Trump Mania

Trump Destructor

Louisville has the distinction of being a city whose convention center is pretty far from downtown, which is where all the hotels are. The law seminar is a good 20 minutes from where the big stuff is happening. Traffic coming into the city and into the convention center has been gridlocked all day, and I’m not dedicated enough wait in traffic just to report on Trump.

I’m told NRA has issued its endorsement for Trump, with Trump responding that he would not let us down. I believe he’s speaking right now. I know a lot of people are going to argue Trump should not have been endorsed, but I think it’s sticking to the single issue. I have a lot of trust issues with Trump, but the big issue on everyone’s mind is the Supreme Court, and if Trump can be trusted (and I think that’s a big IF) his court picks are generally pretty good from a Second Amendment point of view.

52 thoughts on “Trump Mania”

  1. They gotta endorse someone. And it’s not going to be Hillary. Nor is it going to be Gary Johnson (as much amusement as that would bring me). This one is for a fair chunk of the 2A marbles.

    1. They don’t have to endorse someone. They declined to endorse Bob Dole in 1996 because Dole killed repealing the 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Ban.

      1. I was wondering if this time the situation is unique because of the current state of SCOTUS and the Hillary/Bloomberg Gun-Control parade being in full swing.

        Is the NRA risking taking advantage of Trump-mania energy the same way Republicans embraced evangelicals?

        This is all very schizophrenic…

        1. I think it’s not much more complicated than this: I don’t think anyone really trusts Trump. Good chance in a Sandy Hook like situation we go under the bus. Trump is an unknown quantity, but we know what we’ll get from Hillary, and it will mean the end of any meaningful Second Amendment right that will be enforced by the courts.

    2. “They gotta endorse someone.”

      To echo Sebastian, the hell they do!

      Trump is both a fascist and an unknown quantity with absolutely no record to go on. Has it ever occurred to a gun rights group, as they strive for relevance, that just sitting on on their hands and not stating any public position in some elections would be the most powerful message gun owners could send? That quality means something to us? Instead they always make a point of falling in line and doing the expected, selling themselves for nothing or as cheaply as possible.

      And has anyone ever stopped to think that appointment of a “conservative” to the SCOTUS is hardly an assurance of support for gun rights? Does anyone remember that the NRA declined to support Robert Bork (speaking of endorsements) because of his position that the Second Amendment was a collective, not an individual, constitutional right? And that the NRA was excoriated for it by many “good conservatives,” because they were supposed to understand that Second Amendment issues were something not to be taken seriously, and to be used only for an election-year decoy?

      Where have the NRA’s balls gone, since those days?

      1. YEAH! Let’s stand behind Hitlery and we KNOW what we will get. A GENERATION of anti-gun rulings. THAT is what you want, right?

        1. Well you’ll get the same from Trump.

          Does anybody remember David Souter?? Or even more recently John Roberts. That’s the type of justice we will get with Trump.

          1. YEAH! Let’s elect HITLERY! We know what we get then. Oh, wait, is that what we want? Well of course our VIRTUE will be safe. Once Hitlery puts 5 justices on the Supreme Court we will be safe for a generation. But, but Trump MIGHT be different. Well, Koch and the uniparty want Hitlery to preserve their POWER. But you can’t be PURE and “conservative” if you vote for Trump. Better to have 4-8 more years of democratic socialism than a CHANCE at something else.

            1. Right we know what we get. And it could be fought. With Trump we don’t know. I understand that he could be better. But I envision him being much much worse. And the GOP Congress will go right along with it.

              Trump: “We need to ban people on the terrorism watch list from owning guns!’
              Congress: “OKAY BOSS!”

              Trump: “We need universal background checks!’
              Congress: “OKAY BOSS!”

              And you know, the Senate doesn’t have to approve anybody. They could just let seats be open. Clinton may get to appoint 2-3 Justices, but 2 of them could easily be already liberal Justices, so nothing changes except for one. And the right can control what cases go to the Supreme Court. Its what the gun rights movement did for years. We avoided cases because we were afraid of how they would rule.

              We survived Obama, we can survive Clinton. And we can put the populist Trump out of his misery.

