{"id":1337217,"date":"2022-02-24T11:54:00","date_gmt":"2022-02-24T16:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1337217"},"modified":"2022-02-24T11:54:13","modified_gmt":"2022-02-24T16:54:13","slug":"exclusive-matt-schlapp-at-cpac-woke-is-on-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/exclusive-matt-schlapp-at-cpac-woke-is-on-trial\/","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive \u2014 Matt Schlapp at CPAC: \u2018Woke Is on Trial\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fexclusive-matt-schlapp-at-cpac-woke-is-on-trial%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1337217&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Matt-Schlapp-CPAC-2020-640x335-1.png\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p class=\"subheading\">ORLANDO, Florida \u2014 American Conservative Union (ACU) chairman Matt Schlapp told Breitbart News exclusively that at this year\u2019s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), \u201cWoke is on trial.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The official theme of this year\u2019s annual gathering of thousands of conservatives\u2014relocated here in central Florida for its second year in a row now from the Washington, DC, area\u2014is \u201cAwake Not Woke.\u201d This conference comes at an interesting time for conservatives, after victories in last year\u2019s off-year elections\u2013especially in Virginia\u2019s governor\u2019s race and ahead of an all-important looming midterm election in November.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"gmxrevmore\" class=\"H\"><\/figure>\n<p>It also comes days before the first regularly-scheduled primary, on Tuesday in Texas, and just weeks before other states head to the polls later in the cycle, beginning in early May and continuing through the summer, to select the GOP\u2019s next generation of standard-bearers. This CPAC also comes as states across the country have finally joined Florida in ditching virus restrictions\u2014masks are off basically everywhere, just as they have been here for years, and vaccine passports are being ditched in places as leftist as D.C.\u2014something Schlapp could not help but point out at the outset of a feature interview ahead of this year\u2019s conference.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s funny someone reminded me a Republican governor canceled CPAC at the end, right before we were starting to plan,\u201d Schlapp told Breitbart News. \u201cWe had to scramble and we had to find a venue\u2014we came to Florida because of Gov. DeSantis\u2019s leadership. Then, we showed the world we didn\u2019t all die\u2014and the straw poll demonstrated how upset people were at this closure and mandate mentality. Then the next thing you know, during CPAC\u2013I don\u2019t know if you remember, but it kind of came back to me\u2013but Governor Abbott, Governor Tate Reeves, all of a sudden they were saying, \u2018We\u2019re open, we\u2019re not shut down.\u2019 It started this whole cavalcade. So, what\u2019s happened in a year\u2014we\u2019ve dominated this conversation of what America stands for. So with our theme, Awake Not Woke, people get it wrong\u2014inflation is terrible and high taxes and spending is terrible, but that\u2019s not what the election is about. The election is about, wait a minute, you guys are doing unconstitutional things that we never would have contemplated in this country, you\u2019re saying everything is about racism, and look at what the polls are showing. Even blacks and hispanics are saying \u2018no way, man, I\u2019d rather associate with the Republicans than with this crazy idea that my daughter is a boy or my son is a girl or my girl has to compete against men or the craziness in schools.\u2019 To me, woke is on trial. I think we\u2019ve won the policy discussion on all the economic questions. But now the question is even further, which is are we still going to love America?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Republicans are finally, as a party, beginning to formally fight the culture wars on things like battling transgendered insanity, the detrimental effects of open borders migration, Critical Race Theory being forced on children in schools, fighting crime amid a wave of lawlessness, and more. House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy has leaned into fighting these battles, and now Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin showed the GOP how to win in a state that\u2019s been trending by doing so. Rank-and-file Republicans across the party have begun joining the fight, with people like Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Marco Rubio (R-FL) over the past year picking major culture war battles. The most recent iteration of this phenomenon is Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), releasing a detailed 60-page plan to \u201cRescue America\u201d filled with culture war policy positions.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cI didn\u2019t read it in detail, but everything I saw about it I loved,\u201d Schlapp told Breitbart News of Scott\u2019s plan.