First the gay rights folks, and now The Brady Campaign. I have to admit, I don’t like him either, so we have that in common at least. But I’m forced more and more to admit that the issue with him isn’t guns. Obama pretty clearly isn’t interesting in fighting culture wars, as Bill Clinton relished in. No, Obama is interested in transforming the American economy and health care system, and has no intention of letting culture war issues like gun control, gay rights, or abortion jeopardize his efforts to bring social democracy to the United States. I can almost hear Rahm saying, “Never let a culture war get in the way of a good opportunity to take the country closer to socialism! Besides, we can take their guns after we make them dependent on us for health care. We can sell it as a cost saving measure.”
Joe talks about how the Bradys are backing down from some of their bogus statistics with this latest post. I agree that’s a positive change, but necessary for them. Previously the gun control movement could count the media to do most of their heavy lifting. Their control over the debate in the media bought with it political access. The media is in the process of transforming, and in whatever emerges from the other side is going to be considerably different than what came before it. Ordinary citizens are going to play a greater role in shaping public debate.
The gun control movement needs to learn to speak to real people. Their lack of political progress, even under what should be a very favorable congress and administration, isn’t really about Obama. Obama is just being a shrewd politician. The real problem is that they don’t have people, which you need to have a real movement.
The six million dollar question for the gun control movement is whether there’s any passion for it. Sure, lots of people say they favor it, but when the rubber meets the road, they really don’t care. Lecturing Obama might feel good, but ultimately there’s not much he can do if he doesn’t want a costly fight in Congress. The failure of the gun control movement isn’t Obama’s fault, it’s the movement’s inability to motivate voters that’s costing them. Whether or not that is changeable depends on whether the gun control movement has a future, or will go the way of the temperance movement.