              1. Oh, now I get it. You are actually a Hitlery supporter. “Trump will be worse than Hillary”. Based on what? Oh, that’s right, NOTHING. Did you miss what Trump said to the NRA convention? Did you miss what his lineup of Judges for SCOTUS was? There are TWO choices in November. FOR Trump or For Hitlery. Anything else is rationalization and virtue signaling. With barely 60% if the electorate bothering to vote, we need everyone to vote Trump. Otherwise, we face a generation of darkness.

                1. This is not an apology or endorsement of Clinton, but there certainly is a good deal of irony in your use of the cutesy name “Hitlery,” when it is your man Trump who has pushed virtually every button used by the Nazis in their ascent to power.

                  1. Really? I must have missed Trump when he blamed the JOOOOOZE for inflation, food shortages, big banks and the like. When did Trump ask for “liebensrom”? I didn’t know Trump blamed France for the Depression, etc. Gee, it sounds like you don’t know what you are talking about.

                    1. And it sounds like you are so obtuse that you can’t admit Herr Drumpf is substituting Mexicans and Mooslims for Jews — for now. And Herr Drumpf’s “Get Mexico to pay for it” (unsaid, “or else”) is his nod to militarism in the lebensraum spirit. How many economic problems has Herr Drumpf blamed on illegals = Mexicans = Hitler’s French Depression?

                      Gee, it sounds like you are part of that enormous crowd that knows what they are a part of, but doesn’t want to admit it.

          2. Roberts voted the right way two times when the chips were down. Also remember that H.W.’s other nominee was Thomas, without whom we would not have won either case, and who is now the intellectual leader for the Second Amendment on the high court. Hell, I think Thomas would probably vote to protect machine guns if it came to it, but he’s probably the only one.

            1. He did, but then will he continue to? Justices get liberal over time. Granted overall Republicans choose better justices, but we need to look at who is picking them. Trump will not go to bat for a good justice. He will end up picky a squishy.

              1. That’s the greatest fear I have with Trump: He may be making all the right Conservative noises (except when he doesn’t — sometimes in as little as ten minutes, he walks back a Conservative position he just made), but he’s also saying things like “I’m going to make lots of deals, with people like Nancy Pelosi” and “You may be voting for me because I’m anti-PC, but when I’m President, I might just be the most PC President there is…”.

                I can’t bring myself to trust this guy.

                Having said that, I am leaning towards hoping that he wins…and that, having won, I really hope he’ll prove me wrong! He’ll just have to do it without my vote, though.

          3. Mr. Henry you are getting old and cynical, no we do not know what we will get from Mr. trump and even the best of presidents have been fooled into nominating a failure to the court. The only other option Helliry is pure evil with a twist of communist so if your not willing to save the Supreme Court and the second amendment I hope you enjoy your time in Hell.

            1. “no we do not know what we will get from Mr. trump”

              I know, and that terrifies me. However, based on what he has done and what he has said, he will be all over the map, and most likely will default to his liberal leanings.

              With Clinton, we can fight her. With Trump, that will not happen. He’ll get what he wants.

              1. With Clinton we can fight her? You truly are delusional what the hell do you think is going to happen, that the gop is going to block all of her nominated drones until every Justice dies of old age. We can have a two man SCOTUS. TRY THINKING Trump will be the only possibility of affecting his picks, with Helliry you won’t affect dog piles she will put four communists on the court

  2. Yeah I don’t think they should have endorsed. I don’t trust Trump one bit on gun rights or SCOTUS picks.

    As recently as 8 months ago he was all in favor of banning people on the Terrorist Watch List from having guns.

    For me, it won’t change my mind. I’m #NeverTrump #NeverClinton #AlwaysLiberty. I didn’t vote for Bush in term 2, McCain, or Romney, so there’s no way I’m voting for Trump.

    1. Hitlery thanks you. Does it make you “feel good” to cut your nose off to spite your face? But I appreciate your virtue signalling. Always nice to know who is the most holy in the audience. You gonna give Hitlery some money? That would be very virteous. Does your obamacare coverage go to breaking your arm patting yourself on the back?

      1. No, again I don’t support Hillary. I just happen to think Trump will be worse.

        Oh and its not virtue signaling. Its called principles.

          1. That would require giving myself a first pat on the back. Which I’m not going to do. So yeah.

        1. Yah, thanks so much for signaling your “principles”/virtue. There are TWO choices in this election. FOR Trump or FOR Hitlery. Now you can PRETEND that your VIRTUE prevents you from voting FOR Trump. But anything other than a vote FOR Trump is a vote FOR Hitlery. It is too bad your BOY, Jeb! or whomever, didn’t make the cut. But who is going to be an unmitigated DISASTER with 5 Supreme Court picks and who MIGHT be OK? Now I know that your tender sensibilities have been upset, but do you REALLY WANT TO VOTE FOR THAT WITCH? And NO, a vote for anyone other than Trump is a vote for Hitlery. Or do you think the vote fairy will somehow deliver enough electoral votes to make some 3rd-5th-45th party candidate the WINNA?

          1. Except I’m not signaling my principles or virtue. That would require me to do it to enhance my social standing in order to fit in. In fact, I’m doing it as a means of expressing to others that supporting Trump is not required, and in opposition of fitting in.

            There are not two choices. There is voting for Clinton or Trump- about the same choice, but I believe Trump will be worse. I could see the argument that Clinton will be, but I disagree. There is also not voting, or voting for third party.

            My principles do not allow me to support an antigun, liberal, authoritarian from either party. Sorry. And my vote is mine alone to cast. It is not owed to any party or side.

            I like how you assume that I supported Jeb. No, It was Rand at first, then Ted since he dropped out. Now THEY were good on gun rights. Correct, they are not in the race any more. That’s not my fault. And now my decision is what do to, and I choose to reject the false binary choice and vote (or not vote) elsewhere.

            I will not support or vote for Clinton nor Trump. If a vote for anything other than Trump is for Clinton, then also a vote for anything other than Clinton is a vote for Trump.

            I don’t care about winning. Its not enough to win. If I wanted to win I’d vote for the junk candidates in past presidential elections, or I’d would vote for Clinton. I have principles that I must uphold. If that’s a lost election, that’s not on me. That’s on the people who have been conned by Trump.

            So insult me if you must. Type in all caps if you must. Call me names if you must. But my conscious is clear. And after the disaster that the Trump nomination is over, I will still have my principles and my conscious.

              1. Your level of logical argumentation astounds me. You totally convinced me!

            1. If it’s of any solace, I once read a quote from Charles Haddon Spurgeon:

              “If confronted with the choice of two evils, choose neither.”

              FWIW

              Be at peace my friends.
              – Arnie

      2. Mediocre rant. Needed more ALL-CAPS and “irrelevant cuck!” name-calling. C-.

        1. Thanks so much. HOw is your boy Johnson doing? Think he will get ONE electoral vote? You do know how the electoral college works, Right? As for a CUCK, that would be anyone voting for Hitlery. But I’m sure the VIRTUE of your position is pure and will suit you well in the next life. Religious superstition and all.

          1. Better, but still needs work. Can you give me some exclamation points, and link in a few racist or anti-semitic memes? I really want to feel your impotence, your lack of principles and basic human decency, your desperate projection of your insecurities onto your betters. C’mon, I know you have a whole ‘nother level of insipidity that you can reach if you just try, little fella.

            1. No thanks. I’ll leave it to whatever the hell you are types. You want to elect Hitlery, why don’t you just say so?

              1. I don’t want to elect either of them. I think they’re both unfit to hold so much as the office of Third Assistant County Gas-Station Toilet Scrubber. Unfortunately a plurality of GOP primary voters decided to ragequit reality, and now we’re stuck with a disgrace of a nominee who’s going to indelibly taint the party on his way to a Mondale-esque wipeout.

                I warned this would happen. I said, repeatedly, that any political movement that makes a guy like Trump — a proudly ignorant compulsive liar who panders to racist dirtbags — its titular head is one I would no longer be associated with. Well, guess what? You broke it, you bought it.

                1. Thanks so much for pointing out how smart you are. Now what are you going to do about it? Move to New Zealand? Or have you already put in your vote for Hitlery? Too bad Jeb! turned out to be a limp dick, but his “advisors” made a bundle. Would you rather have Hitlery elected, who we KNOW will try and kill the second amendment or vote for Trump and a CHANCE that he will do what he says? There IS NO THIRD CHOICE!

