Yesterday two things happened . . .

[grantcart]

26. Well then you haven't learned the first lesson of advancing policy

It doesn't have anything to do with what you are tired of and sick of.

It is not going to be achieved by winning 50% +1 of the vote (because obviously anything won by a narrow vote can be undone by a narrow vote).

The only way forward is to build a consensus with the 65% reasonable part of the country. Right before the pandemic I attended a conference in San Antonio with some professional colleagues which included a partner in the company that was an up line manager (we are all independent).

They are all Republicans and they know I am a Democrat but they also know I am better informed than they are. They also know that I don't patronize or disrespect them.

One of the partners (who at the time was starting to have dementia and now passed away) had sent a racist ant Obama email to everyone after he was elected and I called the other partner and he was taken off the email chain. In the elevator (now several years later) the remaining partner told me that he was 100% wrong about Obama, the ACA was good and he apologized for having said unkind things about him that Obama was a true gentleman even if he was unlikely to vote for him

A couple of hours later there were 8 of us and they started talking about the El Paso shooting. Everyone agreed something had to be done. These were all gun owners and several were very active hunters. They even had an annual hunt in Mexico (with their own guns, which should not be possible)

Anyway I was surprised that everyone agreed that there

1) too many guns
2) too many people who should not have guns have them get them
3): civilians should not be able to own military quality weapons
4) shouldn't have clips with excessive ammunition

Three of them had resigned from the NRA

Why didn't anything get done? Their opinion
Republicans refused any compromise and Democrats wanted to take their guns away.

In Arizona Democrats have embraced responsible gun ownership and we have 2 Democratic Senators, Democratic mayor's of Phoenix and Tucson, Democratic Governor, Secretary of State Attorney General with only 32% of the population Democratic.

You can engage in self gratification or work on generating a working consensus. I don't like guns, my wife is the widow of some one killed by gun violence. There are people on the other side that want some level of change. Unless we build a working consensus with them nothing will be passed.