These are the 12 worst moments in CPAC's decades of depravity

In 2011, a New York City businessman identified by Esquire Magazine as “three-time bankrupt Donald Trump” made a speech on the stage of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

It helped launch his political career.

Trump returns Saturday to keynote this year’s CPAC annual event, a gathering that starts Wednesday afternoon and will bring together thousands of conservatives eager to "preserve and protect the values of life, liberty, and property."

This year's meeting is already being ducked by many big-name right-wingers, overshadowed as it is by groping acusataions against its founder Matt Schlapp.

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To honor Trump's return to the stage, what follows is a collection of some of the creepier CPAC moments that happened since he first took the stage. But, for historical context, we’ll set the stage with these stirring words uttered in 1984 by President Ronald Reagan – arguably the first major beneficiary of CPAC’s far-right extremism.

The focus of Reagan’s speech were the Contras, an assortment of right-wing rebels attempting to topple left-wing Nicaraguan government with the illegal aid of the Reagan Administration. The Contras would become internationally noted for their atrocities.

"They are our brothers, these freedom fighters, and we owe them our help," Reagan said in an emotionally charged speech to (CPAC),” the Washington Post reported. “They are the moral equivalent of the Founding Fathers and the brave men and women of the French Resistance. We cannot turn away from them. For the struggle here is not right versus left but right versus wrong."

That set the stage pretty well for what would follow over the years at CPAC meetings. But it has been since Trump took the stage in 2011 that the annual meetings have grown creepier by the year.

Here’s a trip down nightmare lane for CPAC.

2011: Trump Makes His Splash.

The New York real-estate scion introduced his bio: "I have fairly but intelligently earned many billions of dollars which, in a sense, was both a scorecard and acknowledgment of my abilities," Esquire reported.

Trump also offered this window into what passes for his soul: “Four fifty-four for gas… because we have nobody that calls up OPEC… and say, [mobster voice] 'That. Price. Better. Get. Lower. And it better. Get. Lower. Fast.'"

Trump wasn’t the only speaker of note. Columnist Ann Coulter offered this: "That is [liberalism's] goal — to destroy the family… [liberals] just made up this gay marriage thing… gays are natural conservatives."

And singer Pat Boone added, "The movies, television and music we used to produce created an image of America that the world envied… now the millions around the world call us the Great Satan — and with good cause."

2012: The return of Sarah Palin.

The former vice-presidential nominee and Alaska governor was teasing a 2012 run against President Barack Obama, the man she helped elect in 2008 as Sen. John McCain’s running mate. Here’s how it was reported by ABC News:

"The president says small Americans, small-town Americans – we bitterly cling to our religion and our guns," Palin said, referring to a comment Obama made in the last election, as the audience rose and cheered. "You say, I say, we say – keep your change. We'll keep our God. We'll keep our guns."

"We're red, white and blue, and President Obama, we are through with you."

"Hope and change - yeah, you've got to hope things change," she added to laughs and more cheers.”

2013: Trump previews his prowess as a nationalist demagogue.

“When it comes to immigration, you know that the 11 million illegals, even if given the right to vote, you know, you’re going to have to do what’s right, but the fact is 11 million people will be voting Democratic,” Trump said.

“You have to be very, very careful, because you could say that, to a certain extent, the odds aren’t looking so great for Republicans, that you are on a suicide mission,” he added. “You are just not going to get those votes.”

2014: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell packs heat on stage.

“McConnell strode out this morning with a rifle in hand, which he quickly passed to Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, a hero among fiscal hawks,” The Atlantic reported, noting that McConnell conveyed the gift as a lifetime achievement award from the National Rifle Association (NRA).

The photo op apparently was all that went well, the Atlantic reported.

“That moment marked the only time that the audience cheered loudly during McConnell's five minutes on stage. McConnell's speech was packed with red meat, focused largely on deriding liberals, President Obama, and the media,” but according to the report he received just “mild applause” for this knee-slapper:

"The President of the United States is treating our Constitution worse than a placemat at Denny's.”

2015: CPAC embodies a racial trope when it comes to identifying its Black friends.

A mistake by CPAC in which it couldn’t keep straight the photos of two of its very rare Black candidates was priceless.

“Washington Post reporter Ben Terris caught that CPAC's mobile app had made a pretty glaring mistake, pairing a picture of Sen. Tim Scott, South Carolina's junior Republican senator, with presidential hopeful Dr. Ben Carson's biography,” Salon.com reported. “Both men will be speaking at the conference. The error has seemingly been corrected.”

2016: Republican presidential candidate Trump stiffs CPAC.

Trump might have benefitted from that 2011 CPAC launchpad, but the group was about to learn that loyalty was not his strong suit.

CPAC received the sad news that, at the last minute, Trump “has dropped out of his Saturday speaking slot at (CPAC), a move that follows an uproar from opponents over his initial inclusion in the annual event," Time reported.

