So many words hanimmal...so many words
First paragraph I fully concur, it is the root of the other issues.
Agreed.
Second one: beto was the darling of the party and did almost beat Cruz. He fizzled hard, but he had a good 3-6 months where he got serious play. I don't consider cnn right wing, that's where his gun rhetoric showed up for me. It was considered a selling point, again gun control (yes, loaded term) is a topic that plays well in cities and is popular with the dem base...and cnn readers.
I wouldn't mind him in the senate, or shit as governor of Texas, but I really don't see it happening, and do hope he has some serious competition for the Democratic nomination.
And I would point to his popularity is that Beto was running against Ted Cruz (one of the absolute worst) in a race that the Democrats needed to pick up 2 senate seats to wrestle control away from McConnell/Trump. And I can see that all that good press he got did bring him into play in that state, but as soon as he hit the Democratic POTUS nominee, he fizzled. Especially once he said that about guns, so I would point to this too as a actual example of why the attack on 'Democrats' being anti-guns falls apart, and is not what the right wing media brainwashes people into believing.
As for 'gun control' playing well, not having Rittenhouses' running around playing army in the city, gun related crimes, and school shootings are something people do care about. But that doesn't mean that anyone is going to come 'take your guns' like it gets sold as when people talk about it by editing out any nuance to the conversation with slickly edited clickbait and nonstop talking head trolling on their TV/Hate Radio/internet spam.
Third: I agree with their platform and it is what I thought, but that isn't the messaging that is out there. Again it's the issue of not being able to have reasonable discussions on the topic. You can have whatever as your actual party statement, but republican influence or not, the dems need to own that conversation and steer it. Just saying "well that's not what we think, based on facts" isn't cutting it.
I would point out that it is exactly the messaging that the Democrats put out there. And also what they have done/try to do in practice. You even pointed out that Obama actually expanded gun rights.
Just because the Republicans have become divorced from reality, doesn't mean that it is not reality.
As for owning the conversation and steering it, how? For real, how do you overcome a right wing propaganda circus that the mega wealthy Republicans like the Koch's and Rupert Murdoch, Sinclair broadcasting buying up all the local tv, local papers being put out of business, and the online propaganda networking they have developed while setting up their legal trolls over the last 3-4 decades?
Four: of course nothing is popular with 100%. What I am saying is that the gun control topic is popular with a large chunk of the dem voters. Of course they go with that. It doesn't make any sense to then deny that something popular with the majority of the party won't leave the minority unhappy, rural gun rights voters are a minority. I wasn't trying to say the expansion of gun rights under dems meant they were anti gun (bad punctuationon my part), was pointing at that as something where you can point to facts and talk about what actually happened until you are blue in the face but it ultimately doesn't matter in the broad public discussion that occurs, that public discussion is based on feelz, not facts.
I agree as long as we are just using the broadest sense of the trigger phrase 'gun control'. I would even go a step further and say that the broad public discussion that occurs really isn't even real most of the time, it is just trolls spamming shit and people not realizing they are being cat fished and just end up replaying those 'arguments' when the topic comes up in the real world.
Six: sort of the same as above. So the other side tricks people...well what do you do about it?
For now, the Democrats need to keep winning like they have been since the Republicans and Trump have been exposed to working with foreign militaries to attack our democracy in 2017.
It is a long road to getting our democracy back on track, especially as the asymmetric warfare continues, but it is the only way through it. I really don't want the Democrats to start having to rely on lies, cheating, and breaking our laws to fix what the Republicans have broken.
Finale: public perception isn't based in reality. It's emotionally driven. You can have all the facts and figures in the world and make great points, but if you fail against someone just yelling "they took yer gunz" then you need to change your tactics. Also, dems aren't a monolith, things won't be popular with everyone. You have people on the far left unhappy with the dems going center (where most voters are), you have rural voters that don't like the stuff that appeals to the city voters (where most voters are) such as guns. I do think it's a mistake to paint that as the republicans fault, its just how reality works if you have a diverse group, but its not the oppositions fault.
No what is the oppositions (Republicans) fault is their reliance on lies to maintain the power to stop all legislation not directly benefitting the Wealthy White Heterosexual Male Only agenda.
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