<\/p>\n<p>As a result of the failures of the Democrat Party\u2014which completely controls Washington right now with majorities in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate as well as holding the White House\u2014combined with Republican embrace of these culture war issues, Schlapp thinks Republicans could sweep into offices in November that nobody is even thinking about right now. Some signs of that have already begun, with a special City Council election earlier this week in Jacksonville, Florida, flipping back to the GOP from the Democrats, and recent school board recalls in San Francisco, California, of all places.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is where I\u2019m going to show my age, but I\u2019ve been here before,\u201d Schlapp said. \u201cI was a congressional staffer and previous to being a congressional staffer people like Rudy Giuliani won. Richard Riordan won in Los Angeles. All of a sudden strange things started to happen in big cities\u2014they weren\u2019t socialists back then, but they were Democrat-friendly. But they realized that would result in having unsafe streets and less economic opportunity. They didn\u2019t think a city was a safe place to raise their kids and it\u2019s amazing how that shifts things politically immediately. I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s the case that many Republicans\u2014the difference between now and then is with the pandemic, the Republicans, so many, moved out of those blue states. So maybe the Lee Zeldins and the others that are fighting these uphill climbs, maybe they can\u2019t win because maybe the numbers aren\u2019t where they need to be, but I think this year what we\u2019re going to find is not only an overwhelming victory in the House of Representatives, but what really matters now is your local community too. I think we\u2019re going to have a lot of victories\u2014I think any candidate who says they\u2019re not going to defund cops but they\u2019re going to fund cops and make sure they\u2019re well-trained and have the resources they need to fight crime, I think they\u2019re going to win. I think any candidate who runs for the school board, it doesn\u2019t matter what their party affiliation is, if they say actually we want the parents to being involved in the schools\u2014that\u2019s what they used to say when I was young: we want the parents involved because when the parents are involved it\u2019s good for the kids. But now we have these educrats who don\u2019t want the parents involved or they have to hire a lawyer to figure out what\u2019s going on in their kids\u2019 classrooms. I do think you\u2019re right\u2014I think we\u2019re going to win in places people never expected us to win.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When former President Barack Obama was winding down his second term, a potent mix of issues swirled together to create the right environment for the rise of Donald Trump to the White House: out-of-control immigration, a hampered economy, American adversaries on the rise worldwide, and a sense of abuse of power by the federal government. Those same conditions are brewing again under President Joe Biden\u2019s administration, and much more quickly, paving the way for a rightwing comeback of epic proportions. Schlapp said that what Obama did was nothing compared to what Biden is doing and enabling now.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cObama did many terrible things, but his only legislative achievement was Obamacare, which was an embrace of a more socialized form of medicine\u2014it was not surrounded by a lot of language like you have today,\u201d Schlapp said. \u201cWhat you have today is a Democratic Party where it\u2019s fricking scary to listen to them when they say what they want to do, when we see what they\u2019re doing, it\u2019s alarming to people who aren\u2019t that political. Hispanic and black families aren\u2019t looking for their young boys and girls to be all confused about their gender. They want their girls to compete against girls in sports. They don\u2019t want their boys being brought up to believe they shouldn\u2019t be men. It\u2019s really changing politically. I think those sets of issues alone\u2014if you look at what\u2019s happening with the school question. If you talk to immigrants who are people of faith, certainly Christian or Jewish, they\u2019re disgusted by the schools they have to send their kids to because they don\u2019t have the financial means to send them any other place. Then that reminds everybody of the $90 million or whatever that Black Lives Matter raised during the year of violent Black Lives Matter riots with dead cops. No kid got a laptop, no kid got a scholarship to go to a better school, no black pastor got a grant to have an after school program to help troubled families. As a matter of fact, the ideology was to destroy families because families are a patriarchal institution from western civilization. This is alarming to people. It\u2019s alarming to immigrants, legal immigrants. It\u2019s alarming to anybody of faith. And I just think the Democrats don\u2019t know what they\u2019ve done. They don\u2019t know the damage they\u2019ve done. But here\u2019s the thing: There\u2019s no going back. They can\u2019t have a speech tomorrow and say yes we\u2019ve always been for higher taxes but we\u2019re not going to be for higher taxes anymore. How do they un-woke themselves? I don\u2019t think they can. I think this is going to get worse and worse as the year goes on.