The United States stands as an outlier – among its peers the country has both a disproportionately high percentage of the world’s armed civilians and a disproportionately high rate of gun-related fatalities. Recent polls show broad popular support for enhanced background checks and bans on military-style guns and ammunition; however, the gun lobby backed by organizations like the National Rifle Association (NRA) promotes opposition to any proposed changes with a campaign of fear.
For years, the NRA has
relied on fear mongering and misinformation tactics to transform its
agenda from supporting gun safety to advocating unrestricted gun
rights, which has proven enormously successful.
With President Trump at
the helm, one can clearly see how the dangerous transformation has
occurred. The NRA, like Trump, is not driven by a desire to protect
fundamental freedoms. Much like the nondemocratic leader, its goal is
centered around a desire to secure and sustain political power.
Rukmani Bhatia, senior
policy analyst for Gun Violence Prevention at American Progress and
special assistant to the U.S. Agency for International Development
(USAID), has proposed a formula explaining how the “NRA's playbook”
leverages the demagogue's methods of violent control over the
populace.
In this entry, I am using Bhatia's article “Guns, Lies, and Fear: Exposing the NRA's Messaging Playbook” from April 24, 2019, from the Center For American Progress to explain the progression of suppression and control. Quotes in red come directly from Bhatia's article at https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/guns-crime/reports/2019/04/24/468951/guns-lies-fear/ .
“Establishing a
target group within the nation is vital for a political narrative to
be constructed based on fear of impending doom. A specific group
needs to be manipulated into believing itself to be a marginalized
population, neglected by the existing power structures and facing
demise or attack.”
In
present-day America, the NRA and politicians financially beholden to
the gun lobby, like Donald Trump, constantly push this narrative.
In 2016, the NRA spent
more than $30 million on behalf of the Trump campaign, according to
Federal Election Commission data. It was a staggering number compared
to 2012. when the group spent about $13 million to try to unseat
President Barack Obama and elect Mitt Romney. Since his election,
Trump has rejected reforms like strengthening background checks and
what he calls “various things having to do with guns.”
In August 2016, shortly
after Donald Trump told supporters that “Second Amendment people”
could stop Hillary Clinton from selecting Supreme Court justices, the
National Rifle Association leapt to the GOP nominee’s defense.
Trump lamented to a booing crowd at his rally in Wilmington, North
Carolina …
“If she (Hillary)
gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the
Second Amendment people, maybe there is.” @realDonaldTrump is
right.”
All the while, the NRA
attempted to transform the Second Amendment to the clause of central
political importance. The NRA, as a social movement organization,
mobilizes members during elections with differing levels of
commitment to protect gun rights through the political process.
The NRA even uses
religious nationalism to further their goals: Warren Cassidy, who was
an executive in the NRA, said: “You would get a far better
understanding if you approached (the NRA) as if you were approaching
one of the great religions of the world.” Donald Trump became the
NRA's their exalted savior.
Once an identity group
is created, the next piece of the puzzle in a narrative of fear is to
make that particular group fearful for its existence. By creating a
story that outlines a pending threat to the group, the illiberal
leader is able to manipulate that group and gain political power.
Trump once said “power
was about instilling fear.” As president, he uses fear while
playing on people's phobias – phobias of immigrants, “shithole
countries,” Christian takeover, and removal gun rights to name a
few. Time magazine's Alex Altman said, “No President has
weaponized fear quite like Trump … He shapes public opinion by
emphasizing dangers – both real and imaginary – that his policies
purport to fix.”
Trump counts the 2nd
Amendment people as his loyal base. Consider Trump's vociferous tweet
on the occasion of the volatile rally in Richmond, Virginia, on
January 20, 2020 …
“The Democrat Party
in the Great Commonwealth of Virginia are working hard to take away
your 2nd Amendment rights. This is just the beginning. Don’t let it
happen, VOTE REPUBLICAN in 2020!”
Of course, once the
group is fearful for its existence – in this case, the white
nationalists fearful of takeover and loss of privilege – to
perpetuate the fears embedded in the narrative, leaders of the
political party along with designated surrogates from different parts
of society, including civil society, media, and academia are employed
to emphasize the threats facing the chosen populace.
During Trump's presidency,
Fox News has served to serve as a "mouthpiece" for the
administration, providing "propaganda" regardless the
facts, and a "feedback loop" for Trump, with one
presidential scholar stating, "it’s the closest we’ve come
to having state TV."
According to a Pew
Research Center survey “Fox News was the main source for 40% of
Trump voters” during the 2016 election. Further, another Pew Survey
indicates “When it comes to choosing a media source for political
news, conservatives orient strongly around Fox News. Nearly half of
consistent conservatives (47%) name it as their main source for
government and political news.”
This dependence is despite
the fact that current and former Fox News employees have repeatedly
denounced the network's “unhinged” “birther-like” coverage
and service as President Donald Trump's “propaganda machine”
since he was elected and his administration and the network
effectively merged.
(“Study:
Watching Only Fox News Makes You Less Informed Than Watching No News
At All.” Fairleigh Dickinson University)
Politifact, a
fact-checking project of the Poynter University of Journalism found
that 59% of Fox statements checked are rated as False, Mostly False,
or Pants on Fire. Only 10% of statements checked are rated as fully
True.
