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What's With The New Republican Emphasis On Posing Armed Or Making Campaign Commercials Touting Armaments? (1 Viewer)

rockaction said:
Seen this a bunch this past week. 

What the actual heck? 
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Honestly now and days I think just like on the left one can’t be woke enough, well on the right one can’t be tough enough. And nothings more “tough” then guns.  If riding around on a horse without a shirt hadn’t already been done…..

Extremism is the new norm.  

 
rockaction said:
Seen this a bunch this past week. 

What the actual heck? 
Click to expand...


This is effectively a media optics question.

I can answer possibly some to most of it, but you've given no real detail. I'm generally not in the camp of the entire Source Policing "Prove It/Give Me A Link" Sealion woke brigade but if you want answers you'll have to give a list of elected officials and take a look at their districts.

I'm going to be fair here. An obvious example is Lauren Boebert. I don't agree with about 90 percent of what Boebert says nor what she does, but there are over 250+ Republicans in Congress right now. If you add up Governors, state legislators, Mayors, City Council members, etc, etc, that number can add up a little, then what is the specific magic number that proves an assessment of "emphasis"?

If you flip it across the aisle, The Squad has a freshman Jamal Bowman who can't afford the kind of Antisemetic bombs thrown by Ilhan Omar. But their districts are very very different. Bowman has to answer to large Jewish base in NY. Omar might be one of the safest members in Congress right now, her fund raising is strong enough to even be financially independent of AOC and Elizabeth Warren and she has a cultural/ethnic based local power block that is unique to her specific situation. Rashida Tlaib however is a political zero and almost completely dependent on AOC and Warren for funding as establishment Democrats use standard JFAs to choke out sitting Democrats they want gone or silenced. Tlaib called Israel an "apartheid state" and that's a different risk for her than Omar and would have been a self implosion if she was in Bowman's situation.

Context matters here. Even a unified block like The Squad have nuances in each separate district that they can't avoid or have to face whether they like it or not. Maybe a Xmas card with a guy holding a gun is good media strategy for Elected Official A in State X and would be completely toxic for Elected Official B in State Y.

If it's something like 3-4 people total out of X number, then is that some kind of indication of a new type of media engagement "emphasis" with voters or not?

1) Whom are these elected officials?

2) What is the general breakdown of their districts? ( Including the new shifts with redistricting and  gerrymandering)

3) What are the major economic movers in their respective districts?

4) How relatively "safe" are they holding their current seat? ( Previous margin of victory, proof of lack of future major Party support, won or lost a major donor, is there a looming scandal, etc, etc)

5) Is there someone specific or some company or some entity specifically that they are clearly courting for political gain?

You are asking a multi layered question but there's nothing here to work with to be honest.

 
dkp993 said:
Honestly now and days I think just like on the left one can’t be woke enough, well on the right one can’t be tough enough. And nothings more “tough” then guns.  If riding around on a horse without a shirt hadn’t already been done…..

Extremism is the new norm.
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 Is taking a picture with a gun extremist now?

Seems like kind of a reach.

 
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GordonGekko said:
This is effectively a media optics question.

You are asking a multi layered question but there's nothing here to work with to be honest.
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Fair enough, GG. How about this? I was watching the news tonight and it was the news story of the night in KTLA. Click on a few campaign ads linked in the FFA, and in every Republican one, there's guys walking with guns. 

So I don't do a real data or detailed analysis, I post, what gives? Because despite the number being one, or four, or whatever, I've never seen such casual handling of guns in campaign ads and photos. Maybe I'm getting old, but it struck me as so far beyond the typical media optics pale that I wondered in the form of this thread. 

Is it endemic to Republicans? Likely, from what I've seen. 
How many? I honestly don't know. 
How safe are the ones using the photos? Don't know

So fair enough. Your analysis regarding the initial questions is certainly something I'd cede as important. 

But the photo ops of politicians handling guns, citizens striding with guns, the casual depiction of guns to accompany campaign literature or promotional material struck me as odd, new, and almost flippant. And it's all Republican. 

(Before we bring up the history of Dems cozying up to the media with military photo-ops, let's draw the distinction between presidential campaigns and congressional ones. One has a commander-in-chief requirement, the other doesn't.)

