They had their moment, and they pissed it away.
Instead of investigating and trying to impeach Trump on a bunch of imaginary stuff, and things Obama and Biden did worse, the Dims should have gone after the one truly unconstitutional action he really took…
…and brags about.
The bump-stock ban.
Seriously; here’s the way they should have done it:
President Trump has unconstitutionally arrogated the ennumerated legislative power of Congress, to impose an equally unconstitutional uncompensated taking through his excutive order to the Attorney General to arbitrarily redefine words to ban bump-stock type devices.
There’s a “high crime.”
If they worked the crowd correctly, they could have gotten plenty of Republican reps and senators on board; possibly enough senators to convict.
Some of the actual pro-2A types would join in, seeing it as a holding action. Others? Explain carefully: He stole your power, Senator Arrogance; what if he does it again? He made Republicans look bad to a large, pro-gun voting demographic who may not vote for you now. What else will he do against our will in some other area?
They could have played the public, too: No problem, bump stock owners. Yes, we’re going to ban them legislatively, if we can get the votes, but it’ll be done fairly, with compensation. Getting caught with one later will only be a civil violation, not a ridiculously extreme felony. And it won’t involve rewriting the definition of machineguns.
Bump stock owners would have grumbled, but there wouldn’t be the angry discussions of civil war. The rest of the firearms owners would relax and stop worrying about the semi-auto problem, and concentrate on the “assault weapon” bans. And “red flags.” And universal preemptively-prove-your-innocence, prohibited persons expansion, ammo taxes…
But the moment is gone. The iron is too cool to strike. They didn’t concentrate on the actual unconstitutional issue, and now their own presidential candidates are bragging about how they’ll use that very EO precedent to do more. They didn’t reassure firearms owners, some of whom are now mumbling unsettling things about politicians in general.
Instead, they angered the Republican party — specifically those representatives and senators they should have been hustling — with an endless litany of fantasies: Pee-gate, Russian collusion to not elect the one candidate who had proven her amenability to Russian interests, a Ukraine phone call asking for an investigation, Pelosi’s really bizarre claim that the Russians had a hand in… sending military aid to the Ukraine, which Russia is invading?
I figure they can get impeachment, but conviction looks impossible now.
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Random Acts of Gibberish 