 The organizers of CPAC are in hot water again for making another really big oopsie. And I say this because at this year's CPAC, aside from the typical extremist rhetoric that we've come to expect from conservative speakers, it seems like they may have actually let a few Nazis slip through the cracks. Or as Ben Goggins of NBC News puts it, Nazis mingle openly at CPAC, spreading anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and finding allies, and as the subtitle points out it's not necessarily a new phenomenon as they've had a problem with Nazis in the past, but they ejected the Nazis last time from the event. This time, however, not so much. Now the first question that I've got to ask that's on all of our minds is, why on earth would Nazis be drawn to this event? I just can't figure out why they'd be attracted to an event like CPAC and feel as if they're welcome here. It's so perplexing to me. But as perplexed as we all are by the presence of Nazis at CPAC, you know, this isn't surprising. Nobody's surprised by this because it's happened before, obviously. But this time it is different because Nazis, at least some of them, had official CPAC badges and they faced zero resistance from organizers. So even though Nazis showing up to CPAC, it's not necessarily groundbreaking news. The fact that they were allowed to be there in and of itself is a little bit problematic. In fact, the reception to them was actually friendly according to Goggins. He reports, at the young Republican mixer Friday evening, a group of Nazis who openly identified as national socialists mingled with mainstream conservative personalities, including some from Turning Point USA, and discussed race science and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. One member of the group, Greg Conte, who attended the deadly 2017 Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, he said that the group was prepared to be ejected if CPAC organizers were tipped off, but that never happened. Another, Ryan Sanchez, who was previously part of the Nazi Rise Above movement, took photos and videos of himself at the conference with an official badge and touted associations with Fuentes. In a photo published on his ex-profile, Sanchez shook hands with Jared Taylor inside CPAC's secure conference area, writing, Jared Taylor is a hero of our people. Taylor founded American Renaissance, an organization that has published racist, pro-eugenics writings. The Southern Poverty Law Center describes Taylor as crudely white supremacist. Now Goggins reports that Sanchez also did a Nazi salute in the lobby, and there's a video of this, while his posse was openly using racial slurs. But they were just allowed to be there. And because they were allowed to be there, this was kind of seen as an implicit endorsement by the organizers of CPAC. Now in response to this report, CPAC is crying fake news. So let's hear from CPAC Chairman Matt Slap about these allegations. War on our kids. What are you talking? Oh, I think I know what happened. I think I accidentally mixed up the Nazi allegations that he was supposed to be responding to with the sexual assault allegations that he was refusing to address, where he allegedly groped a male staffer. My bad. Here's the actual response to Nazis posted by the official CPAC Twitter account by Matt Slap. So as you can see here, he is quote tweeting his personal account calling presidents of college campuses the real Nazis. But as for the self-identified Nazis at his event, he writes, NBC's claim that there was a Nazi presence at CPAC 2024 is false, misleading, and grossly manipulative, especially coming from a writer who has carried water for Hamas in much of his reporting on the Israel Gaza war. Now, I think he's probably speaking to Goggins aversion to genocide, which would make him a normal and reasonable human being. But nonetheless, Slap goes on to argue that CPAC can't possibly be anti-Semitic since their official position is that they support Israel. Okay, interesting defense here. But he's ignoring the fact that the anti-Semitism that these Nazis were espousing had nothing to do with Israel and had everything to do with the fact that they were talking about how Jewish people control the world. But my favorite part about this post, aside from the ratio, is that it got community noted into oblivion, stating, quote, there actually were multiple attendees who proudly identified themselves as Nazis. This is confirmed by a plethora of video and photographic evidence. Now that link takes you to a thread written by Ben Goggins, where he not only defends his reporting but provides people with photo and video evidence confirming that Nazis were indeed in attendance, quote, the Nazis introduced themselves to me at a mixer and said they were national socialists, started talking about school measurements, and pushing the conspiracy theory that all races were being controlled by Jewish people. They were posting about their presence at CPAC online, and he includes a picture of Sanchez tweeting about him being at CPAC and includes a video of him doing a Nazi salute while laughing as well. Now he continues, Sanchez also posted a video of himself inside the conference's secure area, shaking hands with Jared Taylor, founder of the Nazi publication and website American Renaissance. Now, there's more, but I think we can pretty much stop at one of the Nazis doing a Hitler salute in the lobby. I feel like that's sufficient evidence that, yes, at least one Nazi was in attendance, but there were multiple. Now, the question is whether a Nazi PAC's organizers actually knew about the Nazis that were there. Because if they knew but didn't do anything about it, then that makes them complicit. Now, if we're being overly charitable, I'll concede that it's entirely possible that they didn't actually know that they were there. But it seems really unlikely that that's the case for the fact that they were made aware by the presence of Nazis because they were literally heckling prominent conservatives, including Matt Schlapp himself about why his neo-Nazi friend Nick Fuentes wasn't allowed in the event. I'm not making this up. I feel like I personally might have been tipped off by that, especially for the fact that it seemed like Matt Schlapp actually recognized the guy who was heckling him. But I mean, even if he didn't recognize him, if it were me, I think it seems a little bit weird that this person is heckling me on behalf of his neo-Nazi friend. Perhaps he's also a Nazi as well. I'd at least think he's sus at a minimum, right? But apparently, Matt Schlapp had no idea. Sure. So I mean, Ben brought the receipts and proved that Nazis were indeed in attendance at CPAC 2024. But there's a reason why they were there, even if CPAC's organizers didn't approve of them being there. It's because the Nazis thought that their politics were a good fit for the mainstream Republican Party, who is also routinely promoting anti-Semitic conspiracy theories like the Great Replacement Theory, which the Nazis believe, too. CPAC is attracting these Nazis in the same way that shit attracts flies. And if that doesn't trigger at least a minimal amount of introspection, then maybe it's because they don't actually disagree that much with the Nazis. Maybe they allowed them to be there because they didn't feel uncomfortable in the presence of Nazis. And perhaps the only difference between mainstream Republicans at this point and Nazis is that the Nazis don't pretend that they're not Nazis. Maybe that's the only difference. Perhaps I'm being too uncharitable. But if you know that Nazis are there and you don't act, what does that make you?