 
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rockaction said:
Seen this a bunch this past week. 

What the actual heck? 
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It isn't a republican thing. It's effective marketing to the simple minded gun fetish/pwn the libs target market that won't influence the decision making of other like mindeds that reside under the same tent.

 
rockaction said:
You think it's a Democrat thing, too? 

I'd like to see casual campaign photos of Democrats toting. Then I'll backtrack on the title here. 
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Nah, there isn't a dullard riden target market under the democratic tent that is positely influenced by such marketing. 

 
MAC_32 said:
Nah, there isn't a dullard riden target market under the democratic tent that is positely influenced by such marketing. 
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Fair enough. Now try and book a speaker under that tent saying that biological differences between the sexes is real. You'll see the tent go up in flames like it did at Berzerkley. 

 
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rockaction said:
Fair enough. Now try and book a speaker saying that biological differences between the sexes is real. You'll see the tent go up in flames like at Berzerkley. 
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Well the left will now have to counter with family photos for a non denominational holiday with signs showing what pronoun they identify as.   

 
rockaction said:
Fair enough. Now try and book a speaker under that tent saying that biological differences between the sexes is real. You'll see the tent go up in flames like it did at Berzerkley. 
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I'm not familiar with what happened in Berkley, but I doubt I need to be. Like the gun picture bs I'm sure it's nonsense that only perpetuates our existing problems. 

 
I really couldn’t care less whether the family in these photos is a Republican or a Democrat, I find it grotesque and tone deaf.  I’ll go further - I find these people to be morons.

 
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And to be clear - I find anybody that puts a political message in a Xmas card, which I think this is, to be a moron.  Nobody cares about reading about your politics in a Xmas card.

 
MAC_32 said:
Nah, there isn't a dullard riden target market under the democratic tent that is positely influenced by such marketing. 
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Really? Because I remember Democratic campaign ads showing Republican pushing old people off cliffs

But, you know, those photos with guns – that's a problem!

And to be fair, I don't approve of either. I think it's both stupid and marohnic. But the dullards do eat it up.

 
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MAC_32 said:
I'm not familiar with what happened in Berkley, but I doubt I need to be. Like the gun picture bs I'm sure it's nonsense that only perpetuates our existing problems. 
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Nothing specifically happened, just riots and parts of the city ablaze over college speakers or something like that. I forget exactly who or what. I looked it up. Milo Yiannopoulos, the now disgraced conservative troll. But I was alluding to Antifa riots over college speakers. And at Middlebury when they attacked the speakers in their cars. And other colleges that have to cancel because they can't promise security to their speakers or guests. That kind of tolerant left. 

 
joffer said:
if there were others, would that make it better or worse?
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If you can only show two examples then that is not a republican emphasis. Its a kind of a hyperbolic attempt to make it look like all Republicans are doing it.

And I like rock. I'm just saying that two examples isn't really indicative of anything other than two tone deaf idiots.

 
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rockaction said:
Nothing specifically happened, just riots and parts of the city ablaze over college speakers or something like that. I forget exactly who or what. I looked it up. Milo Yiannopoulos, the now disgraced conservative troll. But I was alluding to Antifa riots over college speakers. And at Middlebury when they attacked the speakers in their cars. And other colleges that have to cancel because they can't promise security to their speakers or guests. That kind of tolerant left. 
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Right, nonsense by those to the left of the ledger whereas this is nonsense from the other side. Reality ain't binary though. And reality is most of us don't live in an existence in which those two elements are active parts of our lives. It's good marketing though. And the average american is a schmuck. 

 
MAC_32 said:
Right, nonsense by those to the left of the ledger whereas this is nonsense from the other side. Reality ain't binary though. And reality is most of us don't live in an existence in which those two elements are active parts of our lives. It's good marketing though. And the average american is a schmuck. 
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Strangely, I do live in that existence. My former boss was one of the speakers in question. My existence, should the left ever choose to doxx me or come after me after they reformulate their levels of tolerance and punishment, is up for debate among certain quarters. 

So is it on the right, where Republicans have a national problem of anti-democratic leanings and cohorts, which certainly also affects me. 