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B3\" class=\"a8d adSo\"><\/figure>\n<p>Republicans could be heading for historic gains in the upcoming midterm elections, and could sweep into majorities in both the House and Senate this year. What\u2019s more, in some places in recent elections, Republicans have outperformed expectations significantly among key demographics like Hispanic voters.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou have the Florida-Texas Hispanic phenomenon where you can run statewide as a Republican and get 50 percent of Hispanics, but you look at some of these other states and that seems almost impossible,\u201d Schlapp said. \u201cNow, what you\u2019re seeing across the nation is that dynamic is happening across other states. In other words, what we\u2019ve said is don\u2019t pander to Hispanics by opening up the border\u2014help them with policies that allow their families to flourish and their companies and businesses to flourish. It\u2019s worked so much better.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But as to whether there is a broader political realignment looming, Schlapp is unsure at this time.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019d say on the realignment question this is something the egghead political scientists like to talk about, so I\u2019ll leave that to the experts, but I will say that would only be the case if you see a 2022 and a 2024 seismic shift,\u201d Schlapp said. \u201cWe really haven\u2019t seen a seismic shift in a long time. We\u2019ve really kind of had this muddling around the middle\u2014Bill Clinton was elected twice without a majority, George W. Bush was elected in that closest of all elections, Donald Trump seemed to be busting out of that in 2016. To what extent was it the cheating, to what extent was it the Zucker-bucks, but he added millions and millions of new voters which you would have thought would have been the beginning of a realignment, but we\u2019ll never kind of know. So, now we have this chance again to say: Was Donald Trump ready to bust the mold in 2020 until these weird things happened with the virus? The next two cycles, I think, tell us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>If and when the Republicans win, though, Schlapp said they absolutely must deliver\u2014and if they do not, it could spell the end of the GOP.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy view is in 2022 if the House flips to the Republicans in big numbers\u2013and I think it will, I don\u2019t know who the Speaker will be, but McCarthy is the presumptive Speaker,\u201d Schlapp said. \u201cThere is a lot of pressure on them to deliver. If they do not deliver, I really think it\u2019s going to be the beginning of the end of the Republican Party. People talk about historical illusion all the time, but the Whig Party comes to mind. You can only straddle for so long before your brand is you\u2019re just a weenie. I think that\u2019s what the Republican Party is struggling with. You\u2019ll see this this weekend at the four days here, people are aligned to the Republican Party by and large for the most part, but people feel like they\u2019ve been burned before. They feel like when Donald Trump won we had majorities and we didn\u2019t take care of business in Congress because they disagreed on policy, but also they were uncomfortable with how messy the fight was going to be. We\u2019re going to spill some food on our shirts and some blood on our collars, and they were not interested in that and Trump was\u2014the party wants to see us get our uniforms dirty and really fight for it. If we would fight half as hard for the things we say we believe in as the other side does for everything they believe in, we would have held on to so many institutions over the decades. But we don\u2019t believe in that\u2014we believe that we only fight in the most perfect of weather on the most perfect of fields and that means you hardly ever fight. We\u2019ve always relied on judges to do our bidding, but we saw in the election that judges aren\u2019t always going to do our bidding. If we don\u2019t create the framework for judges to feel comfortable to do their job, they won\u2019t. That means it falls right back on the politicians in Congress; they\u2019ve got to do the hard things. We can\u2019t keep avoiding the hard things.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ORLANDO, Florida \u2014 American Conservative Union (ACU) chairman Matt Schlapp told Breitbart News exclusively that at this year\u2019s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), \u201cWoke is on trial.\u201d The official theme<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1337217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1337217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1337217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1337217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1337217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1337217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1337217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}