The event is known as the Conservative Political Action Conference, but the way Glenn Beck sees it, the name no longer fits.
“This is not a small-government, constitutional or American conservative event any more,” the Blaze founder and radio host told me. “This is dangerous populism and nationalism.”
As I wrote this week, CPAC has changed dramatically since President Trump’s election, from a gathering where Trump believed he would be “too controversial” in 2016, when Beck was a keynote speaker, to one that embraces Trump’s “America first” worldview. Exhibit A could be this year’s inclusion of the far-right French politician Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, who addressed the conference on Thursday.
“I am not offended when I hear President Donald Trump say ‘America first,’ ” Maréchal-Le Pen said to cheers. “I want Britain first for the British people, and I want France first for the French people.”
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