Yesterday evening (in Moscow it was already late at night) the world saw the real US president, and not the senile elect of the "Washington swamp" sitting in the White House.
Donald Trump spoke on Sunday at the CPAC's premier annual conference for American Conservatives, held at the posh Hyatt Regency in Orlando, Florida.
I watched his performance from start to finish and I can testify: it was epic.
Trump has fully recovered from the blows that hit him last year, including the most painful and meanest ever, a stolen presidential victory.
Nothing to do with the almost broken man who left the White House just over a month ago.
It was again Trump the fighter, energized, ready to fight and win.
America has not seen such a Trump, perhaps since 2016, when he was at his peak, fighting Hillary Clinton.
A few words should be said here about what the CPAC is and how it relates to the Republican Party.
Strictly speaking, the CPAC is not a party convention.
In 1974, the American Conservative Union and Young Americans for Freedom organized the conference as a small forum - in fact, a get-together - for the most dedicated conservative activists.
But the opening of the conference was honored with his presence by Ronald Reagan himself, then the governor of California, and made a famous speech there, in which, by the way, he first called America the Shining City on the Hill.
Since then, the authority of the CPAC has steadily grown - and in the end it has become not only an influential center that largely determines the alignments in the Republican Party, but also an international structure with branches in Australia, Brazil and Japan.
Trump first spoke at the CPAC in 2011, and it is believed that it was with that speech that the New York developer's ascent to the heights of power in the United States began.
Since then, Trump has maintained the closest relationship with the Conservative Conference.
“President Trump loves CPAC and CPAC loves President Trump,” said Mercedes Schlepp, wife of Conservative Union head Matt Schlepp, recently.
And it is hardly surprising that Trump's first public appearance since his departure from the presidency took place here, on the podium of the CPAC - exactly ten years after his debut among the Conservatives.
The conference opened on Friday, but from the very beginning it was clear to everyone that the first two and a half days of the event were just preparation for the event that at least half of America was waiting for.
As at a concert of a super popular group, lower-ranked "musicians" worked as the opening act for the frontman, however, everything was as if on selection - political heavyweights.
Especially eloquent was Senator Ted Cruz from Texas - Trump's former rival in the Republican primaries (then sharp-tongued Trump nicknamed him "liar Ted").
Now Cruz was crucifying before the audience in his loyalty to the ex-president.
“There are a lot of voices in Washington that want to eradicate the last four years, want to go back to the world where we had a lobbyist government chosen by lobbyists and existing for lobbyists,” Cruz said.
- They were horrified, watching Donald John Trump, as millions of people rebelled against corporate interests.
All the time they wanted only one thing - for Donald Trump to leave.
But let me tell you this: Donald Trump is not going anywhere! "
Kansas Senator Josh Hawley drew a storm of applause when he announced that on January 6, when the electoral college vote was approved, he raised the issue of electoral fraud.
“You know, on January 6, I objected during the electoral college grading, maybe you've heard about that,” Hawley boasted.
"I stood up and said we need to discuss the integrity of the elections."
And Tom Cotton, a Senator from Arkansas, told the audience a touching story about a migrant named Manuel, who, along with his entire family - his wife and two sons - voted for Trump in the election.
When asked why he voted for Trump, who is portrayed by the mainstream media as a terrible racist and xenophobe, Manuel replied: “See my new pickup?
Do you know that both of my boys are working full time now?
I have no grudge against Trump - like many Americans across the country, we should be grateful to Donald Trump for these things. "
All of these speeches were listened to with approval, but the audience gathered at the Hyatt hotel was waiting for Trump himself.
Although Trump lives in the same state of Florida, in the luxurious Mar-a-Lago estate, for some reason he was late.
But when he did appear in front of the audience, he did not disappoint them.
On the contrary, it even surpassed the wildest expectations.
For almost two months (since the ridiculous "storming of the Capitol" on January 6), Donald Trump was excommunicated from his audience, because the main tool through which he communicated with his people - Twitter - banned him forever.