"You may be through with politics, but politics isn't through with you" - Christopher Hitchens

 
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BladeRunner said:
Apparently not just them:

https://images.app.goo.gl/JA1nbvKczLMzh5DD6
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First, that's not promotional material.

Secondly, the only equivalent political movement I could think of that sent out promotional material of themselves with guns is the Black Panthers, so your point is taken, but it has a flaw. There's a long history of black people and guns in our country, and it stems from not being able to own them in the first place, never mind having their persons recognized as equal people under our Constitution. 

I'm a little more forgiving of that than I am of a congressman sending out pictures of his armed family. 

"We'll fight for you!"

I mean, give me a break. 

 
rockaction said:
Strangely, I do live in that existence. My former boss was one of the speakers in question. My existence, should the left ever choose to doxx me or come after me after they reformulate their levels of tolerance and punishment, is up for debate among certain quarters. 

So is it on the right, where Republicans have a national problem of anti-democratic leanings and cohorts, which certainly also affects me. 

"You may be through with politics, but politics isn't through with you" - Christopher Hitchens
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There are exceptions to every rule, but good policy generally doesn't exist when based on exceptions. Adaptating to those realities take priority, but it requires sound judgment from leadership and trust from its populace.

 
MAC_32 said:
There are exceptions to every rule, but good policy generally doesn't exist when based on exceptions. Adaptating to those realities take priority, but it requires sound judgment from leadership and trust from its populace.
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I disagree. Sometimes good policy is foreseeing the exceptional and accounting for it. Like making freedom of speech or the right to bear arms something both absolute and also something that can't be voted upon within the structure of our government as we know it. 

I think for the most part you're right and take your point, but part of the existing framework of our government is to account for those exceptional occasions and to mitigate their effects on sound governance. 

 
rockaction said:
First, that's not promotional material.

Secondly, the only equivalent political movement I could think of that sent out promotional material of themselves with guns is the Black Panthers, so your point is taken, but it has a flaw. There's a long history of black people and guns in our country, and it stems from not being able to own them in the first place, never mind having their persons recognized as equal people under our Constitution. 

I'm a little more forgiving of that than I am of a congressman sending out pictures of his armed family. 

"We'll fight for you!"

I mean, give me a break. 
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Don't get me wrong, I think those promotional materials are stupid.

But posing with guns is not just a republican thing.

 
rockaction said:
First, that's not promotional material.

Secondly, the only equivalent political movement I could think of that sent out promotional material of themselves with guns is the Black Panthers, so your point is taken, but it has a flaw. There's a long history of black people and guns in our country, and it stems from not being able to own them in the first place, never mind having their persons recognized as equal people under our Constitution. 

I'm a little more forgiving of that than I am of a congressman sending out pictures of his armed family. 

"We'll fight for you!"

I mean, give me a break. 
Click to expand...
Purely pandering. Dems used to have to do this stuff to, probably still do in hunting areas.

The Xmas cards where they all stand around the tree with their weapons is just weird.

 
rockaction said:
I disagree. Sometimes good policy is foreseeing the exceptional and accounting for it. Like making freedom of speech or the right to bear arms something both absolute and also something that can't be voted upon within the structure of our government as we know it. 

I think for the most part you're right and take your point, but part of the existing framework of our government is to account for those exceptional occasions and to mitigate their effects on sound governance. 
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Key word, 'generally.' Of course good policy exists outside of simple frameworks. I think there is an expectation that a reasonable party needs to be convinced of it though.

If one thinks this is closed minded then so be it, but I am not going to second guess any decision related to dismissing this gun picture phenomenon. Much like I never second guessed my dismissal of what transpired early June 2020. They're both radical rooted bs that feed their intended audiences (regardless of color) what they crave. They perpetuate our existing problems rather than solve them. I'm not interested in problems; give me solutions. Otherwise, I don't care. But then again, I'm not a radical, I'm a middle aged white guy in the suburbs, so does my opinion even matter. 

 
MAC_32 said:
If one thinks this is closed minded then so be it, but I am not going to second guess any decision related to dismissing this gun picture phenomenon
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I'm having a hard time with comprehension tonight. Does this mean you don't care about it? 

MAC_32 said:
my dismissal of what transpired early June 2020
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What happened in June 2020? 

