Wherever you go, there you are, the saying goes. It was a lesson Donald Trump\u2019s Maga faithful may have been reminded of last week when they gathered in a convention center near Dallas for a revival of the president\u2019s political movement, only to find that there was no escape from the problems it faces.<\/p>\n
The annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is usually a place of optimism, if not, triumph. It was on its stage last year that Elon Musk pumped a chainsaw<\/a> in the air amid his abortive foray<\/a> into clear cutting government bureaucracy, and where JD Vance named undocumented immigration as the \u201cgreatest threat<\/a>\u201d facing the United States and Europe. Trump is a regular, regaling<\/a> the audience with lengthy monologues about his accomplishments.<\/p>\n Not this year. For the first time in a decade, the president did not attend, apparently consumed with the war in Iran. In his absence, the audience gathered in a cavernous ballroom heard well-known but less powerful Maga figures debate where their movement was headed. Chief among their concerns is how a president who campaigned on ending wars could find himself mulling a ground invasion of Iran.<\/p>\n \u201cI counseled as loud as possible against doing this in the first place,\u201d said Erik Prince, the former CEO of the Blackwater mercenary group, who predicted that if Trump orders an incursion, \u201cyou will see imagery of burning American warships in the next couple of weeks. And I don\u2019t think people are really prepared for that.\u201d<\/p>\n Seated on a plush white chair next to him was former Navy Seal Jason Redman, who told the audience: \u201cThe American people have to understand we can\u2019t stop now that we\u2019ve started.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI have my first grandchild coming. I don\u2019t want my grandchild to have to fight Iran in 20 years,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n When it was his turn onstage, veteran Trump administration<\/a> diplomat Ric Grenell avoided the invasion talk, instead praising the president\u2019s wisdom in entering the war. \u201cWe\u2019re going to look back in a couple of months and say, thank God that we fixed this problem, the Iranian regime is not a threat any longer,\u201d Grennell said.<\/p>\n The day before, Republican former congressman Matt Gaetz forecast the opposite: \u201cI want President Trump to have every diplomatic tool at his disposal, and I do trust he knows a great deal more than I do, but a ground invasion of Iran will make our country poorer and less safe.\u201d<\/p>\n With Trump not there to make the closing argument, it was up to the audience to decide who to believe. A plea for unity came from Trump\u2019s bombastic former adviser Steve Bannon, who urged those assembled to set aside their concerns and back the Maga project no matter way.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have the right policies. We just need the resolve to see it through finish what we started,\u201d Bannon said in his well-attended speech.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople are sitting there going, \u2018Oh, this person didn\u2019t come, this person didn\u2019t come\u2019. Yes, there are many great people that couldn\u2019t make it. Either they didn\u2019t want to come or they\u2019re tied up running wars and looking after the country, it doesn\u2019t matter \u2013 you came.\u201d<\/p>\n Outside the Grapevine, Texas, venue lay a country that was considerably less sympathetic. Trump\u2019s presidential approval ratings are currently low<\/a>, and the war with Iran is polling no better<\/a>, while average gas prices have climbed to the highest levels in four years. In November, his Republican allies will defend their control of Congress as well as state legislatures and governor\u2019s mansions in the midterm elections, where the party in power historically fares poorly. Already, there\u2019s evidence that Democratic voters are ready to pounce: last week their candidate snapped up<\/a> a Florida state house seat that includes Mar-a-Lago.<\/p>\n The war was, in many ways, front and center at CPAC<\/a>, largely thanks to heavy attendance by supporters of Iran\u2019s former crown prince Reza Pahlavi. They lined the road to the hotel venue with the flags of Israel, the United States and Iran during the time of the Shah, and delivered rapturous applause when he addressed the convention.<\/p>\n \u201cDonald Trump will not lose\u201d, said 73-year-old Mehrdad Ghafar, who grew up in Iran but fled after the revolution, and appeared at CPAC wearing a cap reading: \u201cMake Iran great again\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cHe has gone through all these kind of wars bigger than this, and he came out successful,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Older attendees who lacked a personal connection to the country nonetheless backed the military campaign, seeking it as religiously ordained, or at least a score worth settling.<\/p>\n \u201cI love it. It\u2019s biblical,\u201d said 87-year-old Deanna Averett.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s hoping that the good will overpower the bad, and they can have their country like it used to be.\u201d<\/p>\n James Bosler, 65, viewed it as an opportunity to resolve a rivalry that dated back to the 1979-1981 Iran hostage crisis, from which relations between the two countries never recovered.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s become time to do something about it,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd if you could actually do something and \u2026 have better control of the oil, that would be a big, big deal.\u201d<\/p>\n Mark Weaver, 74, shrugged off the economic consequences of the war, which has not only sent up gas prices but caused US stock markets to spend weeks<\/a> selling off.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t like it, but it doesn\u2019t scare me a bit,\u201d he said, noting that indices \u201cdid the same thing a year ago\u201d.<\/p>\n