No matter what you might believe if you attended one of Donald Trump’s rallies, he is in the midst of a yuuuuge meltdown. Trendline after trendline shows the Donald’s numbers falling off a cliff, and individuals and groups that would normally back a GOP candidate without even thinking about it can’t get away from Trump fast enough. But Thursday’s edition of The New York Times revealed that one very large and very vocal right-wing group is still rallying behind him–National Rifle Association.
According to allies of both Trump and the NRA, this is an alliance of convenience more than anything. But it’s an alliance that has been sealed with a golden braid. The NRA has pumped some $6 million worth of advertising into the campaign–mostly in Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.
Watch one of those ads here. It features Mark Geist, a retired Marine who took part in the effort to relieve the Benghazi embassy.
By comparison, it hadn’t spent a penny to support John McCain or Mitt Romney at this point in the last two presidential campaigns. It spent a grand total of $61,000 to support George W. Bush in 2004.
But according to anti-tax zealot and NRA board member Grover Norquist, the stakes are much higher because the next president will almost certainly decide who controls the Supreme Court for years to come. For that reason, Norquist said, the NRA is rallying behind a man who is “the most pro-Second Amendment candidate in living memory.” Apparently the NRA has a short memory. Trump was once a staunch supporter of gun control; as late as 2012 he supported President Obama’s efforts to close loopholes in our gun laws after Sandy Hook.
President Obama spoke for me and every American in his remarks in #Newtown Connecticut.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 17, 2012
The NRA is aiming its effort at swing voters who are concerned about crime and self-defense, as well as voters who have concealed-carry permits. Take this ad, for instance, which claims that Hillary wants to take away our right to defend ourselves.
Or this ad, repeating a Trump smear that Hillary has no business having armed guards when she wants to take our guns.
Never mind that Hillary has stated time and again that she just wants to make sure that guns don’t wind up in the hands of people who have no business having them. But as the NRA amply demonstrated in the aftermath of Sandy Hook, even the most common-sense measures to reform our gun laws amount to jackbooted gubmint thugs coming to take your guns.
The more I think about it, Trump and the NRA deserve each other. Remember, folks, while the NRA brands itself as a civil rights organization, it is actually is the mouthpiece for the nation’s gun manufacturers. Most of them are privately owned. So when Wayne LaPierre and Ted Nugent open their mouths, they are speaking for a cabal of faceless men who are not accountable to anyone.
And now they’re rallying behind a guy who is the stereotype of a guy who is running as the candidate of the average American when he is actually the stereotype of the entitled one-percenter. One group of astroturfers rallying behind another, I guess.
