The Note: CPAC kicks off

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February 23, 2017

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CPAC kicks off

The Big Story

Just less than a year ago, Donald Trump decided to skip CPAC – a decision the organization said he would come to regret, since it "sends a clear message to conservatives." The Trump campaign said he would be back in 2017, "hopefully as President of the United States." (How many in the room in 2016 thought that would really happen?) Now comes this year's CPAC, with Vice President Mike Pence and President Trump both in the speakers' lineup. That's just a hint of the extent to which the conservative movement has been adopted and co-opted by Team Trump. Conservatives - even those who insisted Trump was never one of them – have, for the most part, gone along with it. Reince Priebus, Steve Bannon, and Kellyanne Conway have all been CPAC fixtures in the past. Now they will be CPAC rock stars, appearing on behalf of the leader of the conservative movement, the man in whose administration they serve.

The Sleeper Story

The revocation of protections for transgender students to use bathrooms that correspond to their gender identities would be big enough by itself. But it's only a piece of a far larger story of White House influence and rivalries, and how the Trump administration plans to handle hot-button social issues. President Trump has bragged about his commitment to protecting LGBTQ rights. While the administration is downplaying the actual impact of this move, its symbolic value is enormous. It shows the president is willing to side with social conservatives in his inner circle – notably, in this case, Attorney General Jeff Sessions – while highlighting an apparent split with his own education secretary. (Betsy DeVos' statement sounded like someone issuing an order in the opposite direction: "I consider protecting all students, including #LGBTQ students, not only a key priority for the Department, but for every school in America.") This is hardly an issue that Trump himself seems to care about. But just weeks after we learned that Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner talked him out of a move to limit LGBTQ rights, this move sends a stronger message than anything that wasn't done.

The Shiny Story

The "I" word is back. Of course, it never really went away. Rep. Keith Ellison, one of the frontrunners in the race for DNC chair – he's Chuck Schumer's choice, and Bernie Sanders' too – said at a CNN forum Wednesday night that "Donald Trump has already done a number of things which legitimately raise the question of impeachment." Ellison is not the first to go there; the first such calls started even before the inauguration. Cue the outrage on the right, along with the pressure from the left to go at least as far as the next possible party chair is going. But as an organizing principle, demanding impeachment hardly counts as real direction for the Democratic Party. It's a sideshow for the opposition party – and a gift for Republicans who can still use fresh reasons to get behind a polarizing president.

TLDR

Conservatives may have not always supported Donald Trump during the campaign, but that's long over now and the president and his administration's highest level advisers will all greet CPAC beginning today likely getting a very warm reception. Steve Bannon, Reince Priebus, and Vice President Pence are up today while President Trump speaks tomorrow.