MAGA Bro Fake-Cries His Way Through Jan. 6 Performance Art at Conservative Political Action Conference

The Conservative Political Action Conference is a wild place. And we don’t mean that in a good way. This year’s featured guests included racists like none other than Papa John and the prime minister of Hungary. And of course, there are tons of MAGA bros there.

But freelance journalist (and self-proclaimed “filthy pleb”) Laura Jedeed stumbled upon a truly unexpected sight when she captured a MAGA bro engaging in performance art (there’s a sentence we never thought we’d write). The man was dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit and was seated inside a fake prison cell. He proceeded to fake cry while visitors listened to testimony from the Capitol insurrection hearings on a headset.

“Hello I would like to share with you the most astonishing thing I have ever seen,” she captioned a video of the so-called performance. “At this CPAC booth you receive a silent disco headset that plays harrowing testimony from people arrested for participating in J6. Instead of dancing, you stand around and watch this guy cry.”

Hello I would like to share with you the most astonishing thing I have ever seen

At this CPAC booth you receive a silent disco headset that plays harrowing testimony from people arrested for participating in J6

Instead of dancing, you stand around and watch this guy cry pic.twitter.com/cin6F5zDhz

— Laura Jedeed (@LauraJedeed) August 5, 2022

But wait! There’s more!

“What I need you to understand is that I stood here for about half an hour yesterday and this guy NEVER broke character,” Jedeed wrote. “He wept sitting on the bench. He wept sitting on the floor. He tallied days on a chalkboard set up for the purpise [sic].”

What I need you to understand is that I stood here for about half an hour yesterday and this guy NEVER broke character

He wept sitting on the bench

He wept sitting on the floor

He tallied days on a chalkboard set up for the purpise pic.twitter.com/dgGag1Qcjn

— Laura Jedeed (@LauraJedeed) August 5, 2022

BuzzFeed News was able to confirm that the booth was set up by the pro-Trump #WalkAway campaign, which is funded by right-wing influencer Brandon Straka.

Straka later admitted it was him in the cell on social media.

“At CPAC I sat silently in a cell as a performance art piece to provoke a reaction about political division, human rights abuses & more,” he wrote. “Right now, the left wing media is actively trying to use this art piece to have me further prosecuted. The left now supports criminalizing art.”

At CPAC I sat silently in a cell as a performance art piece to provoke a reaction about political division, human rights abuses & more. Right now, the left wing media is actively trying to use this art piece to have me further prosecuted.

The left now supports criminalizing art.

— Brandon Straka (@BrandonStraka) August 8, 2022

According to BuzzFeed News, Straka was “convicted earlier this year for his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection, and has been reviled as a ‘snitch’ and a ‘traitor’ for cooperating with the FBI in exchange for a plea deal.”

Maybe for his next performance art piece, Straka can do an interpretive dance of “Cry Me a River.”

Cover Photo: Laura Jedeed (Twitter)