CPAC

CPAC also uninvited the John Birch Society, which had made a triumphant return to mainstream conservative acceptance in 2010, when they co-sponsored the conference.

But! While the Birchers and the open homosexualists are no longer welcome, there is still room for multiple outspoken white nationalists!

The National Review’s John Derbyshire, a stock “pervert Tory” character from a Martin Amis novel sprung to life and given a sinecure at the National Review, is hosting a panel on “multiculturalism” (boo hiss) featuring two of America’s most detestable sacks of shit: Peter Brimelow, founder of white supremacist site VDARE, and Robert Vandervoort, the director of some sort of “don’t make me press one for English” nativist group and a white nationalist from way back.

CPAC organizers are like, we didn’t specifically organize this panel ourselves so whatever, but they are not canceling the panel, because the conservative movement has always quietly set a place at the table for their white supremacist allies when they get together for Thanksgiving. And after everyone says grace (and sings “God Bless America” and the national anthem and does the Pledge of Allegiance) comes the ceremonial declaration that liberals are the real racists, for inventing welfare.

The Derbyshire, Brimelow, and Vandervoort (these names!) panel is called “The Failure of Multiculturalism: How the Pursuit of Diversity Is Weakening the American Identity,” and the fact that these panelists are all well-compensated members in good standing of the conservative movement instead of shrieking their “defense of Western Civilization” nonsense for free from a bench outside a subway station does suggest that something has gone wrong with the American experiment. (I think we let too many racist British people enter the country and steal our right-wing think tank and magazine contributor jobs, personally.)

I am guessing the panel will feature at least one “why is there no white history month” joke.

CPAC’s biggest draw today was the speech by Marco Rubio, who many expect to be Mitt Romney’s eventual running mate, because Republicans think he’ll appeal to the voters they accuse of poisoning American identity with their insufficiently Western European heritages.

Al Cardenas, the new chairman of the CPAC-organizing American Conservative Union, shares your concerns about the excessive pride of GOProud:

Reviewing the recent national CPAC, Cardenas addressed the controversy surrounding participation [with a booth in the exhibit hall] by the Republican gay group GOProud. He feels “the problem is that GOProud didn’t help us any in being inclusive, because they used that platform to be quite aggressive [outside CPAC]. They started taunting some of our board members.”

“The ideal GOProud participation would have been, ‘You know what, guys? This is an inclusive society. We’re as interested in these fiscal issues as you are. Fill your website with fiscal issues that you’re for and be a mainstream discusser of issues. We just happen to have a different lifestyle.’ And if they’d done that, they would have laid the groundwork for things that would have been pretty good.’”

That second paragraph is exactly what GOProud does — the website is devoted to “fiscal issues” like Paul Ryan’s apocalyptic budget and “school choice,” and gay rights only come up when they’re talking about bombing Middle Eastern countries, to protect gay people from Muslims — but despite that, there is something too … “aggressive” about them. GOProud really should’ve been much more quiet and “mainstream,” if you know what Mr. Cardenas is saying. (He is saying that there is absolutely no room for even the most conservative of openly LGBT people in the conservative movement.)

[Via Ben Smith]

And so Trump was on “Regis and Kelly” this morning, where he continued his recent attack on China and OPEC and everything else that Americans don’t know much about but know they don’t like. And that’s fine. “Regis and Kelly” is an entertainment program. The people watching it understand that the funny man is there to entertain them for a few minutes, before their stories come on.

But yesterday, Trump was a guest on Rush Limbaugh’s program. Limbaugh, perhaps the most influential single political pundit on the radio, is smarter than the political reporters who filed credulous “Trump for president speculation” stories following the short-fingered vulgarian’s schlocky CPAC appearance. But he has, apparently, a great deal of contempt for his audience, and so he pretended that Mr. Trump was a person worth taking seriously.

Rush Limbaugh rarely even has guests on his show, but he invited this fraud to come on and tell a deeply stupid story about how he offered to buy the White House a fancy ballroom to replace their party tent but they turned him down. This illustrates the Trump “campaign theme,” which is “America gets no respect.” (Yes, he borrowed the theme from Rodney Dangerfield.)

Trump’s reincarnation as a Republican is a new development — thanks, Roger Stone — but his “I know what I’m talking about because I’m so incredibly wealthy” routine is age-old, and should no longer fool anyone.

Trump’s net worth has been estimated by non-Trump sources as being somewhere between $150 million and $250 million — and that’s before the most recent bankruptcy of of his casino group, the global recession, and the housing crash, which led Trump to default on a $40 million loan he personally guaranteed — though he claims to be a billionaire. Having one of the last shows NBC can conceivably call a “hit” helps keep him in the lifestyle he is accustomed to, no doubt, so it is incumbent on him to keep ratings high for the upcoming season of “Celebrity Apprentice.” (And promotion of the Trump brand in general keeps people signing up for his nonaccredited “school” and paying his million dollar speaking fees.)

That is the purpose of his make-believe presidential media blitz. He will not file with the FEC, he will not form an exploratory committee, and he will not knock on doors in Des Moines. I beg of you, talk show bookers, political reporters and fellow bloggers: Stop taking this joke seriously, or pretending to take it seriously, or even speculating as to how seriously to take it. This “campaign” serves the same purpose as Trump’s forthcoming “Comedy Central Roast,” only the political pundits — unlike Jeffrey Ross and company — aren’t getting paid for their marketing work.