they think democracy's coming for their power, and they're right
Why an Assault Weapons Ban Hits Such a Nerve With Many Conservatives
The premise of Trumpist populism is that the political preferences of a shrinking minority of citizens matter more than democracy.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/18/opinion/assault-rifle-ban.html?te=1&nl=david-leonhardt&emc=edit_ty_20190919?campaign_id=39&instance_id=12490&segment_id=17154&user_id=ca02b127fa17b8d676fde27e367a12bb®i_id=89651072
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Bear in mind a critical point: A buyback law could not take effect without approval from majorities in both houses of Congress and endorsement by the president. This is all but impossible without unified Democratic control of government; in fact, because our electoral system puts Democrats at a forbidding structural disadvantage, especially in the Senate, Democrats would need to command overpowering supermajority support to turn such a proposal into law.
In that light, all of these ominous “there will be violence” warnings clearly imply that it simply doesn’t matter whether or not mandatory buyback legislation is enacted by duly elected representatives of the American people with an extraordinary popular mandate, because the wildly outvoted minority would nevertheless be right to regard the law as an intolerable injustice that warrants retaliatory violence. Just ask them.
The likes of Erick Erickson jamming a cocked finger into his jacket pocket and pointing it at democracy may not strike terror in your heart. But the seditious principle behind these blustering, elliptical threats is genuinely alarming.
Democracy is what we do to prevent political disagreement from turning into violent conflict. But the premise of Trumpist populism is that the legitimacy and authority of government is conditional on agreement with the political preferences of a shrinking minority of citizens — a group mainly composed of white, Christian conservatives.
Who, you may sensibly ask, granted Tucker Carlson’s target demographic veto power over the legislative will of the American people? Nobody. They got high on their own supply and anointed themselves the “real American” sovereigns of the realm. But their relative numbers are dwindling, and they live in fear of a future in which the law of the land reliably tracks the will of the people. Therein lies the appeal of a personal cache of AR-15s.
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Weapons of mass death, and the submissive fear they engender, put teeth on that shrinking minority’s entitled claim to indefinite power. Without the threat of violence, what have they really got? Votes? Sooner or later, they won’t have enough, and they know it.
Nearly every Republican policy priority lacks majority support. New restrictions on abortion are unpopular. Slashing legal immigration levels is unpopular. The president’s single major legislative achievement, tax cuts for corporations and high earners, is unpopular.
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That’s why they’re unmoved by the mounting heap of slaughtered innocents, by schoolkids missing recess to rehearse being hunted. It’s a sacrifice they’re willing to let other Americans make, because they think democracy’s coming for their power, and they’re right.
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