President Donald J. Trump delivers his remarks Saturday, Feb. 29, 2019, during his appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in Oxon Hill, Md. (Official White House Photo by Tia Dufour)
The annual CPAC convention is well known among conservative activists and leaders. This year, suggests Itxu Díaz in The American Spectator, the conference “must set the direction for the Right in the West.” Díaz explains that CPAC must define the alternative to left-wing oppression by telling the people “We are going to rescue your freedom.” He writes (abridged):
CPAC, which takes place later this month, is an institution in global conservatism.
The West is going through crucial times. Conservative ideas have been expelled from public debate, censored, and muzzled in much of the free world. The Right is being outlawed, without weapons or wars, with nothing other than the progressive ideological scourge and its cultural steamroller. Conservatives, from Madrid to New York, have been screwed for some time. We deserve to go on a big bender in Florida. Besides, people tell the truth when they are drunk. And, unlike the Left, we like to hear the truth.
CPAC 2022 must set the direction for the Right in the West.
And it must do so as Ronald Reagan, Roger Scruton, and William F. Buckley would have done: by holding on to what the Left calls “old-fashioned ideas.” We love our old ideas. This must be the conference that tucks in Poland, that puts the brakes on Putin, that brags about Trump, that attends to the Vox phenomenon in Spain, that defends freedom in Cuba and Venezuela, that denounces the São Paulo Forum and the Puebla Group, and that sticks its finger in Xi Jinping’s eye and asks him to take responsibility for having been on the verge of annihilating us with his nasty cold.
It is not time to rejoice only in the pride of being conservative. It is time to say to all those people, whatever their ideology, who are suffering from the collective madness that the Left is imposing on our societies: “We are going to rescue your freedom.”
Itxu Díaz is a Spanish journalist. He is a political satirist, and author. He has written nine books on topics as diverse as politics, music, and smart appliances. He is a contributor to The Daily Beast, The Daily Caller, National Review, American Conservative, and Diario Las Américas in the United States, as well as a columnist at several Spanish magazines and newspapers. He was also an adviser to the Ministry for Education, Culture, and Sports in Spain.
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