MAC_32 said:
But then again, I'm not a radical, I'm a middle aged white guy in the suburbs, so does my opinion even matter. 
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I'd think it does. Who do you think Republicans are sending out this promotional material to? In fact, a lot of middle-aged white guys in the suburbs have become more partisan and radicalized, hence the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol. Is that the June 2020 thing you're referring to, only a typo? 

 
AAABatteries said:
I really couldn’t care less whether the family in these photos is a Republican or a Democrat, I find it grotesque and tone deaf.  I’ll go further - I find these people to be morons.
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Direct Headline: Americans bought guns in record numbers in 2020 during a year of unrest -- and the surge is continuing

Ken Baye, owner of Stoddard's Range and Guns in Atlanta, said he's seeing a different kind of customer these days: new shooters. "We see a lot of women come in, a lot of couples, people with children," he said. "We're really seeing pretty much every walk of life."

By Martin Savidge and Maria Cartaya, CNN  1:35 PM ET, Sun March 14, 2021

https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/14/us/us-gun-sales-record/index.html

Direct Headline: 1st-Time Gun Buyers Help Push Record U.S. Gun Sales Amid String Of Mass Shootings

These buyers are white, Black, Asian and Latino and come from all political beliefs. And they're being driven by uncertainty, fear and a need to feel safe. Gun sellers across the country said the pandemic and civil unrest over the past year have pushed customers to feel they must take control of their families' protection.

Jaclyn Diaz April 26, 20215:06 AM ET

https://www.npr.org/2021/04/26/989699122/1st-time-gun-buyers-help-push-record-u-s-gun-sales-amid-string-of-mass-shootings

Direct Headline: An Arms Race in America: Gun Buying Spiked During the Pandemic. It’s Still Up.

Preliminary research data show that about a fifth of all Americans who bought guns last year were first-time gun owners. Sales usually spike around elections, but the sheer volume is notable. And the data, which has not been previously released, showed that new owners were less likely than usual to be male and white. Half were women, a fifth were Black and a fifth were Hispanic.

By Sabrina Tavernise  May 30, 2021

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/29/us/gun-purchases-ownership-pandemic.html

******

Why are "they" morons?

I bracket "they" because I have no clue who or what @rockaction is talking about. I generally never ask people for links nor proof nor engage in purity tests nor demand data, but he's making, in my estimate, some sweeping generalizations without much to present to anyone here to actually discuss.  I like rock, I have always liked rock, I believe he's a high information voter and I believe he operates in good faith,  however I would consider this an uncharacteristically low value top level post on his part. Maybe he takes that personal, maybe he doesn't, but I always say it plain and I always say it straight. I try to be more than fair to people here when I can.

I don't see what the problem is all about. Previous "stigma" about being a gun owner in America has now been thrown out the window. Parents are quite bi-partisan about their children's safety. They don't care about political ideology when they are worried looters, thieves, felons, career criminals, rapists, psychopaths with Molotov cocktails are shown running around creating chaos and death and destroying innocent people's lives and there is a clear association with cooked idiotic public policy behind it.

Defund The Police + A Year Of Identity Politics Based Rioting And Looting + Fears Of Economic Instability + Fears Of What Happens To Kids With COVID19 And Lockdowns + Abandoning American Women To Be Gang Raped In Afghanistan + Bailing Out Career Criminals = Parents Don't Care About The Politics, They Want Their Kids Safe And Will Now Shoot Down Anyone Who Threatens That.

Why are "they" morons?

There's an entirely brand new base of gun owners who want elected officials in office to do something/do anything to stop the tide of crime and violence and keep their children safe. Not just poor white rural Christian males who are normally castigated as white supremacists by the activist MSM. But clearly even left leaning sources like CNN, NY Times and NPR are admitting there is now a very wide demographic range of these newly minted gun owners. HALF OF THEM ARE WOMEN. THAT'S A BIG DEAL FOR COURTING NEW VOTES.

You appeal to whom might vote for you. That's how it works. Jamal Bowman has to do things to appeal to the large Jewish base in his district in New York, whether he likes it or not. Ilhan Omar exists in a stronghold known as "Little Mogadishu", she has to think about what her ethnic/cultural base wants to hear and see.

