Lock, Stock, & Barrel

The Cycle- On Substack · Apr 15, 2022 · 30m

Believe it or not, when George W. Bush ran for the Republican Party’s nomination in 2000, he was able to at least tacitly support reauthorizing the Federal Assault Weapons Ban of 1994, which was set to expire in 2004.

Yep, you read that right. As radical as they might have seemed to you back then, as of 2000 most of the Republican Party was still quite sane, and intent on being a governing party. Their insanity didn’t really start until the mid-2000s, after Karl Rove demonstrated the power of base politics and everything went to s**t.

Imagine that, party nominees with an incentive to cater…