Have we forgotten about last week’s Gold Star families and its messaging about the Constitution yet...Darn those pivots
“Hillary wants to abolish. . . the Second Amendment,” Trump said in Wilmington, N.C., before speaking about filling an empty seat on the Supreme Court. “By the way, if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.”
There are no excuses for the usual Trump ad libs, but his goal has been to shift the messaging when gaffes occur with perhaps very little attention to the reality of accumulating meaning from such messaging. It is as it has always been, brand building.
America First is not identical to Trump First, and yet whoever is designing the messaging perhaps knew that counter messaging to Ferguson would work this week,
It wasn’t exactly the ‘second amendment solutions’ message often cited by RWNJs, but there was enough to merit some back-spin, since ‘Second Amendment People’ generally implies those who favor it as some protection (since Heller) of individuals’ gun rights.
This dog-whistle to the GOP base while reinforcing, doesn’t help with the late (see indecisive) voters who euphemistically call themselves “independent”, especially those in swing-states.
A statement from Trump’s campaign said that the real estate mogul’s comments were about the voting power of Second Amendment supporters.
“It’s called the power of unification — 2nd Amendment people have amazing spirit and are tremendously unified, which gives them great political power,” wrote Jason Miller, senior communications advisor for Trump. “And this year, they will be voting in record numbers, and it won’t be for Hillary Clinton, it will be for Donald Trump.”