The Trace is setting up the Alabama Senate primary as an epic struggle of NRA against NAGR and GOA, given that NRA is backing Strange and NAGR and GOA are backing Moore. It’s been said, “If you don’t like Trump, you really won’t like what comes after Trump if the establishment succeeds in tearing him down.” I’m betting Moore is a taste of that.
As I get older, I’m starting to believe that the SoCos have a point on some issues. But where I part will them, and will continue to part with them, is believing that government can erase the SoCos’ cultural losses. Culture leads politics, not the other way around. The left understands that very well, but the right never has.
Nonetheless, it’s a seller’s market if what you’re selling is populism, so I think there’s a good chance Moore pulls off an upset.
Moore winning is in no way an upset. He is the most popular politician in Alabama, and is in the drivers seat for election.
Trump has to support Strange, since Luther has stood withhim when needed. But that’s just politics 101. Strange is as good as done. He’s too tied to the shady idiot of a governor who is now sitting in jail. Moore, on the other hand, represents the heart and soul of Alabama. He was elected twice, and of course removed by courts twice, for putting up the 10 commandments.
I live in Huntsville and this is 100% correct. We’ve basically been given the choice between a lunatic and a criminal, most people siding with the lunatic.
Fact is I can’t in good conscience vote for either so I’m staying home….
Well, on the one hand, setting this up as an “epic” battle between NRA and GOA/NAGR ignores all the local nuances of corruption.
On the other hand, I am included to feed this narrative. If the gun rights movement is taking an even harder right turn in GOA and NAGR, then the Trace should be even more afraid. The “moderate” NRA plays Realpolitik and can make deals. GOA and NAGR, not so much. If GOA and NAGR are the future, NYC will be constitutional carry in no time whatsoever.
Wait… are we talking Dudley’s NAGR?
Oh crap… there goes Alabama’s good gun laws.
“Culture leads politics, not the other way around. The left understands that very well, but the right never has.”
I have trouble placing Libertarianism (both as a party and as a philosophy) on a scale of “Left vs Right” (Libertarianism is the odd one out — it doesn’t exist internationally, but has at least marginal influence in America — but whether Libertarianism is lumped in with the “Right” or given its own direction, this applies to them, too.
You can see this particularly in election cycles, where Libertarians *will* have a Presidential candidate, will *likely* have Senate, Representative, and Governor candidates, *might* have State Senate and Representative candidates, and probably *won’t* have local candidates for anything.
In many ways, I wish this were backward…because to get good top candidates, you need a good ground game, and people rising up through the ranks, which means good local candidates. And having a major say in the culture is important for that.
Having said that, I understand one major factor why Libertarians put so much energy in offices, top-down. It’s because Americans in general, when it comes to elections, focus on the offices top-down as well…and to this extent, I *really* wish Americans appreciated their local elections more…
Actually, libertarianism does exist internationally. Australia has Senator David Leyonhjelm who’s a member of the Liberal Democratic Party (their version of the Libertarian Party). He’s been elected twice since 2014. He is very pro-gun, pro-small govt, etc. The UK also has a Liberal Democratic Party, but I’m not sure how libertarian they are.
Here’s Senator Leyonhjelm’s maiden speech to the Australian Senate:
https://youtu.be/Cd04FGBUYz0
I’m not entirely sure if I’d consider “also existing in Australia and UK” to be international (and come to think of it, I think I’d be a little surprised if there isn’t a smidgen of Libertarian effort in Canada as well) — the movement is still too small — but it’s a good reminder that, regardless of what has become of the UK, the idea of freedom is an English one, and it can be found to one degree or another through the Anglosphere.
Now, if only we can figure out how to export the English idea of freedom — protecting life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness — to the rest of the world….
For that matter, if only we could figure out how to get Libertarianism out of the margins…
Searching on “international libertarian parties” I came up with this. It’s a short list, and most of the countries are within the Anglosphere or are European. However, there are a few countries that fall outside that definition.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Alliance_of_Libertarian_Parties
It isn’t really a creature of the right or the left as we know them, although it has important things in common with both. Some adherents lean a little to one side or the other.
The Republicans can be a tiny bit better about (occasionally) allowing them to be seen in public, but only briefly and under heavy supervision. Neither party actually allows them to gain any real influence or power.
Both GOA and NAGR are front groups for would be theocrats. If you watch, you will see that is the common denominator that will get their most spirited support for candidates, after which gun rights will come in a poor second. I would be astounded if they hadn’t supported Moore.
If they have an issue with the NRA, it is that while the NRA is catching up to them on the theocratic score, it is not quite there yet.
Agreed that GOA is a social conservative group that also cares about gun rights, but theocrat? Care to define your meaning? Do you mean like our Framers, passing laws against sodomy, gambling, and requiring Bibles in every home?
“Culture leads politics, not the other way around.”
That invites the question then, what leads culture?
A historical question I encounter repeatedly is, how did the Nazis accomplish what they did, when Germany at the beginning of the 20th century was regarded as one of the most cultured and cosmopolitan nations in the world?
