Appeasing the Trigger Gods - Maureen Dowd
WASHINGTON — During his campaign, Donald Trump often bragged about his skill as a negotiator. In conversations, he ventured that, as president, he might be able to resolve two of the most thorny and tragic dilemmas: finding peace in the Mideast and reaching a sensible compromise on guns.
He said he would hop in his limo and go to N.R.A. headquarters in suburban Virginia and stay as long as it took to make a deal, noting that there were points where both sides in the debate could agree.
Even if Trump once had some negotiating aptitude — his biographers say it was rare — we have seen his art-of-the-deal aspirations evaporate in a cloud of self-absorption, as one tableau of legislative chaos after another unfolds.
Trump wrote in his 2000 book, “The America We Deserve,” that he was in favor of a ban on assault weapons and “a slightly longer waiting period to purchase a gun.” But then the N.R.A. spent more than $30 million to get him elected. All his earlier moderate positions withered as he slavishly followed the money and applause from the basest of his base.
“You came through big for me and I am going to come through for you,” he told the N.R.A. after his election, out-Hestoning Charlton Heston.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/17/opinion/sunday/appeasing-the-trigger-gods.html