Mayor Pete says it well
There was a mass shooting on the streets of Philadelphia last night. Should everyone wear body armor in public? Should we have massive surveillance on our streets, a cop every few feet? Should we put doorways on the sidewalks? What are these people talking about???
Well … they have some talking points:
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…
But the bulk of the memo, part of the series of RNC “Pundit Prep” that typically lists the party’s weekly political priorities, had a conspicuous omission. It did not include any actual talking points about the latest school massacre in the U.S. — a mass shooting that dominated American media and political conversation, only to be bookended by news of other mass murders carried out with firearms. The email did detail, however, “what you need to know” about “this week’s primary elections,” and listed the RNC’s recommended reading from Fox News, Breitbart, Newsmax, and the Washington Examiner, on such topics as President Joe Biden’s “failed” immigration record.
[…]
“My advice to any Republican candidate would be to not let the moment dictate any political action that may have unintended consequences that leads to widespread gun confiscation,” says Steven Cheung, a political operative advising GOP candidates in 2022 House and Senate races. “Defend the Second Amendment because that’s where the base is, but offer tangible solutions like hardening of schools and more funding for mental health.”
By the way, they won’t vote for money to any of that either.
As Buttigieg says, all this is the definition of insanity, if not the definition of denial.