Conservatives Want Trump Banned From Their Big Conference

One influential blogger warns that Trump could make the Conservative Political Action Conference “more of a laughable farce than it has already become.”

Andrew Harnik/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Even as Donald Trump barrels toward anticipated victories in most of Tuesday’s primaries, a chorus of voices on the right is calling for him to be banned from this week’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), the country’s most prominent gathering of conservatives.

The conservative blog Red State on Monday urged CPAC to disinvite Trump, arguing that by allowing Trump to speak at the conference, CPAC’s leaders “are apparently intent on (further) destroying their own reputations, that of the entire conservative movement, and indeed the Republican Party, and making CPAC more of a laughable farce than it has already become in some people’s eyes.”

At the same time, the minor-league anti-Trump group Make American Awesome launched an online petition urging the American Conservative Union, which runs CPAC, to bar Trump from the event.  

“This Saturday, big government liberal, KKK/David Duke-endorsed Donald Trump will be speaking at CPAC,” the group said in a press release, referring to the former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard’s announcement of support for the real estate mogul last week. “This is, in our view, an abomination.”

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate