There's a lot of anger out there at the Senators who yesterday voted down four pretty minor Gun Control bills. I suppose a good case could be made that in this instance, nothing is better than something; that if they had passed one of them, it would have resulted in no law more substantial making it through in our lifetimes. It would be like, "Okay, you got your Gun Control so shut up," and then — after the next mass shooting — it would be, "See? There's incontrovertible proof that Gun Control doesn't work."
The working premise of its opponents has always been that if it isn't 100% effective, it's 0% effective. I'm surprised they don't want to get rid of all laws designed to stop murder, rape and assault because, you know, there are still murders, rapes and assaults.
And I wonder if some of the anger isn't misdirected. Yeah, the Senators who vote with the N.R.A. have generally taken loads of moola from them but the more important "bribe" is probably that the N.R.A. hasn't recruited opponents to take them out. Yeah, polls show that overwhelming numbers of us, a majority of gun owners included, want stricter controls in this area…but we're not going to get what we want until it's possible to point to a number of ousted Congressfolks and say, "S/He lost her/his seat because s/he opposed Gun Control!" That ain't happened yet.
In Trump News, Kevin Drum and Jonathan Chait both note that the man running as the Supreme Financial Manager seems to be outta cash and way behind Hillary Clinton in fundraising. How embarrassing is that?
Chait and Ed Kilgore here debate whether the Republicans will or should find some way to dump The Donald and slide someone else in as the nominee. Kilgore says they shouldn't and they won't…and all his arguments make total sense to me. Then again, very little about this election has followed the guidelines of total sense.
The main argument that Trump won't be displaced seems to me to be that there's no one else with enough importance and charisma to fill the role of super-hero saving the Republican Party. If they ran someone like Jeb Bush or even Ted Cruz — someone Trump trumped in the primary — it would really reek of ignoring the will of the electorate and infuriate many. But who else is there? Romney? Scott Walker? And it's hard to imagine Trump bowing out gracefully. Heck, it's hard to imagine Trump canceling a dinner reservation gracefully.