I did not attend that year. I had attended with Gene in 2012 and 2015, but by 2016, CPAC had warmed to Trump and Trump was scheduled to speak and I had had it with CPAC and chose not to go.
Things had changed in one year. When I attended in 2015, Trump was not even invited to speak. CPAC always had prominent Republican candidates, and almost anyone of any significance to conservatives speak at the convention. This was an obvious shunning of Trump. CPAC, put on by the American Conservative Union, is the largest gathering of conservative activists in the nation. In one year, CPAC went from noticeably shunning Trump to embracing him.
It is now easy to forget how united the conservative movement was against Trump the year prior to him winning the 2016 nomination. In February of 2016, National Review published an issue of the magazine that featured articles by some of the most popular and influential voices on the right. I have included the cover of that issue below. You will recognize many of the names of those who contributed essays to that issue, explaining why they could not support Trump.
National Review had, since its founding, been the most influential publication of the conservative movement. Founded by William F. Buckley in 1955, National Review had defined the post Woarld War II conservative movement. The most influencial thinker and pundits of the movement had written for National Review. Its influence was enormous. While NR's influence since then has waned as the media landscape has changed, it is still influential, but in 2016, it was still seen as the premier voice of the conservative movement in America.
If you look at the February 2016 cover of National Review, you will recognize some of the names who contributed to that issue. Some of those people who contributed to that issue have since embraced the Trump movement, some have become prominent voices in the pro-democracy movement against Trump, and others have tried to walk a fine line of one foot in and one foot out, and others have become irrelevant.
I still subscribe to National Review and think it has some of the best writing published today. National Review, while being faithful to conservative principles, has, in my opinion, been too solicitous and forgiving of Trump. They criticize many of his policies and his corruption, but are not nearly as alarmed as I think the moment requires. Also, it kind of depends on who the writer is; some seem much more critical of Trump than others. While I still appreciate National Review, I wish they still had the anti-Trump fervor now, as they did before Trump came to power.
This picture of Gene in front of the Trump cutout is the year the Conservative movement abandoned conservatism and became a Blood and Soil, nationalist -populist movement. How rapidly things changed.
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