I like to think of myself as a happy warrior when it comes to advocacy on this issue and others, and I’m generally optimistic things will work out for us in the end. I like following the old (and probably fake) Bismarck quote that God had special providence for fools, drunks, and the United States of America.
But for the first time I’m feeling real concern that the doomsayers are right, and we’re essentially screwed. It’s not just Scalia dying, though that puts the Second Amendment and limits on the federal government in jeopardy. I’m worried we’re about to get into a major war with this damned fool thing. Meanwhile, who do the voters like? A one man clown show and a kooky old socialist from Vermont. Donald Trump has accomplished one thing: making me think that maybe that Ted Cruz guy isn’t so bad after all. I think voters are sorely mistaken about Donald Trump. I believe if he were elected, he’d govern as a centrist, but as a haphazard centrist. I don’t think Donald Trump believes in conservatism. I don’t think Donald Trump believes in libertarianism, liberalism, or progressivism. I think Donald Trump believes in Donald Trump. How would he govern if elected? I don’t know, and I don’t think anyone else can credibly claim too know either.
With everything going on in the world and in our country, this sorry lot is the best we can do? I didn’t really like George H.W. Bush, or Clinton, or George W. Bush, but I never had quite so impending a feeling that we’re just totally f**ked that I have right now.
We’re tracking 5 by 5 on Trump. I don’t trust him. I don’t like him. I have no idea where he REALLY stands on anything. But given the choice between him and Criminal/Communist alliance of Hillary and Bernie, WTF am I supposed to do?
It’s like choosing between a broken leg and a broken finger. Neither is good but the latter is better than the former…
And as far as Syria, I’m afraid you’re right. A little over 100 years ago nobody thought Serbia would be the catalyst for a world war but there it went. Syria has the same volatile mix of ingredients, only several orders of magnitude worse….
Yep, time to trade that lever rifle for an AR.
The best description I have heard yet about what to anticipate with a President Trump, is Richard Nixon’s third term.
I think that insults Nixon
Okay, you’ve made me curious. What about the Nixon administration did you approve of? Detente? The loss of Vietnam? Cutting loose Taiwan? The total acceptance of MAD nuclear strategy? The EPA? Wage and price controls? Ramping up the war on drugs? The end of manned space exploration? The slaughter of the Republican Party downticket?
Nixon was the anti-Midas President. Everything he touched turned to crap. If not immediately, it turned to crap in the long run because Nixon was wrong about so many core ideas he implemented during his administration.
A President Trump could turn out worse than even President Nixon did, but to say today while the future is still so unknowable and so unclear that Trump will be so bad that it is an insult to compare him to Nixon, is astonishing.
A lot of the stuff Carter got blamed for, especially economically, could be traced directly to Nixon policies such as wage & price controls. Much of the inflation also had to do with Nixon’s decision to close the gold window.
This is true, but in the same way FDR gets “credit” for the New Deal which was an intensification of Hoover’s policies. Carter’s domestic policies only added to Nixon’s.
“I believe if he were elected, he’d govern as a centrist, but as a haphazard centrist. I don’t think Donald Trump believes in conservatism. I don’t think Donald Trump believes in libertarianism, liberalism, or progressivism. I think Donald Trump believes in Donald Trump”
I don’t disagree with this overall (though I think it’s true of the majority of President’s we’ve elected, particularly most Repubs) but I’d gladly take a centrist over a Sanders or a Hillary. And from a gun rights point of view I think he goes with Public Opinion and public opinion is on our side (plus his son seems honestly pro-gun).
I am slowly being drawn over to believing that Trump isn’t so bad, and calling him a clown show isn’t helpful to anybody. Like him or not he has maintained a billion dollar empire over time and I would love someone with business acumen to be in the white house for a change — vs. Hillary who’s done nothing and can’t even manage a marriage and Sanders who has only had success suckling at the public teat.
My 401k and eventual retirement depends upon a better president for American business …
I don’t disagree with you. I agree Trump is the lesser of those three evils.
I think it is disgusting that with the decent, experienced conservative governors we had trying to rung (not you Jeb!) the frontrunner is a sleazebag like Trump.
I’m voting for Cruz.
I’m waiting for HappyWarrior6 to weigh in here, but until he does, I’ll say I feel a lot less concerned than ten years ago.
Sure Heller and McDonald hang on a thin thread and Trump (and his fans/cultists) piss me off to no end.
But I feel like we’ve come so far in changing the culture arounds guns that this is just a temporary set back. We have more women and more minorities interested. We have shall issue CCW nearly everywhere. Laws are being loosen everywhere.
We have a lot of work to do still, and we need to focus on the state legislatures (like our own lazy one), but I’m actually hope. Where as a decade ago it felt like a miracle to be able to buy a 30 round mag.
I agree there are positive signs, but there are certain things I think have to happen to solidify those gains, and that requires voters to be serious.
Thanks PH2. ;)
I think the 2A has only been strengthened from these fights. We’ve really always had a voter apathy problem. And we are one of the few issue focused communities where people will stay home once they feel the enemy has been neutralized for the time being and go back to the ranges and hunting camps again. The fight always needs to be taken to the ballot box.
Trump is basically a right-leaning populist which the GOPe hasn’t had to “deal with” since Pat Buchanan. However, let’s just take a step back and see what we have in this election. For the first time we have had 100% agreement among all GOP candidates regarding gun rights. We didn’t even have that during the last Republican administration or during the elections of 2008 or 2012.
My concern is that we don’t have any high minded tacticians among the legislative ranks. We have pro-gun majorities but none among them that will put forth any effort to expand what we’ve built. We have Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan. We in the gun rights community have established a tradition of (in Sebastian’s words) knifing our traitors.
Here are the numbers I see: more Republicans than Democrats coming out to vote in the Republican primaries in Iowa and NH. We have to keep the momentum going. But I don’t see republicans staying home this year like before.
Also, while I’m on the topic of a lack of tacticians in the ranks, I disagree with GOP leadership’s (lack of) tactics on the SC nominees. It is incumbent on the senate to follow the constitution, and that requires CONSENT. To provide consent you need to have been asked to give consent in the first place. By saying “I won’t consent to anyone… Lalala not listening!!!” it does two things: uses a “closed hand” approach to entrench the left in their fight chile also closing us off to a winning strategy to get what WE want out of the process. Wouldn’t it be great to be in a position of opening ourselves up to a nominee and educating people on judicial activism versus original intent?
I don’t think the main concern is for how Trump himself would govern, but for the genie his campaign and election would leave out of the bottle. He is campaigning on an essentially fascist platform — if it could be called a platform — and it appears some voters can’t get enough of it. He has brought it to the mainstream. Will Trump really resist their desires if he is elected, or, will someone else deliver what the voters really wanted, if Trump disappoints them?
We’ve been a fascist country since FDR.
Since you don’t know, you don’t know that it will be bad. It could be mediocre or even good. The question is, are you willing to risk it? I’m not sure I am, but I also despise the alternatives (except Bernie, who I like even though I disagree with him).. It’s quite a dilemma, for me anyway.
Cruz may be a smirking prick, but he is our smirking prick.
Cruz was very involved in DC v. Heller.
NOT MINE
What is your objection to Cruz. Is that he is GOP or religious?
Wrong kind of white people.
“Wrong kind of white people.” What does that mean? “Wrong kind of white people.”
I don’t know what that means “Wrong kind of white people.” What does that mean? To end the show?
THERE’S NO WORDS THERE!
I am also curious What type of white folk? Obviously not just the color of skin But I think you mean culturally. Cruz and Rubio are both Latin ethnics so are actually considered not white. Or is white only when republican. So Carson is white because he sides with conservatives. I have seen that attitude befoere
I think Publius may have had a drug-induced “O’Reilly Moment”. Move along… nothing to see here…
I’m glad you know so much about my drug habits. It’s comforting, knowing that there are people on the Internet who care.
RAH is much closer to the mark…
http://www.salon.com/2008/07/05/white_people/
…but Cruz is particularly bad because he’s smug, smarmy, serpentine, unctuous, exaggeratedly pious, overly rehearsed to the point of exuding phoniness with more than a hint of outright malice, and both visually and attitudinally reminiscent of Joe McCarthy. He doesn’t come off well.
Of course, having said that Cruz isn’t nearly as phony as Hillary Clinton or Trump….
Indeed, of that list, the only thing I can think of, that Trump isn’t is “exaggeratedly pious”…unless you’re talking about Trump’s opinion of Trump, now that I think of it…
So, yeah, Cruz may be all of those things, but I think he’s sincere about trying to follow the Constitution, and willing to burn through political capital to get conservative Justices on the Supreme Court, which is much more than I can say about Trump.
Yeah but Trump is likable. Cruz isn’t.
No he isn’t. Trump has the highest unlikability ratings of any of the candidates!
And Cruz is very likable. Even my mother in law who is a hard core Dem likes him.
I despise Trump. He is oily and smarmy, and I have no reason whatsoever to believe that he’s being honest. He clearly says what he thinks will make him most popular at any moment. And he’s proven via his actions that he has no respect for liberty.
Indeed, like Hillary, everyone knows who he is, and they already have an opinion on him–and it’s very polarized. He’s not going to increase his support among people like me–and there’s a LOT of people like me.
I appreciate the grenade-lobbing he’s been doing in the Republican primaries, though. It’s forced the GOP to somewhat timidly challenge the PC atmosphere that has been hanging around politics. Having said that, Trump has even said that as President, he’s going to be PC, perhaps even the most PC President there’s ever been. If you can trust that (and I suspect that you can, until you can’t), how can those who like him for his anti-PC rhetoric support him?
I don’t care about their race or the “wrong kind of white person”.
He does not seem like any of the things you describe. He comes off smart, intelligent, not rehearsed but thoughtful consideration, and a genuinely good guy. He comes off well.
I don’t believe he’s a perfect candidate, or he’ll solve all of the countries problems. I’m sure he’ll be corrupted by power. But he’s the best of what’s left, and he’ll make a good pick for SC.
My objection was electability, but if Hillary is really going down, that changes things.
Because before, during, and after all, worriers are going to worry. I am coming to find that in nearly all cases, the dread is worse than the things dreaded. And I am also coming to understand how much control I have over the dread and how little control I have over the things dreaded.
I am very tired of the forever war doctrine pushed by most of the “pajamas media” types, such as the author of this article. I have found that most of the bedwetters are simply shills for the War Department. I normally wouldn’t link to something non-firearm related here, but… http://www.unz.com/article/cold-war-redux/
Also, see what Fred Reed says on the subject, as well as Pat Buchanan. I want military spending at least halved, and despite being a very firm social con, I will probably vote for Sanders if he wins the nomination. if cruz gets the nod, I will donate the maximum allowed by law to the Democratic party.
I’m not a perpetual war type. But the post-war peace was brought via American strength and leadership. I believe what is likely to replace it will be far less peaceful. This nation was born of rebellion to Great Britain, but it was also nurtured by her empire, and desire to maintain trade and stability.
There is no option by which we go back to isolationism in the world today. We have to lead.
If you’re really the type who would choose Sanders over Cruz, you lose any moral right to complain over what he does to the second amendment.
I actually like Trump, he’s not a lawyer or politician, he’s a man that knows how to run a profitable business. And let’s face it, the govt is a business.
Trump’s come back from a bankruptcy and if he can do that maybe he can bring this country back from its bankruptcy as well.
Sure I don’t like everything he says, but the fact that he seems to speak his mind instead of being a PC ass kisser is a breath of fresh air to me.
He’s had four bankruptcies, not one, so he’s actually led himself from one bankruptcy to the next bankruptcy to the next bankruptcy and so on.
I dislike Trump because he’s demonstrated that he’s no friend of liberty. This is particularly demonstrated by his favoritism towards the Kato decision.
That, and one major reason I dislike a lot of what he has to say, even stuff I may agree with, is that I know he’s saying that because he thinks it’ll generate the most popularity for him at the moment.
Indeed, I am more impressed by Cruz who went into Iowa saying we need to cut back on corn subsidies, than I am of Trump, who said that corn subsidies are the bees knees, in his effort to woo Iowan corn farmers.
My greatest fear over a Trump presidency is that he will turn into another Arnold Schwarzenegger and surrender on every thing that he has promised to his supporters but most especially on guns.
Given his slide into 9/11 Trutherism, I’d say Jesse Ventura is the model.
Something that Trump supporters might want to keep in mind: Most of the businesses with the Trump name on them have ended up in bankruptcy. Yet he himself is a very wealthy man. Near as I can tell, (beyond self promotion) the only thing Trump is good at is transferring investor money to his own pockets. Does that sound like a man you want running the country?
Trump is an opportunist. He will change depending on whatever. I have no confidence what he says today is what he will do tomorrow. He is also a bully and petty. So do we want that as President?
So my choice is Cruz. He has a chance to win and is more consistent.
As previous posts have mention. Gun rights supporters need to come together and not let their dislike of religion to affect their choices over gun rights. Divided we fall
Definitely. The only candidate on the GOP I won’t vote for in the general election is Trump. I’d be okay with Rubio, even though I believe he is bad on immigration and an establishment shill, but he’s good on guns. Even Kasich (Got help us) would probably be decent on guns.
Trump wouldn’t. He talks a big game, but he’ll “make a deal” as he likes to say. He has the same cult of personality as Obama. He’s a liberal and progressive, and he shouldn’t even be considered a good candidate.
