Here’s the Thing

So there was Donald Trump, in his usual stupid pose on the edge of his chair with his (small) hands between his legs, listening to the Parkland shooting survivors, a fake look of concern on his face and a piece of white paper with scripted responses visible in one of those hands. Ugh.

Then a few days later, there he was on the stage at CPAC – the real Trump now – crowing about how much he loved the NRA and how they’d been so good to him -- $30 million worth, folks – and those assholes ate it up like he was back on the campaign trail, even chanting the “Lock her up!” trope and favoring the Second Amendment even over the phony tax breaks Trump had promised. Double ugh.

But for sure not everybody loves the NRA like Trump. Not Enterprise, Alamo, National, Hertz, Avis, Budget, First National Bank of Omaha, Allied Vans, North American Vans, MetLife, Symantec, LifeLock, SimpliSafe, Chubb, and the Wyndham Hotel Group. They’ve all severed ties with the NRA, most in the wake of the Parkland massacre.

When outfits like this realize how off-the-wall an organization like the NRA is proving itself daily to be, they make for the exits. Images can be hurt – and profits with them -- having their brands associated with such trash.

And the Parkland kids and kids throughout America are playing a big part in these corporate decisions. They’ve put the NRA and weak-willed politicians squarely in the spotlight of well-deserved scorn and vilification. These kids -- and their parents -- represent not just a loud and clear voice for gun control, but current and future customers for the products and services of these big companies. That’s real, man.

Here’s the thing: when their bottom line is threatened, these corporations listen and react. Politicians have a bottom line, too – getting re-elected or moving up the political ladder -- and even a whore like Florida Governor Rick Scott has out of political necessity gone up against the heretofore sacred NRA by calling for increased gun control measures. He’s thinking about a Senate run and he doesn’t want an albatross like the NRA hanging around his skinny-ass neck.

There are going to be more school shootings. And maybe that will focus even Trump’s base on what his love affair with the NRA really means and they will bail on him like those companies bailed on the NRA. Their bottom line – even the most hide-bound of them – is their kids’ lives. The fact that life hasn’t gotten better for most of them despite Trump’s baseless promises doesn’t seem to have moved many of them. Maybe it will take their kids marching and chanting to make them see that the gunned up America that Trump represents and especially his colossally stupid idea of arming teachers isn’t going to stop the slaughter of innocent school children.

Changing the gun laws and changing the president hopefully will. Hopefully.