Conservatives are not used to seeing their own in positions of great power.
In the decades after Ronald Reagan’s presidency, movement conservatives, the type of people you might see at CPAC, have not felt well-represented in government.
But on Friday morning, speaking like someone who had been there before, President Trump called the CPAC crowd his “friends.”
“These are my friends” he said. “I wouldn’t miss a chance to talk to my friends.”
If a faithful CPAC-goer could have written the president’s opening remarks for him, they would have sounded similar to what President Trump himself told the audience.
“We’ll see you next year and the year after that,” he assured attendees, “I’ll make sure that we’re here a lot.”
As someone who has attended CPAC since 2012, hearing the president of the United States say those words on that stage was a little surreal, for better or worse. In the Obama era, conservatives were simultaneously discouraged and energized. CPAC felt bleak, but also bold.
Now, Donald Trump, a man who did not even attend the conference last year amidst the threat of a walkout from a crowd that selected Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio over him by a wide margin, took the stage as a representative of the movement who hesitated to accept his candidacy in the first place.
“Our victory was a victory and a win for conservative values,” Trump declared on Friday to raucous cheers.
That remains up for debate, but the audience clearly agreed.
As Trump exited the stage, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” blared over the sound system. Nobody seemed to mind.
Emily Jashinsky is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
