The New York Times has an illuminating report on how the NRA has been losing its grasp on Congress overall in the past decade, but tightening control where it counts—with Senate leadership and Mitch McConnell. It's a window into how the Republican party has become a death cult with McConnell, who actually embraces his "Grim Reaper" nickname, at the helm.
Democrats have all but abandoned the group as it has become increasingly more extreme and callous in the face of the gun death epidemic: "the number of Democrats in the House with 'A' ratings [from the NRA] has fallen from 63 after the 2008 elections to three after the 2018 midterms." There are no Senate Democrats with an A or B rating from the NRA. Not even gun-loving Montana's senator, Jon Tester or West Virginia's Joe Manchin (who makes all his political ads about shooting stuff) have "passing" grades from the NRA—both have 33% averages.
The NRA's clout is decreasing in most places—including Montana and West Virginia. There isn't electoral backlash anymore for politicians to buck them: "of the 83 members of Congress downgraded by any amount between 2008 and 2018, only 11 lost re-election. By contrast, 14 of the 31 members who were upgraded lost. In other words, legislators who moved away from the N.R.A. did better electorally than legislators who moved toward it." That's mostly Democrats, though. Republicans were still likelier to lose reelection after the NRA downgraded them, but not significantly so: 28% of downgraded Republicans lost, compared with 11% of those upgraded. "And The Times found no cases in which a Republican who broke from the N.R.A. was replaced with someone the group rated better."
The NRA is shrinking, endorsing in its safest races and somehow consolidating its power with the one lawmaker who can make the most difference—Mitch McConnell—and with Donald Trump. McConnell doesn't need the NRA to hold his majority, clearly, and likely doesn't need the NRA to win his own reelection. Trump would probably do better marginally by abandoning the NRA and endorsing stronger background checks, which huge majorities of the electorate support. It's also clear that McConnell is not going to let anything that could remotely help save lives come to the floor. One more reason his leadership has got to come to an end.
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