There are two intended audiences for the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), the semi-annual right-wing conference that has made itself the center of the MAGA movement: the people in the crowd and the liberals watching from afar. Now more than ever, the latter audience is more important.
Sure, speakers at CPAC want to make the crowd cheer. But more crucially, they want the liberals watching from afar to get outraged because that's where the real money is. Competition is heavy to garner attention by saying the vilest thing on stage. The winner of the Biggest Trigger of Liberals trophy gets awarded with a fawning reception — complete with clicks, donations and website purchases — from the MAGA crowd. Donald Trump tried, of course, to win the Biggest Troll award this year with his violently fascistic speech. But truth told, the s**tbag crown this year went to a D-list right-wing celebrity named Michael Knowles, a Daily Wire contributor whose car crash of a haircut seems designed to reassure the audience he never lets a queer person touch him.
