Tom Gresham has a good take on the upcoming election:
1. Sorry, "perfect" is not running this year.
2. It's time to put on your big boy pants and use your head (not your emotions).
3. Any vote not for Trump (love him or hate him) or staying home is a vote for Hillary.
4. If Hillary is elected, you can kiss your gun rights goodbye.
1. Nope, he sure wasn't, nor will he ever, nor were most expecting him to be here this time
2. Emotions are precisely how we got Trump, pure logic is how the (D) party settled on Hillary. Neither logic nor emotion alone are founded in principles.
3. Power derives from the consent of the governed; it does not merely 'exist' to be divvied up from a fixed supply
4. Only if she has a favorable House & Senate, which will be the case no matter who wins if we & our nominee especially don't do a better job campaigning for down-ballot seats (instead of trying to purge significant portions of support from the party)
What's the old saw from the Pogo comic strip?
We have seen the enemy...
It was originally about littering, but yeah. And boy howdy is it ever accurate, because there are lots of different people with different beliefs & motivations, who are somehow able to manage to generally work together toward common cause in this country. I guess you might say it's actually uplifting in a certain way, that we can mingle with our 'enemies' and still function.
When
I think about who the enemy might be, I think about where we were approximately nine months ago;
-Unprecedented failure by gun control to do anything at the federal level
-Unprecedented low support for new gun laws in the populace
-Unprecedentedly unpopular assumed nominee of the gun control party
-Historically impressive slate of candidates to choose from for the opposition party, variety of backgrounds, tons of relevant experience & track records, most fairly charismatic & well spoken, solid political connections both up to the leadership as well as down to the grass roots
-Resurgent gun rights supporters, perhaps more than at any time since the revolution or civil war, awakening to demand favorable federal policy for the first time in decades, only this time refusing to compromise
-An opposition party unified & spoiling for a fight with the anti-gun party, confident that any likely candidate would prove more than a match for the weakened ruling party
And where we are now;
-Literally two least mutually-popular, most divisive candidates running
-The opposition party that previously had staunch gun rights constitutionalists gradually gaining numbers & authority since 2010 is now actively working to purge & replace these representatives with sycophants of the executive
-The candidate chosen by the opposition party is seeking to replace the most conservative wing (i.e. the constitutionalist pro-gun wing) of voters with disaffected socialists who lost their voice in the anti-gun party this election
-Both candidates pursuing at least mild additional gun control laws, both promising assorted infringements on civil liberties indirectly related to gun rights
-An anti-gun party victory looks more plausible almost every week
-An opposition party fractured & fighting itself as a battle to change the core message & principles of the organization rages, even after the official nomination
If you think about what events or ingredients could possibly transpire to achieve this frightening reversal, there are few that don't involve Trump
TCB