining national electoral power with their regional power. If the national GOP starts working against white Christian supremacy, what does that mean for the Alabama GOP? How they propose holding onto Texas and retake Georgia will be telling. I honestly don’t know how they get out of this. The CA GOP has shown no sign of figuring it out either.
Martin
The Democrats were always wise. They just believed that to build a majority they needed to pull over Republicans. I don’t think they believe that after 2020.
Democrats biggest problem was always turnout. They always had the advantage on registered voters. Trump has done a great service to Dem turnout. We’ll see how long they can ride it for. I just hope Manchin and Sinemas objection to ending the filibuster doesn’t kill that momentum.
Sm*t Cl*de
@Brachiator:
Do they have to be dead first?
It sounds so much better if you call it ‘carbon sequestration’.