“The ‘Make America Great Again’ ideology is dying”

This year, however, that image has begun to crack.

The last edition, held a few days ago in Texashas left a sensation that is difficult to ignore: the MAGA movement remains central to American politics, but it has stopped functioning as a solid block. The impression comes not only from increasingly predictable speeches, but from the environment.

Thousands of attendees have attended talks with titles such as “K-Pop Communist Hunters” or “Cigarettes and Red Meat: A MAHA Survival Guide,” a mix of provocation, digital culture and spectacle which sums up the tone of the meeting well.

Fill the Trump void

The absence of Donald Trump It was the first political piece of information from the summit and, probably, the most revealing.

For the first time in a decade, the leader who had made CPAC an extension of his leadership has not appeared on stage. The White House has reduced his absence to a matter of agenda, without political explanation or compensatory gesture.

The contrast with previous editions has been evident. For years, Trump used this quote to strengthen your leadership and set the ideological direction of the movement. This time, that space has been left empty.

And no one has managed to occupy it.

The poster has brought together relevant figures – Ted Cruz, Steve Bannon, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Brendan Carr and Matt Gaetz – but without the ability to organize the debate nor establish a common line. Rather than relief, what has been seen has been a succession of interventions without direction.

The attempt at renewal has involved giving prominence to Nick Shirleya 23-year-old content creator known for his politically confrontational videos. His intervention has left an eloquent image: a speech before too many empty chairs.

Steve Bannon He has tried to close ranks by appealing to the strength of the movement, but his intervention has been more about containment than leadership.

CPAC has revolved around Trump even in his absence. And that has precisely been the problem: the movement continues to depend on his figure to structure itself, but it can no longer sustain itself without him.

Iran’s contradiction

If the absence of Donald Trump has set the tone, the war in iran has defined the background.

A year ago he presented himself as a candidate for Nobel Peace Prize; Today, his movement faces an ongoing war that divides its own base.

On stage, positions have been openly divergent. Erik Princefounder of the private military company Blackwaterhas warned of the risks of large-scale intervention and a conflict that could spill over.

Matt Gaetza former Republican congressman and prominent figure in the Trumpist wing, has been even more explicit. He has warned that a land invasion “would make the United States poorer and less safe,” linking the conflict with the rising energy prices and internal economic deterioration.

On the opposite side, Ric Grenell —former acting director of National Intelligence and a close ally of Trump—has defended the intervention as a necessary strategic decision.

There has not been a common line because there is no longer consensus on what the “America First”.

The conflict has also been expressed in symbols. At the entrances to the premises, assistants iranian origin They walked around the convention with pre-revolution flags on their shoulders, caps with the slogan “Make Iran Great Again” and signs in support of Reza Pahlavithe son of the last shah and a figure that some consider key to an eventual regime change.

During the four days of the convention, their presence has been constant. In the hallways, conversations about the war were mixed with personal stories and opposing positions. “It is necessary,” said one of the attendees, while others warned of the risk of prolonged intervention that reproduces scenarios like Iraq or Afghanistan.

That division has crossed the base. some have supported the war from ideological or religious frameworks—”it is biblical”—or as a strategic opportunity in the region. Others have expressed a more immediate concern: the economic cost, the duration of the conflict and its internal consequences.

In parallel, the conflict has been accompanied by a hardening of speech. In various round tables and speeches, messages have proliferated that warn about the supposed threat of radical Islamism within the United States, with calls to toughen immigration policies and even to openly assume Islamophobic positions.

The foreign war and internal rhetoric have begun to feed off each other.

Among the youngest sectors, this drift has generated discomfort. Fear of possible conscription, the increase in the cost of living or the feeling that the movement is moving away from its own promises have fueled increasingly open criticism.

Trumpism, which for years was presented as an alternative to the interventionism of Washingtonhas stopped having a unified position in one of the themes that defined his identity.

And that contradiction can no longer be hidden.

Wear and tear in new generations

Beyond foreign policy, CPAC has exposed a deeper fracture: the generational.

The debate that goes through the youngest attendees no longer revolves around the great slogans of the movement, but rather on much more more concrete. University debt or the difficulty of becoming independent have occupied a central place in conversations that have barely been reflected on the stage.

Distance is not abstract. It is material.

“How is it possible for someone to leave college with $100,000 in debt while we send billions abroad?” one attendee asked. Another, 19 years old, admitted feeling closer to some progressive positions in health or education than to those in their own political environment.

The break is not only ideological. It’s about priorities.

The movement has stopped speaking same language than those who should guarantee his replacement.

Some attendees have described the atmosphere as “flat” or repetitive; Others have questioned the growing weight of political influencers compared to profiles with experience in public management.

“I want politics to be boring again,” summed up a young professional conservative after touring the convention.

The phrase points to a deeper malaise: fatigue in the face of a policy that has become permanent show.

This wear and tear coexists with a harsher diagnosis that begins to be expressed bluntly within one’s own conservative ecosystem. “I think that MAGA is dying”said a young Republican strategist after several days of the convention.

At the same time, the CPAC has ceased to be, for many, the space where the future of the movement is defined. Other more dynamic—and less controlled—forums are taking that place.

The convention has maintained its symbolic value.

But it has lost its ability to set the course.

And that loss does not respond to a specific moment, but to a growing disconnection between the Trumpist discourse and the concerns of those who should support it in the future.