Bless Your Heart, Dana Loesch
By Victoria Coy, Generation Progress #Fight4AFuture National Leadership Council member
So y’all have seen The Ad by now, right? The one in which NRA talking-head Dana Loesch uses some lightly coded and racially inflammatory language to call for a Civil War Lite. No? Ok, well I watched it so you don’t have to. Here’s the plot: “Their liberal cultural and political elite have fooled Them into rioting and hating police and We can fight Them ‘with the clinched fist of truth.’” And yes, that’s the literal summary.
Now, those with a stronger command of the English language than Ms. Loesch appears to possess will notice that “the clinched fist of truth” is not, in fact, a tangible weapon — unlike the increasing number of actual firearms the NRA is paid to hock each and every year. Thankfully for us, many have eloquently pointed out that one step short of calling for civil war is, um, really bad. Black Lives Matter even released their own video that beautifully illustrates the harm caused by such racist rhetoric.
But what strikes me, a proud Southerner, upon watching this and other hilariously bad NRA videos is just how very much they don’t get us. The gun lobby has forever touted their down-home Southern roots as both a cause for loyalty and as a weapon against the “liberal elite.” And yes, the South does have higher rates of gun ownership. But the gun lobby has taken that as a sign that we are all on board with their dangerous brand of extremism. And it is a crucial mistake that will cost them.
This is the same mistake the gun lobby made when they took their eye off the ball in my home state of Louisiana. Board rooms and backdoor meetings in Washington, DC must be full of rich men in suits deciding that their 30-year con of buying Southern politicians and lying to the Southern electorate will pay off without a hitch. They must have been shocked when my two-woman organization managed to defeat all of their priority legislation over the past two years. They must have really hated that I did so by allying myself with small town Louisiana mayors and police chiefs, both Democratic and Republican alike, all of whom agreed that the gun lobby’s extremism has no place in Louisiana anymore.
Southerners are tired of being portrayed as bumbling, violent, uneducated slobs. We are diverse, politically aware, and intelligent, with roots that would make an oak tree jealous. We are our brothers’ keepers. And that means that we fundamentally believe in communalism. Just last month I received no fewer than five text messages from neighbors checking on me while I was vacationing. This is simply who we are.
At this point, I should mention that the liberal voting bloc frequently misunderstands us as well. Even my friends in the gun violence prevention movement often assume Southerners are gun-obsessed racists who vote against their interests. And you better believe I’ve been on the Correct Thyself Tour since my emergence as a Southern leader in the movement. But boy is that easier to stomach than how the NRA thinks of us.
The crux of the NRA ad, as well as the pervasive attitude of the gun lobby as a whole, is that their base is so easily stupefied by political malevolence as to turn against their neighbors. To abandon the values and the communities that have made our people who they are for generations. Because when Dana uses Us versus Them so freely, what she does’t realize is that we have been Them, the Other, for our entire history. We bear the scars of this country’s original sin like a woman whose stretch-marked hips will forever show the pain of birthing a nation. Every day, We suffer alongside the Them who are mowed down by gun violence, brutalized by over-policing and generations of morally inexcusable criminal justice policy at rates unparalleled in the North. And it is not just our cities. The gun lobby has lined its pockets with the spoils of an ideological war that pushed assault rifles and handguns deeper and deeper into every corner of our rural communities. This isn’t your grandfather’s NRA. This is a well-oiled behmoth sent from New York and Washington to destroy Southern values and to thrive on the blood that runs in our streets.
But I have news for the NRA. You’ve gone too far. The Louisiana Violence Reduction Coalition (LVRC), which I founded just over two years ago, is the deep South’s only organization of its kind and you better believe that we have found what you’ve forgotten. The majority of our active members are multiple-gun owners and many are current military service people. They know that while you claim to be protecting America, you’re actually doing the opposite. Really, quite the opposite. And the majority of LVRC’s non-member allies are the small town Southern politicians with whom you’ve simply lost touch. You may be able to bully a few remaining scared state representatives, but you can’t stop us from passing life saving gun violence prevention measures way down here in Louisiana! And if a bumbling Southerner can figure it out, then honey, the tide has turned.
At the end of the day I can laugh from the belly while I ache from the heart because I know that victory will belong to every American who seeks it. And to every Southerner who feels unheard and unrepresented: I know you. I am your neighbor, your daughter and your favorite church lady. I am the gun violence prevention movement and I am you.
The NRA hasn’t been able to say that for a long time. The talking heads, the lawyers, the suits — none of them understand us.
Bless your heart, Dana Loesch, but it’s probably time you go home.
