Life in the Bubble

How CPAC Showcases Modern Wingnuttery as a Fringe Movement

Wingnuts feel most comfortable around those with similar views. However, the ideas embodied at CPAC ostracize the repugican cabal from mainstream America.…

Anybody who thinks Democrats and repugicans are exactly the same has never been exposed to the joyful madness that is the Conservative (Wingnut) Political Action Conference, or CPAC for short.
This year’s conference, held just outside of Washington, DC is now two days old and we have already seen some bold statements from marquee wingnut speakers on issues that face the repugican cabal today.  In addition to addressing conservative voters, the CPAC is also seen as a valid litmus test for any high-ranking repugican government officials who aspire to one day hold the nation’s highest office.
In short, it’s an opportunity to see who can out-crazy the crazy.
Each speaker knows that he (I’d say she but let’s be honest we’re talking about wingnuts here) has a captive audience hanging on his every word.  This is not a national audience, but rather an audience that shares the exact same values and core beliefs of today’s modern repugican cabal:  Only the christian god is important, poor people are moochers, our guns are under attack, ObamaCare will lead to the apocalypse, the liberal media is out to get us, our military should assert its might internationally, and Barack Obama is a dictator/Kenyan/Muslim/socialist/Hitler incarnate that should be stopped at all costs.  Already through two days, we’ve seen a speech from Rand Paul claiming all Democrats are sexual predators and a speech by Paul Ryan taking credit for a child poverty story that wasn’t his.
It is this CPAC world that shows just how out of touch today’s repugican cabal is with the rest of the nation, especially when it comes to social issues.
To see this discrepancy, you need only to look at the people who have already spoken at this year’s event.  For example, everyone’s favorite gun manufacturing shill Wayne LaPierre took the stage on Thursday and offered up his typical, incendiary rhetoric.  LaPierre mocked the “liberal media” for distorting the truth and then claimed that politicians were in league with the media to pass legislation that they didn’t even read.  He asked the audience if they believed that the government could properly protect them and then he willingly repeated his infamous quote that “The surest way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”  LaPierre  concluded his speech by saying, “The NRA will not go quietly into the night.  We will fight.  I promise you that.”  Strong words for a man whose own organization overwhelmingly supports background checks in addition to the 90% of Americans who support expanded background checks.
In addition to their undying admiration for the NRA, wingnut members in attendance also got to take in some smaller, but important, panel discussions.  The first of which had to deal with the reconciliation of the beliefs of libertarians and social wingnuts.  It was during this panel discussion that radio host Michael Medved addressed the issue of state-sponsored discrimination against the LGBT community by saying, “There has never been a state in this country that has ever banned gay marriage. That is a liberal lie.”  Apparently, the liberals are lying when they say that 30 states have gay-marriage bans in their state constitutions and only 17 states recognize gay marriage.  Liberals are also apparently lying when the state of Arizona tries to pass its ‘Turn Away the Gay’ bill allowing for state-sponsored discrimination under the guise of religious freedom.
As informative as that panel discussion was, it was another panel that made news on Thursday, not for what was said, but rather the size of the audience.  The panel was titled “Reaching Out:  The Rest of the Story” and featured former rnc chairman Ed Gillespie and three repugican strategists discussing ways to bring minorities into the rnc camp.  The panel was held in the main conference room with the expectation that it would be well-attended, seeing as how minority outreach has been a priority for the repugican cabal since 2012.  However, as pictures have shown, the event was poorly attended, helping to reaffirm the notion that the repugican cabal has lost the minority vote and doesn’t seem to want to make any effort whatsoever to get it back.  It’s almost as if they refuse to acknowledge the changing demographics of this country.
That, in short, is exactly the problem with everything CPAC represents.  It’s a bunch of White, wealthy American men who have no idea how the majority of Americans live their daily lives.  People like Paul Ryan can mock the poor because him and his friends were never on free and reduced school lunch programs growing up.  People like Wayne LaPierre can advocate for more guns because he’s never seen how a lack of background checks has led to dangerous neighborhoods.  People like Michael Medved can pretend that LGBT discrimination is a liberal lie because he’s never had gay friends who have been told that their love for each other legally makes them second class citizens in this country.  And people like the CPAC attendees can ignore a panel discussion on the minority vote because they don’t realize that outside their homogeneous suburban neighborhoods there exists a country that will be majority minority by the year 2043.
The CPAC may feel good for like-mined repugicans now.  They’ll pat each other on the back and laugh when a speaker makes a joke about Obama or the big bad federal government.  However, year in and year out as the country becomes more liberal, especially on social issues, the CPAC continues to showcase itself to be more and more out of touch with everyday Americans.  If wingnuts really wanted to have a valuable CPAC panel discussion, they should discuss how and why the cabal continues to ostracize itself from the majority of Americans on social issues.
Of course knowing the audience in attendance, nobody would should up.