Trump Attack on Massie Self-Defeating and Wrong

U.S.A. – -(Ammoland.com)- “Looks like a third-rate Grandstander named @RepThomasMassie, a congressman from, unfortunately, a truly GREAT state, Kentucky, wants to vote against the new Save Our Workers Bill in Congress,” President Donald Trump tweeted Friday. “He can stop it, only delay, which is both dangerous…

“…& costly,” Trump continued in a follow-up tweet. “Workers & small businesses need money now in order to survive. Virus wasn’t their fault. It is ‘HELL’ dealing with the Dems, had to give up some stupid things in order to get the ‘big picture’ done. 90% GREAT! WIN BACK HOUSE, but throw Massie out of Republican Party!”

Since when has expecting Congress to do its job been cause to expel an elected member? And why is wanting to see votes recorded instead of masked through a voice vote deemed objectionable by the political elite?

“I was just standing up for the Constitution, and I did it in a professional manner that did not delay the bill,” Massie told Fox News. “This is the biggest transfer of wealth in human history.”

“The Constitution requires that a quorum of members be present to conduct business in the House,” he elaborated on Twitter. “Right now, millions of essential, working-class Americans are still required to go to work during this pandemic such as manufacturing line workers, healthcare professionals, pilots, grocery clerks, cooks/chefs, delivery drivers, auto mechanics, and janitors (to name just a few). Is it too much to ask that the House do its job, just like the Senate did?”

“Massie has now become the most hated person on Capitol Hill,” New York Rep. Peter King, who had to get up and go to work claimed. Seeing as how “King is the first Republican to sign on to the assault weapons ban” and he teamed up with Chuck Schumer to stump for registration-enabling prior restraint “universal background checks,” it’s appropriate to point out “most hated” could depend on who you ask.

As for Mr. Trump’s call to “throw Massie out of the Republican Party,” it would be fair to urge him to be careful what he wishes for. A Massie campaign commercial shows his primary challenger, Todd McMurtry, as a “Trump Hater.” See for yourself, along with documented anti-Trump quotes:

But by now, some of the damage has been done with at least one group of prominent influencers.

“The Republican Jewish Coalition is answering President Trump’s call to eject Rep. Thomas Massie from the GOP, announcing it has endorsed the Kentucky congressman’s primary challenger and plans to bundle resources for him,” the Washington Examiner reports, citing the group’s support for McMurtry. It’s instructive to see that the main stated reason is “because of [Massie’s] noninterventionist foreign policy views,” particularly as they relate to Israel.

Americans can agree or disagree with them on that. To suggest that it’s a disqualifier for public office takes us to a place George Washington, who counseled “to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world,” wanted the Republic to avoid.

This isn’t the only disconnect the RJC, and presumably candidates it supports, has with the “deplorables” – that significant part of Trump’s base who supported not so much the man as the agenda he campaigned on.

Flags should be raised when we see their affinity for the “cancel culture,” and note the RJC barred Ron Paul from a candidate debate they hosted in 2011, dismissing him as “misguided and extreme” and denying other Republicans – and all Americans – a chance to hear the man defend positions many Trump agenda supporters agree with.

Understanding who leads the RJC helps to understand its agenda and to see how that compares to reasons why so many Republican voters were enamored of Trump’s message – against “the swamp” and as it relates to the cultural terraforming of the Republic.

Prominent on the Board is multi-billionaire Sheldon Adelson. Investor, philanthropist, and CEO of the Sands in Las Vegas, he not only further enriches himself with cheap labor, but he also supports the Democrat goal of amnesty and a “pathway to citizenship.”  That’s even though real-world experience in places like California, and all credible polls, show such populations overwhelmingly vote Democrat and anti-gun. The long-term result will be an unchallengeable majority controlling the legislatures to pass whatever disarmament edicts they want, the executive to sign them into law, and the judiciary to uphold them. It’s the greatest threat gun owners face, and anyone who disagrees is free to take my challenge as long as they don’t equivocate, cite irrelevant anecdotes that have no impact on the whole, or try to change the subject.

Speaking of the right to keep and bear arms, it’s instructive that some of McMurtry’s new benefactors are behind the betrayal of gun owners by turncoats in the Florida GOP:

“‘I already have impressed upon people I talk to, the way the law is now is incorrect, it’s wrong, it’s a moral obligation to make certain changes to the law,’ said Ronald Krongold, a Miami-based board member of the Republican Jewish Coalition, speaking with McClatchy several days after a gunman in Parkland, Fla., killed 17 people in a school shooting.”

By way of comparison, Thomas Massie, the candidate they oppose, is rated “A+” by Gun Owners of America.

I bring all this up because I am seeing a president, who is the only impediment to a Democrat in the White House, continue to make missteps with his base. The upcoming election is too important to watch him blow it with gun owners if I can add my voice to others and remind him why we voted for him in spite of a problematic past. Virtually savaging Massie feels just like something Trump supporters know only too well.

There has to be room in the “Big Tent” for principled standard-bearers who caution us when we stray from core principles. I’d argue GOP pols should all be that way. To deride such voices as “third rate,” to falsely attribute motives, to insult and to try to destroy a man who has been more supportive than most more often than not is hurtful, wrong, uncalled for, and unworthy of a true leader. I doubt the president will see my plea, but perhaps he will see and be persuaded by the excellent “In Defense of Congressman Thomas Massie” by economist and author John Lott of the Crime Prevention Research Center.

My hope is that the president will find a way to respect what Massie has tried to do even if he disagrees with it, and not be too invested in animosity to reconcile.

And my reminder, to any gun owner who wants to treat any critique of Trump as a “Would you rather have Biden?” attack is that there’s a reason we ought to be particularly alarmed at the prospect of “voice votes” that have the power to rock our world.

How many are old enough to remember the controversy over the Hughes Amendment?

About David Codrea:

David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.