Matt Schlapp, the chair of the American Conservative Union, kicked off the Conservative Political Action Conference on Wednesday by stating explicitly the goal of the four-day event: to dissect and understand the tactics used by progressive activists, in order to effectively push back against “creeping socialism.”

CPAC, as the annual event is known, has long been a place for debate around conservative ideas. This year, however, the speakers — avowed supporters of President Donald Trump — spent much more time fearmongering about a socialist takeover of the United States and counting the losses they suffered in the 2018 elections.

Schlapp’s comments came during an “activism bootcamp” session titled, “How the Left Does It: Money, People, Technology & How They Sell Socialism With a Smile.” The panel discussion featured Chris Carr, a veteran GOP strategist and political director for Trump’s re-election campaign; Bill Meierling of the American Legislative Exchange Council; and Katrina Pierson, an adviser to Trump 2020.

Meierling, speaking to a packed room, said that conservatives ought to learn from the left’s successes in winning back political power. Colorado — which in November achieved a Democratic trifecta, unified control of the state House, Senate, and governorship — serves as a cautionary tale, he said. The state gradually shifted from red to purple to blue thanks to the efforts of liberal activists, who created a movement outside the Democratic Party, started new nonprofit organizations, and “engaged with unions as the foot soldiers to door-knock,” Meierling said.

“So get out there,” Meierling urged his audience, “because the only people whose voices matter, the only people who actually persuade your neighbors, is you.”

Meierling pointed specifically to gerrymandering as a tactic that can be used to win state-level seats, particularly in states whose legislative chambers have the power to redraw congressional district maps, a tactic that compounds the power of the party in control.

If anything, progressives’ successes came after borrowing from the GOP playbook. During President Barack Obama’s eight years in office, Republicans flipped nearly 1,000 state-level seats. Ahead of the 2018 midterm elections, Democrats ramped up efforts to win back control of state legislatures. Democrats also won back control of the U.S. House of Representatives — with a record-shattering margin of victory — due in large part to the grassroots organizing on the ground.

The Red Scare continued on day two of the conference, with a particular focus on democratic socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her signature policy, the Green New Deal. The New York representative’s resolution, which she introduced with Sen. Ed Markey, lays out a decadelong plan envisioning a dramatic reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, the creation of millions of “good, high-wage jobs,” and an eventual goal of 100 percent clean electricity. At CPAC, it was portrayed as a communist policy that, in the words of Trump’s top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, “would literally destroy the economy.”

On Thursday, Schlapp moderated a discussion with Reps. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., and Jim Jordan, R-Ohio., called “Marketing Marxism: There’s Nothing New About the Green New Deal.” Though the panel was billed as a discussion about the socialist ideology behind the Green New Deal, the trio didn’t get into the key provisions of the resolution, the political and economic theories of Karl Marx, or how the two relate to each other. Rather, Meadows and Jordan railed against Ocasio-Cortez, this week’s House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing with former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, and the Democratic Party’s overall leftward shift.

“They cheer on [Colin] Kaepernick when he disrespects the flag,” Jordan said, referring to the football player whose protest of police brutality got him effectively blackballed by the NFL. “They embrace Cuomo – [New York] Gov. [Andrew] Cuomo – when he says America was never that great. And they also embrace [Rep.] Maxine Waters when she says, ‘Go out and harass anybody who supports the president.’”

As other examples of the left’s radical new positions, Jordan also mentioned Ocasio-Cortez’s proposal for a 70 percent marginal tax rate and the movement to abolish U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In a separate session, Sebastian Gorka, a conservative commentator who briefly worked in the Trump administration, took condemnation of the Green New Deal to the next level. “They want to take your pickup truck. They want to take away your hamburger. This is what Stalin dreamt about but never achieved,” Gorka said in a bit that almost instantly became a meme. The audience responded with cheers and chants of “U-S-A!”