Republican strategy memo on guns: change the topic to literally anything else. . .

[CousinIT]

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/uvalde-gop-trump-guns-strategy-1362970/

Stay cool. Run out the clock. Scare some gun nuts while you can. But don’t worry: this moment will be over soon.

That’s the message the Republican Party, Donald Trump, and conservative leaders rapidly coalesced around after a series of mass shootings in recent weeks, including at one at a Texas elementary school.

Several strategy memos and private communications, prepared for a variety of conservative candidates and organizations, reviewed by Rolling Stone in the days following the Uvalde school massacre were clear: change the topic to literally anything else, and let this news cycle run its course.

“Ignore guns, talk inflation,” one such memo, written for a top-tier GOP Senate candidate, succinctly reads, citing polling data of voter concerns ahead of the critical 2022 midterm elections. Other documents predictably decried liberal desires for “gun-grabbing” and “gun confiscation,” and made whataboutism-type references to gun violence in Chicago.

. . .

Cheung, a Trump White House and campaign veteran, was echoing a formula perfected by groups like the National Rifle Association, ever since the days of the Columbine shooting: doubling-down, changing the subject, refusing to give an inch on gun rights, and letting “the moment” just pass. It’s become standard operating procedure whenever national attention is inconveniently focused on killing sprees involving firearms.

[andricv]

1. There know they can't win that one

Murder enablers.

[GoodRaisin]

2. They always do this and it works for them. nt

[Frasier Balzov]

3. This will work until it doesn't anymore.

When will that be America?

In the meantime, we continue to suffer.

[Scrivener7]

4. They're not wrong.