Steve Bannon says MAGA could ‘rule for 50 years’ in fiery CPAC opening speech

DONALD Trump’s former White House Chief of Staff Steve Bannon has declared “MAGA could rule for 50 years” at a fiery event on day one of this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, DC.

The 70-year-old former Hollywood scriptwriter-turned-political spin doctor was given a rockstar’s reception as he entered the room packed with supporters – some of whom had traveled from as far away as Romania.

Wednesday’s opening event – a live version of Bannon‘s wildly popular War Room podcast – took place at a cavernous hotel in National Harbor, Maryland, some seven miles south of DC.

The event got off to an inauspicious start when two small birds somehow got into the room, distracted by the huge ceiling lights.

“Don’t feed the birds!” one attendee cackled as they walked past.

Dressed in a black shirt and light jacket, Bannon came to the stage just after midday to rapturous applause.

The mastermind of the MAGA movement knew how to get the punters in – by offering a buffet lunch to all of his supporters.

“You see what a free lunch can do,” he joked, gesturing to the crowds that had packed, standing room only, into the space.

The event began with a prayer and then the Pledge of Allegiance, led by an attendee from nearby Annapolis, Maryland, who hugged her hero Bannon as she stepped onto the stage.

As the crowd recited alongside her, one female attendee raised her voice above the others to bellow, “Justice for ALL!”

Bannon-mania was in full force among his supporters.

One speaker compared him to a “prophet,” while another attendee described how he had been “right about everything.”

And the compliments were reciprocated by the host.

Bannon proudly declared all in attendance to be part of “a revolutionary group,” describing them as the “vanguard of MAGA.”

MAGA will govern the United States for 50 years and Trump will go down as the best president since Abraham Lincoln.

Steve Bannon

Such militaristic rhetoric was followed by a typically bombastic defense of the events of January 6, 2021, when some supporters of President Trump marched on the Capitol, resulting in more than 2,000 people entering the building itself.

By far the biggest cheer came when Bannon asked the crowd, “Can we start off by saying, ‘Trump won’?”

A lively crowd regularly chipped in with suggestions – such as one man shouting “Fed-surrection,” in response to Bannon’s description of the “insurrection” in 2021.

He was quick to correct himself.

The event, far smaller than that where Trump and others will be speaking, seemed to draw the most devoted crowd.

And Bannon made clear his ambitions for his movement, beyond what he hoped would be “a massive frickin’ landslide” for Trump in November.

Describing the importance of the MAGA movement reaching into the Black community, he expressed his fervent hope that Trump would win some 50 percent of the Black male vote in this year’s election.

If that is the case, Bannon said, “MAGA will govern the United States for 50 years and Trump will go down as the best president since Abraham Lincoln.”

FANS FROM AFAR

One attendee, author George Mihail Neamtu, traveled some 5,000 miles from his native Romania to hear Bannon speak.

Neamtu, author of the book The Trump Phenomenon, told The U.S. Sun that he had to come to show his support because the MAGA movement for him represented Europe’s greatest hope.

With the 2-year-old Ukrainian conflict on his nation’s borders, unsurprisingly, America’s response was top of Neamtu’s agenda.

He called for the Republicans to continue to support aid for the country, something which is increasingly a lonely position in MAGA circles.

Indeed, Natalie Winters, co-host of Steve Bannon’s War Room, received one of the largest roars of approval when she called for an end to US involvement in Ukraine.

To rapturous applause, she asked rhetorically, “Where has being the world’s policeman gotten us?”

Winters added, “I’m not a global citizen, I’m a citizen of the United States.”

CPAC has increasingly come to be seen as representative of the growing divide between the two major wings of the Republican Party, the MAGA movement, and those more established politicians, what many here derisively mock as RINOs, or “Republicans in Name Only.”

One speaker told the crowd, “You’re not conservatives, you’re revolutionaries.”

CONSERVATIVES’ CONCERNS

Winters also whipped up the anti-establishment fervor in the room, telling the audience, “The Republicans hate you,” slamming the Washington political elite as “feckless, fake, and phony.”

By far the loudest boos were reserved not for President Biden, or even his embattled son Hunter, but for two Republican grandees, Senator Lindsey Graham, and the late presidential candidate in 2008 John McCain.

Outside of the extreme rhetoric, many attendees had more domestic concerns ahead of November’s elections.

Ilan, a lawyer from New Jersey, feared for the economy and said that he had noticed the pinch since 2020.

Another attendee, Colleen, a proud fifth-generation Washingtonian, said she had been in DC on January 6 but had seen no trouble.

She warned of dire challenges facing the US but seemed certain that Trump would be the one to fix them.

All were clear that this year’s election was the most important the United States will ever face.

As the event took a recess and attendees filed out into the hotel corridors, mingling with employees at a neighboring trades fair, the sense that many felt they now possessed secret knowledge was palpable.

Trump will forever be the face of the MAGA movement, but it is Bannon, who, according to one speaker, has provided the “intellectual and philosophical muscle” to his band of revolutionaries.