                  1. Let me put this as clearly to you as I can:

                    The “BUT HILLARY!” handwringing is, at this point, whistling past the graveyard. The election, and SCOTUS, was lost the moment that the Moron Caucus of the GOP ensured the nomination of the one guy in American certain to lose to her in November.

                    Trump is going to lose, hard, whether I vote for him or not. Sorry, but that’s just reality: his name at the top of the ballot turns blood-red states like Utah and Georgia into tossups, and turns battlegrounds like Florida and Pennsylvania dark blue. He can run up huge margins in rural West Virginia and the rest of coal country, but it’s not going to matter if he doesn’t flip states Obama won in 2012. And he won’t, for the simple reason that he’s even more repellent to independents than Hillary. The idea that he’s going to be competitive in the Rust Belt or even New York is fantasy.

                    The only thing my voting for him accomplishes is that it absolves his imbecile supporters of some of the responsibility for the catastrophe that we’re all going to wake up to the morning of November 9th. It makes me complicit in their massive error of judgment and distributes some of the stench of Trump’s odious, ignorant, dishonest candidacy onto me.

                    Why the hell do you think I would be interested in that? I do not care to rescue the Trumpkins from the repudiation and humiliation that they’ve got coming. On the contrary, I’m looking forward to rubbing their faces it in for the remainder of their miserable lives.

  3. I am not going to blame anyone for not voting for Trump, and I’ve been an advocate in the past for people holding their noses and choosing the lesser evil. Vote your own conscience. The only thing I will definitively say is that the election of Hillary Clinton will be the end of the Heller and McDonald decisions, if not outright, then by narrowing the ruling to utter meaninglessness. Every injury the lower courts have inflicted will be upheld.

    But I can’t blame anyone if they can’t vote for Trump. I’m not sure I could do it.

    1. I’m glad I live in a state where my vote is unlikely to matter – frees me to vote my conscience alone. Damfino what I’ll do if NJ shapes up to be a toss-up

  4. Trump’s speech to the NRA was very strong on 2A issues. He touched on gun-free zones, concealed carry, the SCOTUS, and self-defense. He knows the 2A is on the line and the NRA knows the 2A is on the line. Frankly, I don’t think that they had any other choice but to endorse him.

    However, I have to say listening to Trump speak is like listening to someone with ADD and … squirrel!

    1. His speech was utterly incoherent stream-of-consciousness babble from somebody who’s never thought deeply about the subject for more than thirty seconds but knows he needs to offer some boob-bait to the audience.

      The fact that the audience gave it a standing ovation was depressing, as it appears I’ve been wildly overestimating the intelligence of the average Annual Meeting attendee.

      1. Too bad the “average” Nra member doesn’t meet your high standard. But they probably don’t want Hitlery choosing the next 5 Supreme Court justices. But it’s OK, in 4 or 8 years the PERFECT candidate will come along and then you can vote for them, again. Tell us,, who was your boy this year? Jeb!? Were you a Randian? Maybe a Chrispy Cream?

        1. But they probably don’t want Hitlery choosing the next 5 Supreme Court justices.

          Then they shouldn’t have supported the nomination of the one candidate certain to lose to her in November. That ship has now sailed.

          Tell us,, who was your boy this year?

          I would have voted for any of the other sixteen candidates with a greater or lesser degree of enthusiasm. I wasn’t picky; all of them were less brazenly ignorant, dishonest, and authoritarian than Trump, and none of them played kissy-face on Twitter with racists.

          1. I’m not sure I would have been able to vote for any of the other 16; Christie, in particular, would have been very difficult for me.

            But we could have nominated at least a dozen other people I could have held my nose for. Heck, I could probably have held my nose for Jeb!, if I tried hard enough.

            But No, we had to go and select the New York Liberal Democrat, the Hillary with a Tribble, as our nominee. The one candidate who could lose to Hillary! (I’m not sure if he’s actually GOING to lose to Hillary, to be sure, because Hillary is that bad of a candidate, but it remains to be seen what’s going to happen in November…)

  5. The other thing to consider with Trump is that if we back him, and he wins, we’re stuck with him in 2020 too because the Democrat that year will be every bit as bad as Hillary when it comes to SCOTUS. Of all the many reasons I can’t support Trump, that’s up there. We’re not merely buying four years of him, we’re committing to keeping that dumbass as our standard-bearer for almost a decade.

