Members of neo-Nazi groups attended Republican-affiliated conference headlined by Trump
Former President Donald Trump arrives at CPAC on Feb. 24, 2024. Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
By Jacob Kornbluh February 25, 2024
Activists who openly espouse and promote Nazi and anti-Jewish views attended the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, also known as CPAC, held in Maryland over the weekend.
According to an NBC News report, a group of neo-Nazis, some of whom had official CPAC badges, mingled with those in attendance and discussed antisemitic conspiracy theories and “race science,” among other white nationalist topics. Among the group were Greg Conte, who attended the deadly 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville and is a former ally of white nationalist leader Richard Spencer; and Ryan Sanchez, previously a member of the Rise Above Movement, a neo-Nazi street gang based in Southern California and an associate of Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes.
Fuentes and others were ejected from the conference last year.
Also at the conference was Jack Posobiec, an alt-right political activist, who made headlines for hailing the “end of democracy” and, during a panel discussion, calling for a Christian-focused government. He later said he was joking. (Politico recently obtained documents showing that an influential conservative think tank is developing plans to infuse Christian nationalist ideas into a second Trump administration.)
Matt Schlapp, CPAC chairman pushed back, calling the NBC News article a “false, misleading, and grossly manipulative” report. In a statement posted on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, Schlapp said, “When we come across someone at CPAC peddling any kind of anti-semitism, we deal with them immediately.”
Former President Donald Trump, the leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, spoke at the conference on Saturday. Trump faced backlash in 2022 for dining with Fuentes and Kanye West, the rapper who changed his name to Ye and who has spewed antisemitic conspiracies.
One panel at the gathering was focused on the 93-year-old George Soros. The Hungarian-born Holocaust survivor and Democratic megadonor has long been the target of antisemitic tropes and touted as a boogeyman by the far-right.
CPAC came under fire in 2021 for having a stage that resembled a Nazi insignia, known as the Odal or Othala Rune symbol emblazoned on Nazi uniforms. The organizers blamed the design on Design Foundry, a stage design firm based in Hyattsville, Maryland, who said it “had no idea that the design resembled any symbol.”
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