Sebastian:
I agree with a lot of the points you make here.
I also think it doesn’t matter. To borrow that Nixonian phrase, if current trends continue, my money is on Trump winning the GOP nomination, and then the Presidency in November.
It might be wise to start thinking about what our strategy is for a scenario in which Trump holds the White House, the GOP holds the House and the Senate is either razor-thin GOP or razor-thin Dem.
ETA: No, I don’t think the answer is “pack it up and go home”. :-)
The strategy if a Republican wins the White House should be to first take a breather, retrench, and continue to focus on pressing on with our agenda from the offense as opposed to defense.
I mean, how many of us would enjoy waking up and knowing that a president would not be ACTIVELY CAMPAIGNING DAILY to throw us in prison for our interest in a constitutionally protected right? *raises hand*
I really hope that the “not my guy” people here (Publius… looking at you) will look at winning the White House AFTER the primary games are done. It’s going to be Hillary versus the rest of the field and we will OWN whomever wins the GOP nomination. No room for third party madness here. Don’t play that game. Not this time. Too much at stake.
Same goes for the PA AG race, BTW.
I think there’s a good chance the Senate could be 50/50. Either way, there’s no path to 60 votes for a SC nominee which is the most confounding to me.
Fortunately Cruz is not eligible. But there is no way I will vote for that man. Not under any circumstances.
Except he is completely eligible.
Not sure the hate for Cruz. He’s probably the best of what’s left.
Publius seems to thrive on the concept of being eternally persecuted. I, however, do not and would appreciate actually enjoying having my rights celebrated rather than sneered at and outright attacked.
If Cruz got the nomination, I think he would *probably* win.
But I don’t think he’s getting the nomination. Not at this point.
He’s creepy.
I get the sense that Trump says whatever he thinks will get him the nomination, but will do whatever he feels like if/when he is elected. Look, practically every position he’s taken up in his campaign, he’s espoused the exact opposite position sometime in the not-all-that-distant past. So WOULD he govern as a centrist? Who freakin knows what he REALLY thinks?
My real concern is that there isn’t a quick fix for the hole we, as a nation, are in. Foreign policy is in chaos. Debt is outrageous. Racial relations are in chaos. Partisanship is running rampant (and not just your run of the mill Dems/Repubs pointing at each other saying they have cooties kind of partisanship. More like the “the other would look nice lined up against a wall” kind of partisanship).
My concern is that whomever the Republicans put up (assuming they even win) is going to have only 4 years to un-F#@K this mess in an amazing way (or at least make incredible, undeniable progress). Failing that, they aren’t getting a second term. You think the people are disgruntled now? Just see what happens if/when our next President appears to sit on his damn thumb for the next 4 years (or worse yet, spends the next 4 years issuing increasingly nasty insults at every little set-back like a whiny-ass baby).
Anyone want to lay odds that if the federal reserve doesn’t like the results of the election, interest rates will go up again, which will tank the economy over into a recession, which will get blamed on the new administration?
Heads, Democrats win — tails, Republicans lose.
I suspect that if either Cruz or Trump is elected and starts actually doing anything about immigration, the UniParty will simply rediscover all those powers they wouldn’t use on Obama. Including impeachment, which they would have the votes to confirm.
The choice this year is Dem (no gun rights for peons) or Not Dem (pro-gun rights). Would it have been better if Jim Webb were the “Dem”? Sure. But that not being the case, your only other choice is “Not Dem” which this election signals “I value my gun rights. Thanks.”
That is entirely what the media takeaway is and will be. It’s a strategic vote for keeping what’s left of the bill of rights intact. The only thing that should really count on election night is, “Will I wake up every day for the next four/eight years knowing that this president wants to see me in prison for exercising my rights?”
So while I don’t like Trump, if he’s the nominee then go for him as the only real acceptable “Not Dem” choice that will actually count in the tally against the “Dem” if that’s all we have left.
Absolutely correct.
Unless something absolutely crazy happens in a DNC-brokered convention because Hillary is indicted, the Dems are not a viable option. Even then, given the tenor of the party these days, they’re not a viable option.
I’m not saying the GOP is much better, but given a choice between a Giant Douche and a Turd Sandwich… Sometimes you just have to go with the one that sucks less. And to be honest, I think any of the GOP candidates other than Trump would be pretty solid on SCOTUS and other federal judiciary noms; Trump is a wild card, and Cruz in particular would be rock solid on noms.
“Giant Douche and a Turd Sandwich… Sometimes you just have to go with the one that sucks less. ”
Umm…so which one is that?