To learn how the definition of conservative has changed in America, consider the story of Saul Anuzis.

His parents were fans of Democratic president John F. Kennedy, but on campus at the University of Michigan one day in the late 1970s, a Republican congressman from Illinois named Phil Crane caught his attention.

“He gave a speech to the students,” Anuzis recalled. “He said, ‘I'd rather stand on my principles and lose than lose my principles and win. And as a young ideologue college student, I'm like, 'Yeah, that's me.'"

Principles were big for Anuzis, specifically staunch anti-communism, borne of childhood lessons from a family that had fled Soviet-controlled Lithuania after World War II. Anuzis joined a Republican Party then animated by its fierce opposition to Moscow’s oppression, with universal human rights atop the conservative agenda along with limited government at home. 

In 1979, when Anuzis first started going to a young gathering of activists called the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), former California Gov. Ronald Reagan was launching what would ultimately become a successful bid for the White House.

Reagan was a CPAC mainstay in those years; read through his speeches now and you quickly see how, to enthusiastic responses, he talked liberally of freedom at home and abroad. 

“Throughout the world the Soviet Union and its agents, client states and satellites are on the defensive: On the moral defensive, the intellectual defensive, and the political and economic defensive,” Reagan said at CPAC in 1985, months after his second inauguration. “Freedom movements arise and assert themselves. They're doing so on almost every continent populated by man -- in the hills of Afghanistan, in Angola, in Kampuchea, in Central America. In making mention of freedom fighters, all of us are privileged to have in our midst tonight one of the brave commanders who lead the Afghan freedom fighters -- Abdul Haq. Abdul Haq, we are with you."

"They are our brothers, these freedom fighters, and we owe them our help," he continued.

To varying degrees, the sentiment continued for the next 25 years.

“The evil empire was clearly the focus for most people,” Anuzis says now.

As it happened, this year’s CPAC in Orlando coincided with Moscow again in the headlines. The Soviet Union crumbled more than 30 years ago, but observers believe Russian president Vladimir Putin is seeking to recreate its expanse with a bloody invasion of Ukraine.

Anuzis, a former chair of the Michigan State Republican Party, knows what the speeches at CPAC would have been like a generation or two ago.

“Traditionally, a conservative would support self determination, be anti-Communist, be very supportive, not necessarily putting boots on the ground in Ukraine, but participating in such a way where the freedom of these people around the world was just as important as the freedoms here in the United States.”

But the most influential figure on the right since Reagan is Donald Trump, and his opinion of Russia is decisively complicated. 

In a radio interview last week, Trump described Putin’s invasion of Ukraine as “genius” and “savvy," the latest in a series of remarks seemingly expressing admiration for Russia's authoritarian leader.

In a nearly 90-minute speech at CPAC on Saturday night, Trump called the war appalling, an outrage and an atrocity, but he mentioned President Joe Biden far more than Putin. And unlike the former, Trump never directly criticized the Russian leader.

Of Putin, he said: “Of course he’s smart – but the real problem is that our leaders are dumb. Dumb. So dumb.”

A CPAC straw poll released the next day – with a very small sample, but still closely followed to gauge conservative preferences – found Trump remains the overwhelming choice for the 2024 nomination, with 59% support from the poll's respondents. The next closest competitor, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a rising star in conservative circles, got 28%, nearly 30 points less than Trump.

Years of foreign wars and entanglements have disillusioned many Republican voters, and Trump’s “America First” philosophy still appeals to a large swath of them. 

The poll found that there is more concern about “election integrity” and illegal immigration at the southern border than Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Foreign policy did not crack the top three issues among those polled. 

Not surprisingly, “election integrity” and immigration were major themes of Trump’s speech. 

The former president has repeatedly, and erroneously, claimed he lost the last election because of fraud, and he is endorsing candidates who parrot his falsehoods. Numerous recounts, audits and judicial rulings have concluded that Biden won fairly, and even members of Trump's own cabinet, including his former attorney general William Barr, have attested the same.

As for immigration, one sign spotted outside the conference seemed to sum up the sentiment: It was something along the lines of Biden caring more about Ukraine’s borders than America’s. 

To be sure, other Republicans are unambiguous about their opposition to Putin. Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, the party's candidate for president in 2012, called Putin a “small, evil, feral-eyed man.”

But Romney represents but a small wing of a party that Myra Adams, an op-ed writer for The Hill, called in an email “the Trumplican Party, now more than ever.” 

As for Anuzis, 62, he says he voted twice for Trump and would again if he were the nominee – but he’s angling for a new generation of leaders.

As the conference ended, and gadflies and reporters were digesting the poll, he texted his thoughts.

“I think there’s no doubt he would win the nomination at this time, but I think there are also a lot of people looking at the next generation of leaders,” Anuzis said.

“Trump’s indecision on whether or not to run is freezing out the field,” he added. “I don’t think that’s healthy for the party or the conservative movement.”