• frezik@midwest.social
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    1 year ago

    There’s some interesting pieces that I think have gone unnoticed where rank and file Republicans do want something, but nothing happens. They don’t seem to care.

    For example, repealing the Hughes Amendment of 1986, which bans the registration of new machine guns for personal use. Lots of gun tote’n NRA members want that gone. Republicans could have easily done it after the 2016 election, where they had both houses of Congress and the White House.

    IIRC, there were some bills submitted to committee, where they promptly died. That’s it. The only meaningful changes to gun rights under Trump was declaring bump stocks illegal (which lets a semi-auto rifle be fired like a full-auto rifle).

    Yet, you don’t see any of those NRA members talking about this. They are still lockstep behind the Republican party. Take any equivalent issue on the left, and people want the Democratic party to burn down for not supporting it.

    I think there’s deep lessons to be learned there about how the rank and file treat their respective standard bearer political party.

    • abraxas
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      1 year ago

      That’s a solid point. The GOP couldn’t get together to wipe out the ACA because many Republicans actually realized it would fuck them to do so. It was an absolute comical disaster.

      They half-gutted it, but we still have enough of it to be far better off than pre-ACA days.

    • grue@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Yet, you don’t see any of those NRA members talking about this. They are still lockstep behind the Republican party. Take any equivalent issue on the left, and people want the Democratic party to burn down for not supporting it.

      I think there’s deep lessons to be learned there about how the rank and file treat their respective standard bearer political party.

      This Alt-Right Playbook video does an excellent job of explaining that, IMO. (I linked to the specific timestamp where the explanation starts, but I recommend watching from the beginning for context.)