DL Open Thread: Sunday, May 29, 2022

Company That Made The Texas Killer’s Assault Weapon Marketed It To Kids.  Hey, it’s just like vaping:

The Texas shooting, which left 19 schoolchildren and two teachers dead and more than a dozen wounded, has put a national spotlight on Daniel Defense, a family-owned business in Georgia that has emerged as a trailblazer in an aggressive, boundary-pushing style of weapons marketing and sales.

Some of its advertisements invoke popular video games like “Call of Duty” and feature “Star Wars” characters and Santa Claus, messages that are likely to appeal to teenagers. The company was an early adopter of a direct-to-consumer business model that aimed to make buying military gear as simple as ordering from Amazon, enticing customers with “adventure now, pay later” installment plans that make expensive weaponry more affordable.

Daniel Defense is at the forefront of an industry that has grown increasingly aggressive in recent years as it tries to expand beyond its aging, mostly white customer base and resists the calls for stronger regulation that seem to intensify after every mass shooting.

“Daniel Defense is basically the poster child of this egregious, aggressive marketing,” said Ryan Busse, a former executive at the gun company Kimber who is now an industry critic. “Marty Daniel burst in the door, a lot louder and more brazen than other gun makers, much like Donald Trump did on the political scene.”

He added, “Through this company, you are telling the story of how the gun industry has become increasingly radicalized.”

Daniel Defense’s strategy seems to have been effective. Its sales have soared, in part because of its successful targeting of young customers like Salvador Ramos, the gunman in Texas. Mr. Ramos, whom the authorities killed on Tuesday, was a “Call of Duty” video game enthusiast and appears to have bought his assault rifle directly from Daniel Defense, less than a week after turning 18.

Supreme Court Likely To Authorize Religious Proselytizing In Schools Using Federal And State Funds:

In Carson v. Makin, the conservative majority of the Supreme Court is likely to require Maine officials to use public funding to subsidize religious teaching and proselytizing at schools that legally discriminate against people who don’t support their religious beliefs. A ruling in favor of the families would “amount to a license to outsource discrimination,” according to Kevin Welner, director of the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder’s School of Education. He is also an attorney and a professor of education.

We’re fucked, man.

The DCCC And The DSCC Are ‘Not On Our Side’.   Preaching to the choir, I know.  Which is why we must battle feckless ‘centrism’ at every turn:

The DCCC not only protects incumbents; it also recruits designer candidates for open seats, favoring those with military or intelligence credentials and suitably pasteurized moderate views. Its show horse, Representative Conor Lamb, ran in the Pennsylvania Senate primary touting his ability to work with Republicans. Lamb was, as The Daily Beast put it, “sheared” by Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman, the 6-foot-8, tattooed, goateed Sanders supporter running openly against the Manchin wing of the Democratic Party.

Yet even more destructive than the actions of the DCCC during this cycle has been the tsunami of outside super PAC money that corporate and special interests have unleashed on progressive candidates in Democratic primaries.

All of this is a dramatic reminder that even as Democrats mobilize against a Trump-dominated Republican Party that poses a direct threat to our democracy, the fierce battle over whom and what the Democrats represent must continue. The sabotage of Biden’s reform agenda by the likes of Manchin in the Senate and the Big Pharma Democrats in the House demonstrates that we won’t come close to the changes this country desperately needs unless progressives transform the Democratic Party from within.

In this struggle, the party committees­­—particularly the DCCC and its Senate equivalent, the DSCC­—often stand in the way, along with the massive war chests of the special interests reveling in a new Gilded Age.

In response, progressives have been building an independent infrastructure to recruit and support insurgent candidates. Independent endorsements from progressive leaders like Sanders, Warren, Ocasio-Cortez, and Congressional Progressive Caucus head Pramila Jayapal galvanize support. The Working Families Party, Our Revolution, Justice Democrats, Way to Lead, Democrats for America, and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee seek out and help support progressive challengers. Progressive unions like SEIU and issue-specific groups like the Sunrise Movement increasingly endorse in primaries as well. These can help counter the outside super PAC money, but, as the victories of Fetterman, Lee, and Salinas demonstrate, only ongoing—and on-the-ground—organizing can withstand the blizzard of negative ads and slanders that progressives will face. It is long past time that progressive donors and activists stopped contributing to the DCCC and its allied PACs and focused on building this independent infrastructure for change.

Amen.

What do you want to talk about?