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Wherever you go, there you are, the saying goes. It was a lesson Donald Trump’s Maga faithful may have been reminded of last week when they gathered in a convention center near Dallas for a revival of the president’s political movement, only to find that there was no escape from the problems it faces.
The annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is usually a place of optimism, if not, triumph. It was on its stage last year that Elon Musk pumped a chainsaw in the air amid his abortive foray into clear cutting government bureaucracy, and where JD Vance named undocumented immigration as the “greatest threat” facing the United States and Europe. Trump is a regular, regaling the audience with lengthy monologues about his accomplishments.
Not this year. For the first time in a decade, the president did not attend, apparently consumed with the war in Iran. In his absence, the audience gathered in a cavernous ballroom heard well-known but less powerful Maga figures debate where their movement was headed. Chief among their concerns is how a president who campaigned on ending wars could find himself mulling a ground invasion of Iran.
“I counseled as loud as possible against doing this in the first place,” said Erik Prince, the former CEO of the Blackwater mercenary group, who predicted that if Trump orders an incursion, “you will see imagery of burning American warships in the next couple of weeks. And I don’t think people are really prepared for that.”
Seated on a plush white chair next to him was former Navy Seal Jason Redman, who told the audience: “The American people have to understand we can’t stop now that we’ve started.”
“I have my first grandchild coming. I don’t want my grandchild to have to fight Iran in 20 years,” he said.
When it was his turn onstage, veteran Trump administration diplomat Ric Grenell avoided the invasion talk, instead praising the president’s wisdom in entering the war. “We’re going to look back in a couple of months and say, thank God that we fixed this problem, the Iranian regime is not a threat any longer,” Grennell said.
The day before, Republican former congressman Matt Gaetz forecast the opposite: “I want President Trump to have every diplomatic tool at his disposal, and I do trust he knows a great deal more than I do, but a ground invasion of Iran will make our country poorer and less safe.”
With Trump not there to make the closing argument, it was up to the audience to decide who to believe. A plea for unity came from Trump’s bombastic former adviser Steve Bannon, who urged those assembled to set aside their concerns and back the Maga project no matter way.
“We have the right policies. We just need the resolve to see it through finish what we started,” Bannon said in his well-attended speech.
“People are sitting there going, ‘Oh, this person didn’t come, this person didn’t come’. Yes, there are many great people that couldn’t make it. Either they didn’t want to come or they’re tied up running wars and looking after the country, it doesn’t matter – you came.”
Outside the Grapevine, Texas, venue lay a country that was considerably less sympathetic. Trump’s presidential approval ratings are currently low, and the war with Iran is polling no better, while average gas prices have climbed to the highest levels in four years. In November, his Republican allies will defend their control of Congress as well as state legislatures and governor’s mansions in the midterm elections, where the party in power historically fares poorly. Already, there’s evidence that Democratic voters are ready to pounce: last week their candidate snapped up a Florida state house seat that includes Mar-a-Lago.
The war was, in many ways, front and center at CPAC, largely thanks to heavy attendance by supporters of Iran’s former crown prince Reza Pahlavi. They lined the road to the hotel venue with the flags of Israel, the United States and Iran during the time of the Shah, and delivered rapturous applause when he addressed the convention.
“Donald Trump will not lose”, said 73-year-old Mehrdad Ghafar, who grew up in Iran but fled after the revolution, and appeared at CPAC wearing a cap reading: “Make Iran great again”.
“He has gone through all these kind of wars bigger than this, and he came out successful,” he said.
Older attendees who lacked a personal connection to the country nonetheless backed the military campaign, seeking it as religiously ordained, or at least a score worth settling.
“I love it. It’s biblical,” said 87-year-old Deanna Averett.
“He’s hoping that the good will overpower the bad, and they can have their country like it used to be.”
James Bosler, 65, viewed it as an opportunity to resolve a rivalry that dated back to the 1979-1981 Iran hostage crisis, from which relations between the two countries never recovered.
“It’s become time to do something about it,” he said. “And if you could actually do something and … have better control of the oil, that would be a big, big deal.”
Mark Weaver, 74, shrugged off the economic consequences of the war, which has not only sent up gas prices but caused US stock markets to spend weeks selling off.
“I don’t like it, but it doesn’t scare me a bit,” he said, noting that indices “did the same thing a year ago”.
But the discomfort was pronounced among younger attendees. The Republicans he supports are already at a historical disadvantage in the midterms, said 18-year-old Gary Polakoff, and he predicted the gas price spike would make the trend worse.
“There’s a lot of young people like me who are afraid of a potential draft, potential problems, that might cause prices to increase,” he said.
John Christy, a 19-year-old student, was sympathetic to the plight of Iranians, but wary of the conflict turning into the sort of “forever war” that he opposes and that Trump has long campaigned on avoiding.
“Politicians are always saying we need to go to war to bring these people freedom. Obviously, I’m an American, I support freedom. But, you know, fighting for freedom in foreign countries seems like a devilish deal,” he said.
“God bless the people of Iran. I’ve seen some of them walking around here, they seem like great people. But I categorically cannot support anything that doesn’t put America first.”
After listening to the back and forth between Prince and Redman, Stephan Norquist, 21, found the former Blackwater CEO to have the more convincing argument.
“Just getting your foot in the door doesn’t necessarily mean you should want to go all the way. You shouldn’t commit on a bad idea,” he said.
Lisa Musket, 60, was surprised that the president she had supported had embroiled the country in a war against the longtime US nemesis. But she had trusted him before, and now would trust him again to see the country through it.
“I don’t want to see any more wars, and it’s kind of what we voted for,” she said. “But now we’re in a war, and I know Trump will do the right thing.”