The point is to win your election or win your primary or stay as the incumbent no matter what. Why is this so hard to understand? If these elected officials, whomever they were, thought it would cost them more votes than it got them, THEY WOULD STOP DOING IT.

 
Boebert lives in a rural area where guns are not abnormal.  She owns a restaurant that touts the fact that everyone working there open carries.  Does she post that picture if not for the flack her colleague got?  I don't know.  But I would say it should not be considered abnormal for her.  Guns seem to be a large part of who she is.

 
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June 2020 is an uninformed assumption on my part related to what transpired post George Floyd. If the time frame is wrong then so be it, but it's because I'm as unwilling to devote time and energy to understanding the ill intents of Berkley as I am gun fetish. I only have so much capacity to absorb new information. If a majority of (vocal!) americans align with me sometime in the future then maybe my opinion may matter again, but it isn't something I'm too concerned about because it won't happen in my lifetime. Pictures of families with guns are engaging, but issues like understanding the root causes of our broken education system are not and it isn't hard to figure out why. We...are not that smart. 

 
Maybe it's a signal that philosophical disputes over gun control vs. 2A rights are coming to a head fairly soon. Lots of people in this country obviously and vehemently cherish their 2A rights. I think many of them are feeling more than a little anxious about the Left leaning into 2A more and more over time and these optics could simply be a reflection of those anxieties.

 
GordonGekko said:
Maybe he takes that personal, maybe he doesn't, but I always say it plain and I always say it straight. I try to be more than fair to people here when I can.
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Nope. I don't take it personally. Thanks for the compliments. I admitted to being influenced by the news coverage I saw and the campaign ads I saw in the PSF today. 

 
MAC_32 said:
June 2020 is an uninformed assumption on my part related to what transpired post George Floyd. If the time frame is wrong then so be it, but it's because I'm as unwilling to devote time and energy to understanding the ill intents of Berkley as I am gun fetish. I only have so much capacity to absorb new information. If a majority of (vocal!) americans align with me sometime in the future then maybe my opinion may matter again, but it isn't something I'm too concerned about because it won't happen in my lifetime. Pictures of families with guns are engaging, but issues like understanding the root causes of our broken education system are not and it isn't hard to figure out why. We...are not that smart. 
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Fair enough. I disagree with your assessment. I think that George Floyd showed that in big municipalities, you can loot, riot, commit arson, and generally harangue and doxx public officials, including and up to going to their private residences to suss them out. That's a very, very troubling thing to wrap one's head around. 

Various 2A days where open carry people basically occupy public political buildings, gun fetish campaign material, the NRA, boasting in rap songs, and all that is attendant with rampant gun pride also leaves me less sanguine about the exercise of armed civilian (read: mob) checks on the government should we ever need use the check of the populace. Especially when the politicians are gleefully letting you know in a XMas card that they own guns and flaunt them. 

It's all very much a deviancy defined down. That which was once in backrooms or reserved only for the most urgent or pressing of needs is now commonplace.

The police are not to be trusted we are told. Arm yourself, demonstrate, riot, commit arson in protest or we will be going down a dark road to fascism, say the left-wing radicals that have infiltrated our educational and localized political institutions. They prey on the youth and those disposed to leftist struggle, especially the dispossessed and the unheard. 

Our government isn't to be trusted we are told. Arm yourself; commit insurrections in righteousness' and truth's name; aim to be armed rather than dispassionate, thinking citizens, say the right-wing militia heads that have seeped into the mainstream. They prey on the righteous, the fearful, those who would kill in the name of a God or country that I do not know, but exists in their head. 

It's all toxic. A Christmas card from a functioning (are they really?) representative of government who chooses to send out armed pictures rather than a nativity or, if not religious, familial scene of joy is a disgrace and an intelligence insult. I am surprised it doesn't insult yours nor trouble you. 

 
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Republicans have been posing with guns for years. The latest emphasis is just a natural evolution of the concept, IMO, with each new partisan trying to contend for attention by one-upping the previous benchmark. It's all about going viral.

Also, I think it's fitting that you used the word "posing", but I'm not sure if I can provide an adequate explanation without getting a timeout.

 
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