PHOENIX (AP) — As Washington pondered the possibility of a partial government shutdown, leading far-right figures rallied with thousands of Donald Trump’s most ardent supporters, largely boasting about the division in the president-elect’s party.
Speakers and attendees at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest 2024 praised Trump and billionaire Elon Musk for initially thwarting a bipartisan agreement to maintain government openness. They mocked House Speaker Mike Johnson and his willingness to work with Democrats, ignoring Johnson’s close alliance with Trump and his habitual appearances at his side.
“The political class is infected with a malignant cancer. The cancer is bipartisanship,” boomed Steve Bannon, the Trump adviser who perhaps more than anyone else reflects and stokes the president-elect’s combative populism.
“We don’t need partisanship,” Bannon continued as he called for Johnson’s ouster. “We need bipartisanship.”
The elected president has wide latitude towards his most vital supporters and, in turn, responds to their demands. This animated is fueling the unpredictability evident in last week’s budget dispute and setting up inevitable future conflicts within Trump’s expanded Republican coalition.
That Trump failed to achieve his key goals – 38 Republicans voted against a plan supported by Trump and Musk – seemed unimportant to Bannon and others who welcomed Trump to the conference’s Sunday finale. The fight itself, and the new president taking center stage, was the point.
“Thank you God for sending us Donald Trump,” Turning Point founder Charlie Kirk said as Trump took the stage. Thousands roared and held up their cell phones to capture the moment.
Trump’s supporters have different opinions about what they want
Interviews with people at AmericaFest and arguments from speakers showed that beyond allegiance to Trump, the new right in America is philosophically defined by anti-establishment sentiment, fiercely conservative social mores, and thunderous expressions of patriotism — not a unified political consensus.
“I just want everything Trump said,” said Andrew Graves, a 39-year-old former Disney employee who now works as an organizer for Turning Point in Arizona. “It doesn’t matter how, as long as we can do it.”
When asked what “it” was, Graves mentioned “what’s going on in education” and “keeping women out of men’s sports.” He spoke about Trump’s most vital promises – tariffs on foreign imports, a crackdown on immigration – only when asked.
Jennifer Pacheco, a 20-year-old student from Southern California, said she accepted Turning Point because she likes Kirk’s uncompromising Christianity and believes “we need to make God more present in this country.”
Pacheco sees Trump as a transformative figure. “It’s just all gotten out of hand, and I think we’ll see how things get sorted out,” she said, talking about the economy and cultural values.
When asked, Pacheco said she sometimes worries about the national debt. But she said she had not closely followed the maneuvers in Washington this week and was unfamiliar with Trump’s call to virtually eliminate the country’s debt ceiling throughout his coming term.
Alexander Sjorgen, a 26-year-old from Berks County, Pennsylvania, volunteered a more detailed list of policy priorities: addressing structural deficiencies, increasing domestic energy production, instituting a mass deportation program, curtailing the transgender rights agenda and rethinking participation. The U.S. is in international affairs.
“Broadly speaking, we all just want the country to become strong again and feel like it’s ours again,” he said.
A speaker calls for a “revolutionary moment”
That ethos permeated convention halls and meeting rooms littered with Trump paraphernalia — the “Make America Great Again” hats and T-shirts featuring the candidate covered in blood after Trump survived an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania. Occasionally among the crowd was a fully costumed “Uncle Sam” or a Revolutionary War character.
High-profile speakers took advantage of the atmosphere, being greeted as celebrities and drawing roars of approval on everything from calls for confirmation of Trump’s Cabinet appointments to the jailing of members of Congress investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol .
“It feels good to take back our country,” Kirk said at the opening meeting. But he added: “The transformation of the Republican Party is not yet complete.” He threatened a primary against any Republican senator who votes against a Trump nominee, warnings that have already spilled over on Capitol Hill.
Bannon praised the assembled activists as the “vanguard of a revolutionary movement” and compared Trump’s election to Franklin Roosevelt’s realignment of the American working class behind the Democrats in 1932. Bannon skewered Johnson and other establishment Republicans in “the imperial capital,” his snarky joke for Washington .
“President Trump has risen from the political dead,” Bannon said, calling Trump’s victory over seven battleground states a landslide. “We have nothing else to discuss. It’s all about implementing President Trump’s agenda.”
During 75 minutes at the podium on Sunday, Trump went through many of his usual promises and policy ideas. But he did not acknowledge his unsuccessful effort on Capitol Hill last week and did not further ask whether he would try to unseat Johnson. Trump summed up his intentions and opted for politically vague rhetoric.
“Last month, the American people voted for change,” he said, touting a “commonsense” agenda and promising a “golden age” for the country.
Kirk, Bannon and other influencers discussed the Trump agenda in more detail than most participants, sometimes even acknowledging inconsistencies and complexities.
Bannon acknowledged that Trump couldn’t get his way on the debt ceiling vote, but said he would eventually do it. However, he also emphasized that this does not mean that Trump will not cut spending. “He has a plan. … But you have to balance everything,” he said, highlighting billionaires Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy and their Commission on Government Efficiency.
Ben Shapiro, another commentator, asserted that Trump would reconsider the tariffs if they were “actually inflationary.” Additionally, Shapiro sought to balance Trump’s powerful support for U.S. aid to Israel and conservatives’ disdain for foreign aid, including to Ukraine in its war against its invading Russian neighbors. Shapiro argued that Israel’s fight against Hamas is “existential,” suggesting that Ukraine’s defensive posture is not.
Retired Gen. Michael Flynn, a firebrand who was forced out of Trump’s first White House and whom Trump would bring back once he took office, stressed that conservatives are not isolationists even as he attacked the Pentagon’s footprint around the world.
“I’m not anti-war,” Flynn said from the main podium. “I am against the stupid war.”
Meanwhile, Kirk tried to present any differences within the Trump coalition as reconcilable.
“Maybe you’re a parental rights advocate. Maybe you’re here as a Second Amendment fan. … Maybe you’re a pastor. Maybe you’re a supporter of ‘Make America Healthy Again,'” Kirk said. “Whatever focus group you have, as long as we can agree on the big things… we need to join forces and defeat the incumbent regime. Welcome aboard. We will make America great again.”
