In 2016, as the Republicans were running up to nominating Donald Trump, I posted several threads that warned that embracing Trump had real risks.
I also published some that tried to explain what I thought were the underlying reasons that Trump was doing well, and then ultimately prevailed. But in there, there was a warning. Embracing Trump, which was different than embracing the populist platform he ran on, involved a real risk of taint.
Trump, no matter what you think of his policies, is a crude man. Indeed, he's so crude and cynical in some ways there's been reason to believe all along that he might not have that strong of connection to his policies, but adopted them as he knew that he could sell himself as the backer of those policies.
American history has a distinct sub thread of real issues becoming absorbed by the personalities of their proponents, one way or another. The Great Man theory of history is supposedly discredited, but frankly looking at history suggests that it shouldn't be wholly.
There was an actual substantial Communist penetration into the American government in the 1930s and 1940s. That was real. What Joe McCarthy claimed about that was largely correct. But he was also a brash oaf in his presentation of the facts (which it seems clear to me were provided to him by J. Edgar Hoover). "McCarthyism" has been roundly condemned due to McCarthy, and its been believed, erroneously, ever since that what McCarthy was saying was without merit. It was. It was McCarthy's personality that had merit problems.
John F. Kennedy, in contrast, had the personal morals of an alley cat and is responsible for the disaster of the Vietnam War. His shiny image, however, was so effective that even now he's remembered fondly, when he ought to be remembered as one of he least successful Presidents in our history and arguably the most morally icky one we've ever had. Being a drug addicted, ill, sex addict isn't really Camelot, but you wouldn't know that based on the frequent citations to his Presidency. Image again.
And now we have the National Rifle Association in bankruptcy.
Make no mistake about it, the leadership of the NRA can be blamed for embracing Trump like Romeo embraced Juliet, and like Romeo, now it may go down in a bloody death.
The NRA filed for bankruptcy yesterday.
The National Rifle Association has existed since 1871. It was only since the Gun Control Act of 1968, however, that its been a strongly lobbying organization for the Second Amendment. That act shocked the NRA into action, leading to an overthrow of its existing leadership which not only wasn't inclined to oppose the act, but actually was willing to help draft it. This sparked a reaction in the organization and it became a dedicated organization which successfully opposed what seemed to be an advance of gun control that had widespread popular support in the United States in the 20th Century.
A distinct evolution occurred in the NRA over this period of time. The NRA was mostly dedicated to sport shooting with an interest in the technology of new firearms, including military firearms, in the background but there. It had an interest in handguns, but it was a rifle association. It's journal wrote frequently on hunting weapons but it had a strong target shooting thread running through it (and still actually does). A person might expect to find articles about the M1903 rifle, the M1 Garand, or the M14, in their day, but a person was much more likely to read about the Winchester Model 70 or the hunting variants of the Mauser 98. It's big, big columnist of the 1970s and 80s was Finn Aagaard, a former professional hunter from Africa who had relocated to the United States. It adored Jack O'Connor.
It's leadership in this time evolved to become freakishly stable and, in the eyes of some, non democratic. Wayne LaPierre came to be its head and seemingly its head for life. As it started to get successful it slowly evolved in strategy to where its emphasis on the range and the game fields evolved into one that frankly anticipated urban combat. A reader of the journal in 1971 might expect to read about hunting in Alaska. . .one in 2021 might expect to read about carrying a self defense pistol in Chicago.
There's always been opponents to the NRA among firearms owners inside and outside of it. Some inside of it actually complained that it was too lenient on gun control, a really silly position to say the least. Some outside of it, however, grew slowly disgusted with the emphasis on combat weaponry.
The emblem of the NRA whos an eagle perched on two sporting rifles on top of an American shield. Today that emblem really ought to show the eagle perched on top of two M4 Carbines. There's not an issue of its journal that's published that doesn't feature the not all that great AR platform rifle, the American military's unfortunate stepchild. The NRA deserves a lot of the credit or the blame for the popularity that junky now obsolete never very good rifle fanatically enjoys today. Forced on the military by Robert Strange McNamara, one of the worst Secretaries of Defense the United States has ever had, it's gone mad in civilian sales in part through the NRA's fanatic boosting of the concept that civilians really need combat arms.
Some may need combat arms, and there's nothing existentially wrong with anyone owning what is really an overgrown obsolete World War Two technology problematic .22 rifle. But there is something wrong with pitching the idea that idea that a person is going to have to fight the Battle of Stalingrad on the way to Mini Mart. The constant drumbeat on that theme created an atmosphere that has not been healthy and its increased the opposition to the NRA.
Giving Donald Trump a massive embrace didn't help either. The NRA used to take the position that it was non partisan, but it really gave that up during the Obama Administration. Donald Trump's White House has actually been at least as supportive of gun control as Obama's was, which is to say barely at all, but to listen to the NRA you'd think that Obama consficated every firearm in the United States and Trump gave them all back.
In reality, going into the 2016 election the Democrats had given up on gun control. They'd lost support in prior election on the issue and they knew that. They weren't about to try and advance it much, although they likely would have due to various events. But the fact that they stepped away from it got them no credit with the NRA at all. In the 2016 election the NRA all but became a lobbying arm of the far right wing of the Republican Party.
Some of that gamble paid off in that the Federal judiciary, which was already getting more conservative, was cemented in that direction, at least for a time, by Trump appointees. But it also meant that Democrats really started taking the gloves back off and made the NRA itself a target.
And it turns out, to my surprise, to be a fairly vulnerable target. The ossified leadership of the organization has been tottering as even high up in the organization questions are raised about why Wayne LaPierre, now 71 years old, doesn't step down. The organization has been sued by the State of New York in an overtly political effort to drag it down, but it obviously is doing poorly in defending itself. In some ways a victims of its own success, revenues are down even while gun sales are way, way up. And individuals who would naturally be members of it have been driven away by its hardcore allegiance to the extreme right of the GOP. Lots of gun owners now will quietly state that they don't support the organization as they don't support Trump.
The events of the last two weeks are going to be a disaster for the organization. The urban combat it imagined happening almost did, but those bringing it about were not BLM or Antifa or the like, but individuals who support much of what the NRA does. Reading its editorials in recent months made that quite plain.
We've doubted whether the GOP will remain one party here, or two. And here's another thing to doubt. The NRA is going to reorganize in under the laws of Texas, abandoning New York, right as long term rends in Texas are making it a "purple" state. Texas in 2022 and more particularly in 2024 isn't going to look, politically, like it does now. Houston and Austin already don't.
The NRA insists it will survive and be back. It'll survive, but whether it'll be back like it was is really questionable right now. It's going to have no influence at all in Congress for the next two years and its going to be distracted by simply trying to survive. As this occurs, the voices for the Second Amendment will be really radical, and really wholesale ignored. For firearms supporters, these are going to be really dark days. The politicians fear of angering the NRA is really going to wear off, and quickly.
There's a lesson here about who you embrace. She may like the same things that you do, but if she stinks, you're going to too, and that's what people will remember about you.
And young leadership doesn't stay young. Leadership that never changes eventually brings about death to the organization. We're seeing a lot of that now days.
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