The Dallas gathering was the first of many FORUM events organizer Matthew Peterson plans to host as life after Trump weighs heavily on the American right. Peterson said FORUM is 'where the right debates the future,' with panels on immigration, MAHA, technology, and affordability.
Some in the press treated the event as counterprogramming to the RNC. The closer read is that it worked as a scouting mission for the movement Trump built in 2024. Participants included Daily Wire's Isabel Brown, Claremont Institute President Ryan Williams, American Principles Project President Terry Schilling, and The Blaze's John Doyle and Steve Deace.
Trump used the convention in Dallas for a two-hour victory lap after the corporate media predicted a flop. The arena overflowed, and attendees chanted 'USA' as he revisited the last 20 months. Organizers said the crowd was around 500, and Peterson said the room skewed young and male.
The sharpest fights came over AI and affordability. Joe Allen said people like him were 'subject to the decisions made by billionaires' and that kids are being 'deranged by these technologies.' Joe Lonsdale pushed back, saying AI already helps in health care and has lowered errors on cancer slides from 8 to 12% to about 0.4%.
Ryan Williams tied affordability to immigration, saying removing a large portion of the foreign-born population would raise lower-end wages, cut housing prices, and shift the economy away from finance and toward working-class and middle-class interests.
Why it matters: the right is still arguing over who gets the gains from growth, technology, and migration. Those fights will shape the next version of the coalition Trump left behind.
The bottom line: victory did not settle the debate. It made the stakes clearer.