  6. On 2A issues a turncoat Republican is much more dangerous than a Democrat avowed enemy. They support some kind of gun control and drag enough Republicans along to pass it. Whereas for a Democrat proposal, Republicans will unify out of sheer partisanship. Is Trump such a Republican. I don’t know, the NRA doesn’t know, Trump supporters don’t know, and I don’t think Trump knows. He is a random events machine.

    And Trump supporters hyper-ventilating don’t inspire confidence either. I can’t tell you how many times, I have seen comments like “we don’t need you conservative, stay home.” OK, if that is what you want, that is what you’ll get.

    1. The Donald was referring to the establishment RINO’s. If one of them, such as Christie, Bush, Kasich, etc. were the nominee, the election would be lost.

    2. “On 2A issues a turncoat Republican is much more dangerous than a Democrat avowed enemy.”

      In 1994 the NRA went balls-out to elect Tom Ridge governor of Pennsylvania, playing many the dirty trick to discredit any gun rights activists who spoke out against that endorsement. (Ridge had supported the Clinton AWB in congress.) They bought the support of naive’, softhead leaders of “sportsmens” groups by having them named to a phony “governor’s advisory committee.”

      When Ridge was elected, among his first acts was to call a “Special Session on Crime” in the General Assembly, and insist that some form of gun control legislation be part of the package. As a result Pennsylvania got its first comprehensive gun control legislation in many years.

        1. Thanks for clarifying the situation. SO every politician always lies. So when Trump sez he will protect the Second Amendment, he is LYING and will do everything in his power to get rid of it. And when Hitlery sez she will DESTROY the Second Amendment, she is lying and will appoint SCOTUS judges that will uphold the Second Amendment. Got it. Power is weakness, Right is wrong, 1984 is here.

          1. I often say “they all lie,” by which I mean they follow what they view to be politically expedient, rather than give a shit about whatever issue you’re bringing before them. So you have to to make it in their political self-interest to vote your way. If you can do that, you can hold them.

            Hillary is a known bad quantity because Hillary has always viewed it in her political self-interest to be anti-gun, and if she wins while being virulently anti-gun, she has no counter-example, so she’ll view gun control is a winning issue for her, even if it’s not. In 2008, she attacked Obama from the right on guns, and she still lost. Hillary views her political incentives as lining up in favor of her being pro-gun control.

            Trump is also acting from political expediency. We’ve known he’s had the rare CCW from New York City for a while now, but he’s been an advocate for gun control in the past. But Trump is all over the map on what he really thinks. He’s not consistent. He says one thing, and then disavows that view and then endorses the opposite view. And it creates a trust issue that under the bus we’d go if there was another Sandy Hook like event. I’ll give you Trump has been much more consistent on guns than other issues this election, but that’s not saying much. Trump doesn’t demonstrate he’s ever spent more than 10 seconds thinking about a lot of the issues that are important to the base. He makes it up as he goes along. That’s gotten him to here, but I’m damned uncomfortable with it.

            1. “So you have to to make it in their political self-interest to vote your way. If you can do that, you can hold them.”

              But the gun rights movement has been subverting that principle for years now. Everyone knows that all a pol has to do is a) be a Republican, and b) utter some inanity like “enforce existing laws”, and the movement will go balls-out to elect them. Per my example above, they can even have a proven anti-gun voting record, and the movement leadership will withhold that information from their inattentive base.

              To return to my 1995 example, after Tom Ridge’s gun control legislation was passed in Pennsylvania, Republican Attorney General Mike Fisher fought tooth and nail to keep it from being reformed in any way, up to and including resisting curative amendments that did nothing but remove self-contradicting features in the law. But when he later ran for governor, even Pennsylvanians who had actively fought him on gun rights fell right in line to support him.

              Even if people like me can never get beyond being left speechless by such things, was there ever any doubt that Trump was going to be endorsed by the NRA, no matter what he had ever done or said? So, tell me what the gun rights movement has taught pols about their political self-interest. If anything, it’s been, “spend no more than 15 minutes learning the rap, and those morons will follow you anywhere.”

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