Friend,  

It’s that time of year again. CPAC. If you’re in DC, you can smell the sulfur in the air. MAGA disciples are descending on the city. 

CPAC isn’t a gathering place for conservatives of all stripes. There’s only one stripe, and it's blood-red MAGA. The only difference is the ones who are die-hard believers (Marjorie Taylor Greene) and the pretenders who are desperate for political relevance (Nikki Haley). 

Trippi has a name for them: It’s the hostages and the hostage takers. 

We know what the hostage-takers stand for: 

• They support Putin over democracy.
• They want to end all U.S. aid to support Ukraine. 
• They believe the 2020 election was a fraud (or at least they say they do, to stay in MAGA’s good graces).
• They'll do anything to subvert our democracy for power
• Their right-wing outrage machine (Fox) just got caught lying and lying and lying about the 2020 election… and they all did it intentionally. 
• And now we can add… pro-secession!

Yes, you can bet that the topic of red state secession will come up at one of these CPAC speaker panels. If you want a specific date and time, it’s whenever Marjorie Taylor Greene will be speaking. And it should leave no doubt about who controls the GOP now. 

We know that Greene and the rest of the hostage-takers are deeply unpopular nationwide.  But they’re the stars of CPAC - they get the biggest crowds and they set the agenda. And that's enough to hold the entire GOP under their spell.

Our job is taking the crazy rhetoric they spew over the next couple of days, blasting it around the media sphere, and making sure that they're held to account for it. Every GOP candidate needs to be asked. If they answer one way, they lose a general. The other way loses them a primary. 

Example: Nikki Haley, do you agree with Marjorie Taylor Greene’s call for a national divorce with blue states? Or, would you co-sponsor Matt Gaetz’s legislation to end all U.S. military aid to Ukraine? Do you believe President Biden is the democratically-elected President of the United States? 

Of course, Donald Trump himself will be making an appearance there as well. Sucking up all the political energy in the arena and consolidating his base around his candidacy. We’ll be watching it all with popcorn in hand. (Ron DeSantis won't be, though, because he's not even coming). 

The GOP is the party of insurrectionists and secessionists. There’s no moderation, and we need to define them as such. If anyone in the party says otherwise, just ask them about the key issues that motivate the base.

They always answer wrong. That’s why we have to defeat all of them.

-Reed