Just think of what democracy has come to in America!
Three heads of the company, two of whom are not even Americans by birth (Omid Kordestani is Iranian, and Parag Agrawal is Indian), forbid the American president to publicly express his opinion - the fact that this violates the First Amendment to the US Constitution, it seems, no one at all worries.
And now Trump has the opportunity to say whatever he thinks - and not only to those gathered in the conference room of the Hyatt Regency hotel, but to the entire nation.
And he took this opportunity!
There is an unwritten political tradition in the States: the outgoing president does not criticize his successor, at least in the first months, if not years after the change of power in Washington.
When Obama came to power in the White House, George W. Bush said that, in his opinion, the new president deserves his silence, and devoted himself to painting (by the way, he also painted a portrait of Putin, how similar is another question).
After leaving office, Obama himself was engaged in kitesurfing and refrained from political statements, and Trump was first publicly criticized in September 2018 - almost two years after the presidential elections.
Trump broke this tradition.
From the start, he attacked President Joe Biden and his administration.
“In just one month, Biden managed to demonstrate that he is against jobs, against family, against borders, against women and against science,” Trump thundered.
“In a month we went from America first to America last!”
And point by point: the Biden administration has stopped construction of the wall on the US-Mexico border.
Not only did it cost the country thousands of jobs, it also seriously exacerbated the situation with illegal migrants.
However, according to Trump, Biden and his cabinet are doing everything to encourage illegal migration, and with it such phenomena as coyote (smuggling of migrants, which is engaged by both "individual entrepreneurs" and gangs like MS-13), drug trafficking , the rise in ethnic crime ...
And the border security that Biden undermined in the first month of his presidency is just one example of how Democrats are betraying Americans.
“Last year I predicted that the corruption, extremism and incompetence of the Biden administration would be unprecedented.
Unfortunately, I was right, "Trump said.
He harshly criticized the White House for failing to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic and for trying to take credit for developing a vaccine.
In fact, Trump recalled, two vaccines were developed and launched into production during his presidency.
"And we," he gestured around the hall with his hand, "must not allow the democrats to steal these achievements from us."
Moreover, Biden and his government can do nothing but prohibitive measures.
Meanwhile, children need to learn - and not online, but under normal conditions.
"We need to get our kids back to school!"
- Trump said to thunderous applause from the audience.
In general, it should be noted that the ex-president's speech was interrupted by applause very often.
And this applause was sincere - it was felt.
How the energy of the audience itself felt - mostly young and full of enthusiasm ... However, more on that later.
Trump skated on the energy policy of the Democrats (Biden managed to seriously undermine the positions of oil and gas workers with his decrees).
“During my presidency,” Trump said without false modesty, “the United States became the number one energy power in the world.
We even bypassed Russia, and much more! "
Honestly, at that moment it was difficult to refrain from smiling.
Once, Comrade Khrushchev called on the Soviet people to "catch up and overtake America."
Now comrade ... sorry, Mr Trump is bragging about the fact that the United States has overtaken Russia in the race of energy superpowers.
However, all this is already in the past - the Biden administration will once again drive America into bondage to the oil monarchies of the Middle East and provoke such a rise in gasoline prices that even the smallest cars will not be affordable for most Americans.
But even now, America has the ability to choose a better future.
And the key to this future is Trumpism.
“I didn’t come up with that word,” Trump said.
"But people use it a lot now."
What is Trumpism in the understanding of Trump himself?
These are good deals - Trump cited as an example the NAFTA agreement that was unprofitable for America, which he replaced with a new agreement much more favorable for American manufacturers.
These are new jobs.
This is security and the rule of law.
These are low taxes, including corporate taxes.
It is the protection of the disadvantaged and the needy.
This is the Second Amendment (the right to keep and bear arms).
These are strong borders, this is a strong army ("America's military has never been as powerful as it was with me," Trump boasted).
