Author’s note: On Thursday, March 26, I spoke on the CPAC Main Stage at the Gaylord Texan in Grapevine, Texas. I was only given eight minutes to speak, and I intended to take advantage of every second.
The Right finds itself at a crucial inflection point. Grifters and clout-chasers are ascendant. But timeless principles are still timeless. And especially now that the United States is at war with the Islamist Iranian theocracy, we must never waver on those principles.
We have a country — and a civilization — that must be saved. One of my foremost goals as a Shillman Fellow with the David Horowitz Freedom Center is to do my best to assist in that noblest of causes.
Below is a lightly edited adaptation of my CPAC remarks.
You’ve probably noticed that things feel a bit off in the conservative movement at this time. I’m not talking about the White House, of course. President Trump continues to lead with conviction, vision, and purpose. He’s reduced illegal border crossings to near zero, he’s crushed the woke madrasas of the Ivy League, and now he is reshaping the geopolitical map by ending the Islamic Republic of Iran’s 47-year “forever war” against the United States. At the Cabinet level, Marco Rubio is the most dynamic and transformative secretary of state in a generation, and Pete Hegseth has emerged as a clarion voice of American resolve—the consummate wartime consigliere.
Things in the administration, in short, are going pretty well. It is only when we look outside the administration to the conservative “influencer” class—those who dwell in “Podcastistan,” as some call it—when we see things going less well. Don’t get me wrong: Many of the biggest conservative stars are superb, and some of them are speaking at this conference. But some others are absolutely terrible, and a few of them are speaking at this conference too. These blackpilling doomsdayers are engaged in a conscientious brain rot op to make the Right retarded.
The slogan that catapulted Donald Trump to the presidency and continues to define his political career is, “Make America Great Again.” It’s a pithy and inspiring call to action. In it are three distinct claims. First, America was once great. Second, America became less than great. And third, it will one day be made great again.
The “retard Right” denizens of Podcastisan reject the fundamental essence of MAGA. Much like the neo-Marxist Left, the “retard Right” doesn’t think America was ever great. And they certainly don’t think that America is capable of being made great once again. They are therefore explicitly anti-MAGA. In fact, they are anti-American.
We know this because they openly say it.
Tucker Carlson, who wrestled a demon and seems to have lost, recently hosted on his show a Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece named Jiang Xueqin. On the podcast, Jiang proposed a “New World Order” in which the United States joins China, Russia, and Iran as “equal partners.” If you think that sounds patently insane, that’s because it is. If you think that sounds indistinguishable from the musings of Noam Chomsky, that’s because it is. But that didn’t stop Carlson from affirming Jiang’s Beijing-approved dystopia as the “wisest possible advice” and the “only path that preserves civilization.” Of course, Carlson has also lauded Russia, Maduro’s Venezuela, and even sharia law. You’d be hard-pressed to find a single anti-American system or regime that Carlson hasn’t praised.
By the same token, Megyn Kelly, whose insatiable appetite for clicks has overwhelmed whatever decent principles she purports to hold, had a curious guest for her first episode after Operation Epic Fury began in Iran: Marjorie Taylor Greene. In December, just prior to resigning in disgrace after Trump kicked her out of MAGA, Greene met with the radically anti-American, Chinese Communist Party-funded group Code Pink. Instead of celebrating the world-historical madman Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s death and the remarkable ass-kicking that Trump had just begun delivering to a regime that’s attacked and killed Americans since 1979, Kelly joined Greene in lamentation. “This feels very much to me like it is clearly Israel’s war,” she said.
Never mind that President Trump has been calling for the destruction of the mullahs for decades. In 1980, Trump called for the use of military force against Iran; in 1988, Trump said he’d “go in and take” Kharg Island. Short of tariffs, there is no single issue on which Trump has been more consistent over the decades than Iran. But the cowards of the retard Right, who don’t have the balls to simply take on President Trump directly, insist that Trump was gulled into the current action by the Israelis and prominent Jewish Americans.
This, simply put, is horseshit.
Donald Trump is not a dupe. And he is now settling all the MAGA family business. So it’s no wonder Trump now calls Carlson “not MAGA.” It’s no wonder he has labeled Kelly—who has been spiraling off into extreme juvenile vulgarity—a “jealous and angry human being” with little sway.
And he’s right on that: A new survey from J.L. Partners revealed that Republicans trust Trump over Carlson and Kelly by a whopping 83%-6% margin. Indeed, at this juncture of his second term, Trump maintains historically high approval ratings from within his own party.
All of that, then, raises some obvious questions. Why are Carlson, Kelly, fellow travelers like the execrable Candace Owens, and—yes—some of their allies inside the administration, all doing this? What is their goal?
The answer is both simple and harrowing. The goal is to destroy the MAGA coalition and the current iteration of the American Right. These subversives have no interest in a strong America that kills arch-terrorists who want us dead and confronts a Chinese Communist Party that wants us subjugated. They have no interest in a conservative movement that is downstream of the West’s biblical inheritance. Instead, like Putin Svengali Aleksandr Dugin, they want a coalition and movement that makes America “great” by making Russia and China great. Like the Muslim Brotherhood, they want the Judeo-Christian biblical tradition made “great” by making Islam great. Like Hasan Piker and Howard Zinn, they want to make America “great” by tearing it down.
If that doesn’t sound like anything remotely “conservative,” that’s because it isn’t. It’s stupid. It’s evil. It’s flaming, stinking garbage. It is the direct advancement of our enemies’ interests. If someone wanted to destroy America from within, what else would he do other than what the brain rot op “retard Right” does on a daily basis?
Your job, CPAC, is simple. It is to resoundingly say to the “retard Right”: “No.” The future of this conference depends on it. The future of this movement depends on it. And the future of this country depends on it. So don’t mess it up.
Thank you.
