I wanted to hear interesting conservative ideas at CPAC. Instead I'm being told about Stalin stealing hamburgers

Really? That's what Stalin wanted? To play the part of the McDonalds villain the Hamburglar?

It's stunning to see the low depths the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) occupies in the Trump era.

Once considered a premier political gathering, it was typically viewed as a place where the renegades in the conservative movement made sure those in power knew that people were watching. The first CPAC featured Ronald Reagan, and was seen as a shot across the bow to the more establishment Republicans like Richard Nixon.

Over time, libertarian leaners and the Tea Party contingent all met and gathered. While people differed on particular ideas and some speakers were more warmly welcomed than others, it was always about conservative ideas. The personalities were secondary.

That all changed with the ascendency of Donald Trump and it showed with CPAC 2019. A shell of its former self, the yearly gathering was not so much about conservative ideas but about "what makes America great"— through the lens of a Donald Trump presidency.

Long gone are the days when the program featured people like Arthur Brooks, George Will, Paul Ryan, Jim DeMint, George W Bush, and Dick Cheney. The 2019 lineup featured people like Sebastian Gorka, Charlie Kirk, Candace Owens, Jeanine Pirro, and Diamond and Silk.

Some people argue that's merely the shift taking place in the conservative movement. But the question must be asked: What ideas are they advancing that will bring more people into the movement?

Gorka, a former White House adviser, thundered during his speech, saying, "They want to rebuild your homes. They want to take away your hamburgers! This is what Stalin dreamt about but never achieved!"

Really? That's what Stalin wanted? To play the part of the McDonald's character Hamburglar? What makes it so ridiculous is a person who fixated on ideas and not adulation of the president would have instead argued the absurdity of the Green New Deal and the provisions that seek to encourage people to eat less red meat as a means of reducing carbon emissions. Consuming fewer hamburgers doesn't make cows disappear.

There is also the hilarious theme of treating conservatives who criticise Donald Trump as enemies who only do what they for personal enrichment. Charlie Kirk, the founder, and leader of the advocacy group Turning Point USA, said the following about Trump critics: “You want to be loved? You want to be invited to the cocktail parties? You want to get all the right compliments on Twitter? Be a conservative who attacks the president.”

This is coming from a guy who has over 950,000 followers on Twitter, who shared a stage with the president of the United States, and whose organisation took in millions of dollars in donations last year.

As for the cocktail parties, it would be interesting if someone who gets invited posted a few dispatches so the rest of us can, at the very least, get a description of what they're like — because they appear to be as secretive as those Eyes Wide Shut parties.

It's understandable some people want to do a victory lap. After all, they won. When Tea Party candidates beat establishment candidates in 2010 and 2014, they were right to brag. Politics is a rough-and-tumble venture.

But conservatism is not about "owning the libs"; it's not about calling people who criticise Trump's terrible trade policies and amateurish foreign policy debacles "traitors" who are only interested in getting compliments on social media platforms.

The conservative movement cannot survive on the narrow path blazed by people like Kirk and Gorka. You can rail about cocktail parties and the communists wanting to steal your hamburgers all you want. But that kind of talk only preaches to the choir.

The goal is to expand the conservative movement. To bring more people in. To sell conservative ideas. To tout the exceptionalism of the free market, the benefits of community and a federal government that exists to protect our rights, rather than getting involved in every facet of our lives.

CPAC 2019 was not a gathering of conservatives trading ideas and looking for ways to expand the tent. Instead, it was, for the most part, a pep rally for Donald Trump, broken up into segments and designed to elicit lots of applause lines.

One would be hard-pressed to find anyone there who walked away with a sense of purpose for expanding the conservative movement — and that's what CPAC used to do.