This is the priority of American goods and everything that is made in the USA.
These are schools, family, traditional American values, American culture.
With culture, by the way, everything is not so simple.
One of the key points in Trump's speech was the statement: "We reject cancel culture."
Cancel culture is the main ideological weapon of the left.
It establishes a rigid framework for what is possible and permissible in a society where exclusively politically correct views reign: everything that goes beyond this framework is subject to "abolition", that is, criticism, public condemnation, boycott, and even legal prosecution.
They say that the word cancel in this context was first used in African American publics during the Obama presidency, but now it hardly matters.
The main thing that the ex-president wanted to say - and said - is that both he and his supporters do not accept the rules of the game imposed by democrats and left-wing liberals.
No political correctness!
Democrats are aggressively pursuing a policy of de-Americanization of America.
Their mission is to turn the United States into a socialist country, and socialism, Trump emphasized, unfortunately, inevitably turns into communism.
Here, as the hero of Lewis Carroll's poem "The Hunt for the Snark" used to say, I could argue, but I will not.
Obviously, Trump, when he mentions communism, is referring to a very specific model of it, namely, China.
Because the second most important thesis of his speech sounded like this: America, not China, should dominate the world!
Following this, Trump moved on to the most painful topic for him - the topic of rigged elections.
It would take too long to list all the arguments that he presented to the audience, proving that the Democrats stole the victory from him, and besides, they are all well known, and the joke “After my grandparents voted for Biden, I stopped bringing flowers to their graves ”managed to acquire a beard.
But Trump did not limit himself to just criticism, but came up with quite rational proposals, which, according to his plan, should ensure the Republicans' victory in the next elections.
“First,” he said, “we need one election day.”
Elections should not take place in two, not three days or a week.
One election day - period.
And second: each voter must have an identification document, ID.
Then there will be no voting dead and amazing peaks of voting schedules at three in the morning.
In addition, it is necessary to challenge the “big figure” - Big Tech, companies that have taken over the Internet and social networks: Google, Twitter, Amazon, Facebook.
“We must defeat Big Tech, the radical left and the Washington establishment,” Trump urged the audience.
From Trump's speech, it became finally clear that he sees his future only in a strong connection with the Republican Party.
Rumors that he is allegedly going to organize a third party (like Teddy Roosevelt, who founded the Progressive Party, whose emblem was the elk), Trump called fake news.
The Republican Party is strong and capable of opposing Democrats who want to turn the United States into a socialist country.
But if the Republicans are censored, then there will be no democracy in America, but there will be a leftist dictatorship.
Democrats have an important advantage - unlike Republicans, they are always united, there are no traitors among them (here Trump named all Republicans who voted for his impeachment in the Senate and House of Representatives by name - he especially highlighted Liz Cheney, who was present at the conference).
Democrats are not only united, they are also ruthless, smart and cunning.
Fortunately for the Republicans, they are pursuing a nightmarish policy of political correctness, open borders, and most importantly, a Green New Deal that will ruin the energy sector.
Therefore, the Republicans have a chance to take advantage of the mistakes of their opponents and win back Congress in the midterm elections of 2022.
“And we will win,” Trump concluded his speech.
"With your help, we will reclaim the House of Representatives, we will win the Senate, and then the Republican President will triumphantly return to the White House."
By this point, the audience was literally on a rampage.
Applause and shouts "We love you!"
drowned out Trump's final remark, which he obviously rehearsed in advance: "I wonder: who will it be?"
Therefore, the ex-president waited until the enthusiasm subsided, and repeated again: "I wonder who it will be?"
And since at the beginning of his speech he said: "Maybe I will decide to beat them (the Democrats) a third time," the answer looked obvious.
Donald Trump has once again challenged the establishment.
And he did it so skillfully, so effectively that it would not be possible for his enemies to ignore this challenge with all their desire.
The author's point of view may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.