This past week, the media was treated to a red-state morsel in the form of a video ad from the NRA warning of what seemed like an uprising (?), in response to intolerant violence on the part of the left, that spurred by the occasion of Trump’s election. This video turned up in several news aggregators, including one of my favorite, Digg. Their construing of the video seemed to capture the general media’s take on the ad. Title of their link: “The NRA Has Gone Off The Deep End In Their Latest Ad”. Byline: “Well, this is ominous”. Blurb: “We wouldn’t say this is an exhortation to violence, but it’s not that far off, either.” The irony: The ad contains actual footage of riots and bodily harm to non-liberal individuals and the hands of leftist protestors. I’m only stating the obvious here that for some reason appears to be to be lost on those highlighting the fearful ad. NRA type folks may resort to violence in response to violence already perpetrated by the left. Such defines the curious disconnect in brains of media, circa 2017.
The ad: A very attractive woman, using a tone of voice suggesting militant unrest, makes a case for the NRA’s interpretation of events and needed action. All of her propositional statements are true. The woman also makes declarations based on the interpretation of factual. Ominous music pays throughout. The footage has been converted to black and white clips similar to how the pre-apocalyptic past is often portrayed in post-apocalyptic science fiction or edgier documentary filmmaking.
The key statement: “The only way we fight this….is to fight this violence of lies with the clenched fist of truth”. Taken literally, this is an exhortation to project a different body of information. Clenched fists could be equivalent to fists raised in protest and defiance or fists clenched for hand-to-hand combat. “Truth” in this declaration equals the NRA’s narrative of events.
Context and track record: The protesting left has a well-documented track record of occasional but often organized violence, particularly in the last 7 months. Considering just the organized protests, no one has taken up arms, but their violence has been far more deliberate than the heat of the moment. Some has been systematic, premeditated, organized. The NRA, to my knowledge has not sponsored any violence that I’m aware of, either physically or with arms. Examining ‘lone wolf’ terrorism, Bernie-leftist, James T. Hodgkinson is the first and only one so far to take up actual arms with the intent to kill in the name of politics during this season of American political strife. I don’t know when the NRA put its ad into production but if ever there was a ripe contrast that could have been added to the footage, that would have been it; and yet, those who condemn the ad’s potential for violence definitely had that news history at their disposal and certainly ignored it.
If we compare statements of ‘The Resistance’ vs. the NRA with track records and then analyze both through the filter of the media’s diminishing commitment to reporting in favor of overt activism, a reasonable person would have to conclude that the NRA intends to take a more visible and proactive stand against leftist violence and protests. The ominous tone of the ad is intended to convey the dark urgency facing conservative groups. Act now or face even darker oppression in the future. At the end of the day, the NRA mostly just wants to raise money. That’s a trait they share with their opposition. Period.