This year, however, there was something conspicuously different, and Trumpified, about the lineup. As of Tuesday, the lineup boasted 59 big-name speakers, with the normal crew of think-tank wonks filling out the rest of the agenda— a puzzling drop from the 166-plus speakers the conference advertised last year....
Still, there seems to be a sense that this year’s CPAC is more toxic than in years past. While the vast majority of lawmakers have voted in lockstep with the president, many continue to express reservations in private about his politics and temperament. Last year, 20 congressmen and senators showed up at CPAC; this year, there are five, including Freedom Caucus Chair Mark Meadows and House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes. The abstaining members “don’t want to be around Trump supporters,” Rick Wilson, a prominent never-Trumper, explained, “because [with] Trump supporters, their first question is: Why didn’t you vote exactly this way? Why didn’t you praise the president? . . . And it is a strange kind of feeling for these folks. Most of them are hostages to Trump.”...
Other indicators of CPAC’s conservative respectability have dropped, too. There are currently only 31 groups sponsoring the convention this year, compared to 47 in 2017, and just 30 listed exhibitors, down from 44 grassroots activist groups the year before. (It’s unknown how that’s affected the A.C.U.’s total haul, but sponsorships range from $7,000 to $250,000 per group.) Some corporate giants like Microsoft have also withheld donations this year, the A.C.U. insider said, following last year’s controversy over Internet provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, whose speech was canceled by CPAC after widespread backlash to his comments about pedophilia. (Facebook and Google, despite Le Pen’s appearance, are still sponsors, for now.)
