DALLAS — In the corner of the brightly lit, heavily bannered conference hall for this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference, an empty jail cell sets the scene of a Make America Great Again performance art piece. A sign fixed to the exterior of the cell warns “#younext.” The would-be prisoner is an actor playing the part of a Jan. 6 insurrectionist.
The diorama painted a sympathetic portrait of the rioters arrested for their roles attacking the nation’s Capitol in protest of an election that saw the defeat of former President Donald Trump.