“Very disappointed [Donald Trump] has decided at the last minute to drop out of #CPAC — his choice sends a clear message to conservatives,” the official CPAC Twitter account posted.

2017: Steve Bannon says the quiet part out loud about Trump’s intention to dismantle the federal government.

“If you look at these Cabinet appointees, they were selected for a reason and that is the deconstruction, the way the progressive left runs, is if they can’t get it passed, they’re just gonna put in some sort of regulation in – in an agency,” Bannon said in an onstage interview, according to the New York Times. “That’s all gonna be deconstructed and I think that that’s why this regulatory thing is so important.”

2018: CPAC convenes shortly after the Parkland school massacre, but doesn’t care.

"As usual, the opportunists wasted not one second to exploit tragedy for political gain," the NRA's CEO Wayne LaPierre said, adding that 20th-century community organizer "Saul Alinsky would have been proud of the breakneck speed for gun control laws and the breathless national media eager to smear the NRA,” NPR reported.

“LaPierre, who was not listed on CPAC's official schedule, accused Democrats of making gun control a political issue in order to achieve their ultimate goal to "eradicate all individual freedoms.

“What they want are more restrictions on the law-abiding — think about that," LaPierre said. "Their solution is to make you, all of you, less free. They want to sweep right under the carpet the failure of school security, the failure of the family, the failure of America's school systems and even the unbelievable failure of the FBI."

2019: Far-right commentator and brief Trump staffer Sebastian Gorka displays his strangeness.

“Gorka took condemnation of the Green New Deal to the next level,” The intercept reported. Here’s how that went:

“They want to take your pickup truck. They want to take away your hamburger. This is what Stalin dreamt about but never achieved,” Gorka said in a bit that almost instantly became a meme. The audience responded with cheers and chants of “U-S-A!”

“That is why 40, four-zero, Democrat candidates in the last midterm election called themselves socialists,” Gorka said. “That is why Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has introduced the Green New Deal, which is, which is — remember this one, use it — it’s a watermelon. Green on the outside — deep, deep red communist on the inside.”

2020: CPAC meets at the outset of the COVID-19 crisis and learns it’s under control.

“The reason you’re seeing so much attention to [the coronavirus] today is that they think this is going to be what brings down the president. That’s what this is all about,” Trump chief of staff Mick Mulvaney told the attendees,” CNBC reported.

“Mulvaney said he was asked by a reporter, ‘What are you going to do today to calm the markets?’ “I’m like, ‘Really what I might do today [to] calm the markets is tell people to turn their televisions off for 24 hours.’”

Still, the disease is “absolutely” real, Mulvaney said. But, he said, “You saw the president the other day — the flu is real.

“This is not Ebola ... it’s not SARS, it’s not MERS,” Mulvaney said.

“We sit there and watch the markets and there’s this huge panic and it’s like, why isn’t there this huge panic every single year over flu?” Mulvaney asked rhetorically.

“Are you going to see some schools shut down? Probably. May you see impacts on public transportation? Sure.”

“But we do this, we know how to handle this,” he said.

2021: The conference’s theme “America Uncanceled” is perfect for one of Trump’s most loyal insurrectionist senators.

“Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, who is speculated to be eyeing a run for the White House, sought to cast himself as a fighter against those who have tried to 'cancel me, censor me, expel me, shut me down, stop me from representing' voters in Missouri,” ABC News reported.

“Hawley, who played a prominent role in objecting to the Electoral College results in Congress, received a standing ovation for referencing his opposition.

"I objected during the Electoral College certification, maybe you heard about it. I did," he said. "I said I want to have a debate on election integrity, and what was the result of that? You know what the result was, I was called a traitor. I was called a seditionist, the radical left said that I should be resigned and, if I wouldn't resign, I should be expelled from the United States Senate. Well, as I said a moment ago, I'm not going anywhere."

2022: Last year’s CPAC was a fully unhinged MAGA-fest.

The political news website indy100.com – owned by the Independent – captured some of the countless examples of wingnut exuberance.

“Why don't you ask about Dominion?! Why don't you guys go after them?" (Pillow Guy Mike) Lindell yelled. "They're the biggest crime family: Dominion, Smartmatic, ES&S, Diebold. They used China — attacked our country, your country you say you're a part of and you don't give a dang about it."

Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, a pro-Trump grass-roots group focusing on millennial conservatives, denounced “the Republican Party of old” (and said this):

“Conservative leaders can learn something from our wonderful 45th president of the United States,” Mr. Kirk said. “I want our leaders to care more about you and our fellow countrymen than some abstract idea or abstract G.D.P. number.”

And who could forget this one?

“For some reason, Donald Trump Jr. felt the need to explain that crack isn't really his “thing.” He then went on to accuse the press of covering for the Biden administration’s alleged “failures."

“Crack’s not really my thing, but it would be fine if I was on that [Democratic] side,” he said.”