CPAC Was Right at Home in the Land of Make-Believe

Greater Orlando, Florida, hosts several of the most visited theme parks in the world. At the Magic Kingdom you can dress up like a princess, pretend you’re a pirate, or just act like you’re a kid again. Universal’s Islands of Adventure lets diehard Harry Potter fans pretend they’re students at Hogwarts. At Epcot you can visit Future World or make-believe re-creations of other countries. At the Canada Pavilion, for example, you can let your imagination whisk you away to that fantastical land of romance and adventure to the north.

So, it’s somewhat fitting that the Conservative Political Action Conference decamped down to Orlando this past weekend. The official motto of the confab was “America Uncanceled.” But if you actually followed the conversations, the real theme was the stuff of make-believe: imagining a world where Donald Trump really had won the 2020 election.

On the official agenda there were seven separate “Protecting Elections” panels and two “Save Our Elections Call Center” sessions. Other panels included: “Shining a Light on the Left’s 2020 Shadow Campaign,” “Fraudulent Elections in South Korea and the United States—Lessons Learned and Warnings for the Future,” and “The Voter Files: The Truth Is Out There: Ask Your Questions to the Election Lawyers.” Needless to say, the question for this audience wasn’t whether the election was stolen, but what to do about the fact that it was—and where to place the blame for the cover-up.

All this make-believe was necessary because, as former Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway said prophetically in 2017, CPAC would become TPAC, or “Trump PAC,” and it has.

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