CCRAPAC

The annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) this past weekend was meeting not of conservatives but a meeting of Trump supporters.   And Trump himself was happy to show up and kvetch about the election being stolen.  

From what I heard of Trump's speech - about thirty seconds, which was all I could take - he didn't attack President Biden as much as he attacked Republican members of Congress who voted to either impeach or convict him, and he's ready to get revenge on them - even the ones who are voluntarily retiring at the end of 2022, such as U.S. Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania. I shudder to think why will happen to them!  The other speakers were just as scary, complaining about some sort of liberal plot involving women and people of color to destroy everything from the Muppets to plastic toys, and possibly even rock and roll or country radio (get sat if you don't like hip-hop, dudes, you can afford it!).  It less resembled an American conservative conference in Orlando than a Nazi rally in Nuremberg.    

Interestingly, only two-thirds of CPAC attendees supported Trump's effort to run for a second nonconsecutive term in 2024 in a straw poll.   The greater fear, of course, would be if Trump anoints an heir apparent to carry out his policies and drive the nation further into uncertainty.  That was how James K. Polk won the Democratic presidential nomination and ultimately the Presidency in 1844.  Former President Andrew Jackson still controlled the Democratic Party at the time despite having been out of power for eight years, and when he told the party to nominate Polk, the party listened.  (In a bizarre twist of fate, Martin Van Buren, who won the Presidency in 1836 because of Jackson's support, was trying for a comeback in 1844 after his loss to Whig William Henry Harrison in 1840.  He almost pulled it off, but he was noncommittal on the issue of annexing Texas, which Jackson strongly supported.)

The idea of Trump getting a minion of his own in the White House is just as terrifying as the idea of his own return to the Presidency.  At least when Jackson installed Polk, we got California as a result.  If these climate-change deniers get back in, California could burn into oblivion. 😨