A conference that has struck fear into the conservative old guard and served as an ideas lab for policies now being implemented in the Trump administration kicks off Tuesday.

Now in its fifth year, the National Conservatism Conference is not a flashy rally like the Conservative Political Action Conference or events that Turning Point USA packs with young people and pyrotechnics. Rather, it has fostered the intellectual muscle behind the aggressive, nationalist power-wielding that has defined the second Trump administration and rapidly taken hold on the right.

“I do think that NatCon represents the conservative movement at this point,” said Rachel Bovard, vice president of programs at the Conservative Partnership Institute who’s a speaker at this NatCon and those in the past, noting the h

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