Hi All,
Today, I wanted to talk about a subject that has been in the news a lot lately – the NRA. Depending on who you ask, the organization is either a pro-gun organization simply trying to keep the Second Amendment intact – or a shady behemoth who buys elections with millions of dollars in dark money. Whatever your point of view on guns, it is undeniable that the NRA is a powerful organization, and one that is not going anywhere any time soon.
In today’s post, I want to go into a bit of detail about how they have amassed so much power in our electoral process, and the answer is not just because they donate money to politicians’ campaigns. Up until the Clinton Administration, the NRA was actually somewhat bipartisan. They supported common sense gun measures aimed at preventing senseless violence.
However, in the 1990s, gun control became a much more politicized issue than it had been in the past – leaving the NRA as the de facto political voice for the gun rights movement. The NRA gradually adopted the point of view that any attempt to institute regulations on guns was similar to the children’s book If You Give a Mouse a Cookie – that it would only lead to gun control advocates pushing for more and more restrictions.
Thus, the modern NRA was born. Keep in mind that the 1980s-1990s brought a political realignment to the U.S. on a level not seen since the Civil Rights Movement. Social conservatives (especially in the South) who had been voting reliably for Democrats since the days of Andrew Jackson began to feel out of place in their party. Clinton, being a Southerner, was able to keep parts of the Democrats’ southern firewall intact in 1992 – but by 1996, it was a distant memory.
This is because white-working class voters in the Midwest and South had started deserting the party in droves – and this split was being exploited by Republican-leaning special interest groups. Before long, anti-union groups, the Religious Right, and yes the NRA were trying to capture voters they viewed as ripe for the picking.
The NRA started applying a litmus test based on a letter grading system to almost all politicians. But at this time, the concept of a liberal Republican or a conservative Democrat was not yet dead. So there were Republicans who received F’s and Democrats who received A’s. (Fun fact: one of those Democrats who received an A was an unknown Congresswoman from Upstate New York named Kirsten Gillibrand – whose rating was later downgraded to an F…)
As our politics became more polarized during the Bush 43 and Obama Administrations, moderates on both sides were the first to go. This is because they faced two major obstacles in their reelection efforts. First, they had to survive a likely primary challenge from their party’s flank. Any conservative Democrat or liberal Republican was seen as not-Democratic or not-Republican enough to carry that party’s flag. If the moderates survived the primary, they would almost surely face stiff competition in the general election, as moderate districts were the best pickup opportunities for the opposing party.
As more and more people switched party affiliations and moderates were purged in election after election, the NRA’s base of political support became almost exclusively Republican. They became more active in elections by donating money and volunteers to people they supported.
However, the power that the NRA has accumulated is NOT just due to the amount of money they donate to candidates.
Their power comes from their members – many of whom are single-issue voters. Single-issue voters are people who prioritize one issue over all others when determining who to vote for. The presence of a pro-gun movement led by single-issue voters has insulated Republicans because they know they can always count on a dedicated base of support if they continue to come out against gun control.
Think of Marco Rubio at the CNN Town Hall with Parkland students last week. One high school student put him on the spot and directly asked him whether or not he would continue to accept donations from the NRA. Say what you want about Marco Rubio, but he is a savvy politician. He refused to denounce the NRA because he feared the backlash.
Gun-control advocates are not single-issue voters in the way that NRA members are. Just imagine for a moment that Rubio had stood in that arena and said that he would refuse future donations from the NRA. It would have been an incredible political moment – standing in the company of high schoolers who had lost friends and teachers to gun violence in his own state – if he had come out in support of gun control measures.
Even if he had taken that stand and showed some semblance of a spine, the hard truth of it is that it would not win him any additional votes. It’s horrible that we have to talk about an issue like saving children’s lives in this way, but votes are gasoline for politicians in a democracy – and only two things make a politician do anything: the threat of losing votes, and the opportunity to gain votes.
In the end, it does not make political sense for Republicans like Marco Rubio to come out against the NRA, as it will only open them up to attacks on the right, but will not gain them any votes from the middle or left. NRA members are perfectly happy dumping a Republican candidate over gun control, but Democrats will likely never support a Republican over someone from their own party exclusively because of a stance on gun-control (not to mention that no Republican would dare be to the left of a Democrat on gun-control).
Essentially, the NRA’s power is just a byproduct of increasing political polarization. Yes, the money they donate to campaigns helps, as do recent court decisions that have gutted existing gun control lives. But, the power source of the NRA is its members who vote almost exclusively on the issue of gun control.
One of the things we need to be mindful of is making the NRA seem more powerful than it actually is. While it does give lots of money to Republicans, there are plenty of Democratic-leaning groups who give just as much – if not more – money to Democratic causes. The problem is if we talk about how the NRA has this immense power and that they are controlling politics in this country, then members/donors to the organization are going to feel like their money is going to good use. The more powerful we say the NRA is, the more powerful it will actually be.
Short of a huge compromise that would surely be a non-starter on both sides of the aisle, the only thing that is going to stop this assault by the NRA is to pass incremental gun safety laws. Yes, some of them may seem rather weak – but the NRA’s whole argument is that the Second Amendment will crumble if anything resembling a gun control measure becomes law. If we can prove that that is not the case, then maybe the NRA’s single-issue voters will begin to see that there is a difference between gun-safety and forcefully taking away people’s guns. Now, I know this is putting a lot of faith in an organization that has become pretty irrational over the past couple of decades, but anything is better than what we have now.
I know that this was a dense and somewhat depressing post, but remember that no matter how powerful a special interest group is, votes still matter. There are groups like Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action who are making real strides at the state and local levels to create sensible gun-safety policies. No matter how powerful we think the NRA is, the tide finally seems to be turning on this issue.
Thanks for reading, and remember – if you know anyone who you think would like to receive these notes, send their email address to NotFourNothin@gmail.com and I will add them to the list!
-Tyler
Bonus read: I didn’t want to get too into it today, but there is currently an FBI investigation looking into whether or not the Russians used the NRA as a go between to the Trump campaign in 2016. This McClatchy post goes into a lot of detail about the investigation and potential ramifications…
(Sources: Ballotpedia, CNN, Brookings Institute, Washington Examiner, and Politico)
Not 4 Nothin 