Tactically, it is usually pointed out that by tapping into an undercurrent of antisemitism that had always been there, and leveraging that into utilization of Jews as national scapegoats for every failing, the Nazis were able to steer the culture in such a way that it fed their own political power; and the Nazis utilized democratic methods until those methods had served their purposes, then eliminated them as a tool by which the culture might have steered its politics again. Ironically, they steered the culture to utilize democracy to eliminate itself, by popular acquiescence.
Of course something like that could never work in a system like our own… ;-)
The dark night of fascism is forever descending on the US but somehow always lands on Europe.
In the last two years it caught up with us, after spending more than 40 years on the project. But the response here is mirroring the historical responses in Europe (thanks probably to the globalization of instant communications) so as always in history, the future remains hazy.
A big factor in Europe (and of course now, here) was Russia’s switch from communism to fascism. While most of our “conservatives” are still chasing dirty commies, they failed to notice there is a new enemy, though originating from the same source.
Media leads culture.
Nazis also had three other advantages:
1. Economic collapse made capitalism look bad.
2. Voting age lowered to 18 for 1932 elections. “Gemeinnuetz vor Einnuetz” played well to idealistic college students and professors, who turned out for the NSDAP.
3. Social Darwinism made a great underpinning to NSDAP screaming about gene pool contamination. In Sweden, this led to forcible sterilization, as in America. Additionally, in America, the ACLU defended a textbook in the Scopes trial that was bluntly white supremacist, in line with contemporary scientific belief. You aren’t a science denier, are you?
Moore and Strange are both pro-gun. Strange is the incumbent, and the NRA always backs pro-gun incumbents as a policy.
I dislike Moore, and have heard nothing good about Strange, but I have no 2nd Amendment worries here.
“I have no 2nd Amendment worries here.”
I do. While I expect that on odds Moore will retain 2A friendliness as a legacy issue, that the SoCos can’t afford to jettison quite yet, make no mistake that Moore wouldn’t sell us out in a minute if somehow the tradeoff was between gun rights, and maybe banning abortion or outlawing gay marriage or creating an overt Christian theocracy.
See what I mean? The article directly below the one Sebastian linked to.
Can any apple fall very far from that tree?
Go ahead; debate the legitimacy of that poll, or alternately, who is a Real Evangelical.
Media polls tend to include United Methodists and Episcopalians as evangelicals for no reason that makes sense.
“Agree with my definition because I say so!!!!”
Pass.
And why would that be a trade? Gun control nuts are usually pro-abortion and SSM.
That’s very true. About the only way you can get gun rights and pro-abortion and SSM is to find a libertarian (and even then, there are libertarians who are uncomfortable, or even outright hostile to, the pro-abortion stance — valuing life in the libertarian ideology, is a core tenant).
While it would be very good to divorce the gun issue from these other issues, both Democrats and Republicans have a tendency to keep them together, for better and for worse.
“Gun control nuts are usually pro-abortion and SSM.”
Then you would expect the opponents of abortion and SSM to have put as much energy into opposing them on gun control, as they have expended on abortion and gun control.
Except, they haven’t. Because gun rights are only valued for their election-swaying value, and not for their own sake.
So I would expect those cagey liberals to eventually maneuver the pro-gun rhetoricians into being faced with a choice, and telling them you can win on (say) this itty-bitty rollback of SSM, if only you gives us a lot on gun control, but you can’t have both.
At which point, bye-bye gun rights.
It’s amusing that following the 2016 election, you still seem to think that things will develop rationally, and/or issues will be presented at face value.
Whetherman:
I think in the same breath you poke fun at broad generalizations you also seem to gloss over the fact that most of us who are as serious about gun rights as you appear to be are also the kind who wouldn’t show up well in binary poll numbers. Though I don’t know of many in my circle who are both pro-abortion and pro-gun I know they exist out there and I would be willing to work with them, strategically, so long as their militancy on abortion does not get in the way of putting a “serious” pro-2A candidate in office for the betterment of all.
I’m sure there are probably a few at my church (Catholic) who, unlike me, forget about everything except abortion and SSM at the polls and would fit well into your angry anti-religion bubble. Everyone has *THEIR* single issue, and the permutations of such rarely align perfectly with the views of your average “pro-gun” politician.
I’ve often mentioned that without the protection of law safeguarding the right to life you can’t enjoy much of anything at all including the bill of rights. So you can guess what my priority is, and I know I obviously don’t need to justify it to you. Since my set of position stances resemble binary logic (AND/OR/XOR/NOT) as the computer science geek I am, there are obviously permutations that would simply disqualify even a serious “pro-gun” candidate for me as it would also appear for you.
To Sebastian’s point: The point from the other fellow about “evangelicals” being a broad enough brush is duly noted. “Religion” polls commissioned for purposes of political cherry picking are mostly useless these days and mostly serve as troll bait for leftist culture warriors.
Moore wins. Watch Bloomberg and the Dems pour $40 mil into this race in the General election.
So, does this mean GOA amd NAGR won their epic battle?
If so, Bloomberg should be very scared, if GOA and NAGR represent the new center of gun rights. The NRA is too moderate now.
Come to think of it: unless the Democrats put up a very good pro-2nd-amendment candidate, there’s a *very* strong chance that the NRA will support Moore, if not outright endorse him, now that he’s won the primaries.
So making this an “NRA vs GOA/NAGR” issue is kindof funny, if you think of it: sure, it looks like a “vs”, at least until some of the dust settles….