June 16, 2021 02:14 PM UTC

Least Interesting WCS In Years Could Nonetheless Get "Wild"

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• by: Colorado Pols

This weekend the 2021 Western Conservative Summit kicks convenes at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Denver, featuring an unusually low-luminescence lineup of conservative speakers: with Rep. Lauren Boebert on the top line of invited guest stars along with such decidedly B-list conserva-celebs as Victor Davis Hanson, Frank Gaffney, and Rick “What’s That Smell” Santorum:

It’s quite a step down from the WCS’s glory days of hosting Donald Trump, Sarah Palin, now-ex Rep. Steve King of Iowa, or international far-right politicos like anti-Muslim Dutch demagogue Geert Wilders. Maybe the once-prestigious Centennial Institute needs another year to get their act together after failing to pray the COVID-19 pandemic away, or maybe Western Republicans are getting tired of conferencing in a state Republicans lose?

Either way, a press release today from a coalition of far-left groups we guess you could refer to collectively as “Antifa” suggests that events outside the Hyatt could be more newsworthy than anything going on inside:

Join the Denver Communists, Front Range Mutual Aid Network, WITCH Denver, Front Range Community Defense Collective, Anon Resistance Movements, Anti-Repression Colorado, Denver Action Network, and friends for The Western BLM-Antifa Summit—two days of fiercely jubilant opposition to the Western Conservative Summit!

The Western Conservative Summit, organized by The Centennial Institute at Colorado Christian University, is a semi-annual far-right gathering and blight on Denver—and our community has a proud history of opposing this breeding ground of fascist networking & propanganda that riles up their reactionary base…

As various politicians and affiliates face lawsuits from Dominion Voting and face trials for deadly violence on January 6, 2021, the move across the street to the smaller venue of the Hyatt Regency from the much larger Colorado Convention Center makes clear that their numbers, popularity, and name-brand speakers are dwindling. This year, big names have been replaced by lesser losers like local grifter and professional victim Lauren Boebert, Lakewood’s anti-gay cake-maker Jack Phillips, Portland’s right-wing provocateur and infamous milkshake-wearer Andy Ngo, among various other d-list culture-war reactionaries.

We’ve heard that the possibility of a lefty counterprotest outside this year’s Western Conservative Summit has greatly alarmed the event’s organizers, and we of course do not condone any violence or illegal activity that might occur on either side of any confrontation. It’s interesting with that said to see the left-wing groups specifically invoke the January 6th insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, which is something of a pre-emptive moral gut punch to any Republican who wants to complain about anybody’s “wild protest.”

In short, Republicans are now terrified that what Trump’s minions did to the U.S. Capitol…might happen at the Hyatt. Two wrongs do not make a right, of course, so lefties would not be doing themselves or their movement any favors by live-action role playing the January 6th insurrection at the Hyatt Regency Denver this weekend. In fact a peaceful protest outside the venue would serve as a much more effective contrast and statement. There’s nothing “Antifa” stands to gain from stooping to the level of a Trump supporter in the U.S. Capitol on January 6th.

For us it’s enough to note the hypothetical irony, which is very rich indeed, and leave it at that.