The GOP mindset; Is engagement with the radical right futile?; Gun safety laws going extinct

Although the GOP leadership denies it, stupid, blind vengeance against Democrats for imagined wrongs is one of the few core goals of Republican Party leadership thinking. Business Insider comments:

2 House Republicans caught saying Ilhan Omar removal was the ‘stupidest vote in world’ before begging reporters to not tell GOP leadership what they said

Two disillusioned House Republicans unloaded on their vengeful leadership for inadvertently making a hero out of Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar by publicly stripping her of a high-profile committee assignment in what one deemed the “stupidest vote in the world.”

From that, another core goal of Republican Party leadership is apparent. One is keeping its members from being honest with the public. That is why the two asked reporters to not report what they said. They made a mistake. It won't happen again.

The GOP leadership stated the reason for booting Omar off the House Foreign Affairs committee was that she was anti-Israel. If that logic applies generally then this can be done by the party controlling the House to any member of congress who disagrees with whatever beliefs are sacred enough to protect from criticism backed by inconvenient facts, truths and reasoning.  

That evinces a key trait of radical right GOP elites (and probably most of the rank and file?). It does not tolerate even listening to dissent. The collective radical right Republican mind is vengeful, firmly closed and staunchly intolerant.

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An exercise in futility?

Is it a waste of time to wade into the radical right politics hive? That thought has been nagging lately. Recently, I dipped a toe in at a BNR politics post that came from a radical right lies, slanders and crackpottery site. I fact checked the story and found it had at least one lie in it. I checked the site, one I had never heard of, and a good portion of the content there relied significantly on lies, slanders and/or crackpottery, some of which was documented. 

I pointed this out in a comment and the BNR (obey) moderator took down my comment, which Disqus marked as spam. I wasted about 45 minutes getting to truth and the effort was rejected without any justification or even an acknowledgement that I had transgressed or what the transgression was. I was just blown off with a condescending, childish insult from the moderator. 

Rigid intolerance and condemnation of inconvenient facts, truths and reasoning like this is not unusual for American radical right online politics. From the rhetoric the radical right propaganda Leviathan and the GOP leadership and elites, they are all on board with the intolerance.

So, is even trying to engage with the radical right mostly a waste of time or not? Are these sites just fringe elements in the GOP, or do they reasonably reflect the party elites and most of the rank and file?

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Gun safety laws continue to fall

After a 2022 Supreme Court decision of gun safety laws, it became apparent that most existing gun laws would be found to be unconstitutional in the next year or two. So far, that belief has held up and it still holds up. Politico writes:

A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that the government can’t stop people who have domestic violence restraining orders against them from owning guns — the latest domino to fall after the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority set new standards for reviewing the nation’s gun laws.

Police in Texas found a rifle and a pistol at the home of a man who was the subject of a civil protective order that banned him from harassing, stalking or threatening his ex-girlfriend and their child. The order also banned him from having guns.

A federal grand jury indicted the man, who pled guilty. He later challenged his indictment, arguing the law that prevented him from owning a gun was unconstitutional. At first, a federal appeals court ruled against him, saying that it was more important for society to keep guns out of the hands of people accused of domestic violence than it was to protect a person’s individual right to own a gun.

But then last year, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a new ruling in a case known as New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. That case set new standards for interpreting the Second Amendment by saying the government had to justify gun control laws by showing they are “consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.  

Specifically, the court ruled that the federal law was an “outlier that our ancestors would never have accepted” — borrowing a quote from the Bruen decision. 

Once again, the “Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation” test obliterates citizen safety concerns in the name of radical gun ownership rights. Back in the 1700s, the US had little or no historical tradition of firearm regulation. Sooner or later, the historical tradition of firearm regulation test will start killing innocent people. It is just a matter of time.[1]

Footnote: 

1. Domestic violence happens: A pregnant Indiana woman was denied a protective order against her estranged husband 10 days before she was killed in an apparent-murder suicide, WLKY reports. Authorities found the bodies of 36-year-old Julie Yow-Schmidtke and 41-year-old Charles Schmidtke on Dec. 19, 2022 inside their home in Columbus, WishTV.com reports.

July 2022: Weeks after she was denied a protection order, a Michigan woman and her family are dead. A judge denied the order June 27, saying there was insufficient evidence of immediate or irreparable injury. The woman and her family were found dead Sunday, officials said.

People with guns kill a heck of a lot more people than people with knives, clubs, fists or verbal insults.