(https://www.politifact.com/punditfact/tv/fox/)
Trump employs Fox News and
its propaganda machine while the NRA, similar to that of
authoritarian and undemocratic political regimes around the world,
deploys disinformation campaigns to secure control over public
discourse in the United States. This enables autocrats like Trump to
maintain a vice grip over information and ensure their power is
unchecked and unquestioned. Guns and Trump and fear – this is a
match made in hell.
Once the political
narrative is clearly defined and an “us vs. them” dynamic is
established, it becomes easier to sideline, discredit, or malign
critics of the regime. Criticism is viewed as a form of treachery and
a threat to the survival of the core identity the leader is claiming
to protect.
Trump doesn’t want to
simply dismiss the criticisms coming his way as wrong, so much as he
thinks the criticisms shouldn’t even exist. Remember his speech at
the Republican nomination convention when Trump described the U.S. in
a “moment of crisis,” then he cast himself as its savior: “I
alone can fix it”?
According to a report from
UCLA's Institute of the Environment and Sustainability …
“ … the president’s
(Trump's) fight against dissenting viewpoints has put him at odds
with the Constitution’s very first amendment. He’s banned several
reputable news agencies, including CNN, BBC, and the New York Times,
from his press conferences, after referring to several of these
agencies as the literal “enemy of the people” (not to mention his
classic “fake news” dismissal).
“He’s (Trump)
stated that he wants to “open up libel laws” to enable him to
more easily sue news agencies. He’s suggested jail time or loss of
citizenship for burning the flag, which although highly controversial
has been established as protected speech twice by the Supreme Court,
including avowed conservative justice Antonin Scalia.
“And (although not
actually unconstitutional) he’s ordered the censorship of
government websites, in this case the EPA’s discussion of climate
change.”
Not only does Trump have a
history of using Twitter to throw tantrums, but also he has a long
record of reacting to criticism or challenges from women with
personal, sexist attacks – even when their criticism of him was
based on more substantive grounds. He has made numerous sexist
comments about how women look, and multiple women have come forward
with stories of being sexual assaulted and harassed by Trump. Clearly
he has worked for the normalization of misogyny.
Over the years, the NRA
has also become a hate-mongering, extremist group. In a one-minute ad
in 2017 views by millions, conservative television host Dana Loesch,
former spokesperson for the National Rifle Association, talked
passionately while black and white footage of protests in the United
States were displayed. Loesch – referring presumably to America’s
anti-gun, anti-Donald Trump population – said …
“They use their media
to assassinate real news. They use their schools to teach children
that their President is another Hitler. They use their movie stars
and singers and comedy shows and award shows to repeat their
narrative over and over again.”
“The only way we stop
this, the only way we save our country and our freedom is to fight
this violence of lies with a clenched fist of truth. I am the
National Rifle Association of America and I am freedom’s safest
place.”
(Kate
Samuelson, “A Lot of Gun Owners Really Dislike This NRA Ad.”
Time.
JUNE 30, 2017.)
When Dr. Esther Choo, an
Oregon Health and Sciences University emergency room doctor and
assistant professor, criticized an NRA tweet that took issue with
American College of Physicians' new guidelines for doctors for
protecting patients against gun violence. The NRA tweeted …
“Someone should tell
self-important anti-gun doctors to stay in their lane. Half of the
articles in Annals of Internal Medicine are pushing for gun
control. Most upsetting, however, the medical community seems to have
consulted NO ONE but themselves. – NRA (@NRA) November 7, 2018
Choo believes doctors
"speaking out en masse was overdue." She said, "I felt
like I put a tiny poke into an abscess that was at the bursting
points. Once the doctors (and nurses, and physical therapists, and
chaplains) got going, they couldn't stop. We see this tragedy day
after day."
(Elise
Herron. “'We Are Anti-Bullet Holes in Our Patients,' Oregon
Doctor
Says in Online Battle Against the NRA. Williamette Week.
News
Service. November 13, 2018.)
What is the result of
adherence to this playbook of fear? According to Bhatia …
“Collectively, these
tactics are regularly implemented in illiberal nations whose
leadership is focused on stifling debate, with the extreme methods
resulting in crackdowns on political rights and civil liberties in
order to suppress a nation into submission. This technique of
controlling information around key policies has been successfully
used by authoritarians and populists throughout the world.”
(Rukmani
Bhatia. “Guns, Lies, and Fear: Exposing the NRA's Messaging
Playbook.” Center For American Progress. April 24, 2019.)
Authoritarian regimes use
the demagogue’s playbook to suppress civil liberties and political
rights. In America, the NRA’s playbook protects the gun industry
and allows the epidemic of gun violence to continue ravaging the
nation.
Under
Donald Trump as president who accepts the NRA as one of his major
political influences, citizens suffer hateful, fearful rhetoric and
purposeful control. Fear cripples
legislators and lawmakers who want to address a public health crisis
that kills more than 35,000 people a year in the United States.
“Bad men
need nothing more to compass their ends,
than that
good men should look on and do nothing.”
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