GOP messaging for mass shootings
Update as needed
Jeffrey Denny
MEMORANDUM
To: Republican Party members, supporters, consultants and media
From: Danielle Alvarez, Communications Director, Republican National Committee
Re: Suggested responses to latest mass shootings
We know you’re devastated by the latest drumbeat of liberal mainstream media coverage of mass shootings. We are too.
Each new shooting hands the shameless Democrat liberals fresh ammunition for their Socialist, anti-American, unconstitutional, Fascist hate for our patriot gun freedom.
The libs are winning the gun narrative. We need to win it back. This is a matter of life or death.
We know the rising tide of mass shootings brings more pressure to respond, yet in a big-tent way that speaks to all Republican voters (and independents), and cancels the anti-gun crazies.
It’s not easy. So we’re offering some messaging recommendations to help everyone power through the liberal headlines and stay on track for the most important goal we all share, to inspire our loyal base and donors.
Demonstrate caring.
“Thoughts and prayers” is classic because it’s simple and still works.
Or try variations like Senator Ted Cruz and his wife “fervently lifting up in prayer the children and families.”
You want to give off that reflective, pious, Christian, Jesus-loving sensibility, even if it doesn’t come naturally and you never go to church except to be seen there.
“Our hearts go out” also works. Message: Republicans have hearts. This counters the lying Democrat fake narrative that Republicans care more about inanimate guns than living, breathing children.
Also underscore how you care more about children than the Socialist Democrats with their LGBTQ+ pedophile grooming and teaching white children to hate themselves. Yet avoid getting drawn into a discussion about how Republicans care more about the unborn than the born. It’s not a winner.
Express outrage.
At the alleged shooter, sure, but most of all, be outraged at the anti-gun Democrats and their mainstream media sycophant stenographers.
Feel free to take political advantage of the shootings by accusing the Democrats of taking political advantage of the shootings. Variations of Tucker Carlson’s “Biden desecrated the memory of murdered children with tired DNC talking points” test well with Fox viewers, our base.
You can also nitpick the Democrat response with semantics. When “Vice President” Kamala Harris said, “When we talk about the children of the community, they are a children of the community,” RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel completely owned Kamala by tweeting, “Wrong. Parents are the primary stakeholders in their children’s future.”
Don’t mention the firearms!
They’re obviously not the culprit. They’re merely inanimate objects that American families need to protect their children from Democrat crime and Antifa-BLM burning down our cities.
You can also turn the tables by declaring it’s the Democrats who pulled the triggers with their illegal gun laws that make it harder for good guys with guns to stop bad guys with guns.
Also cite Democrat police defunding, criminal coddling, and open-border policies that flood America with criminals. (Try, “If guns are illegal, only illegals will have guns.”) Or blame drugs, mental illness, lack of Christian family values, unarmed teachers, and even Tony Fauci for his coronavirus lockdowns, like Mr. Carlson did.
Warning: If AR-15s or similar are involved, do not use the Democrat anti-gun nomenclature calling them military-grade, assault-style semiautomatic weapons that “spray bullets.” They’re simply rifles that can fire many rounds quickly, and popular with law-abiding citizens.
Yet avoid getting drawn into a discussion about how mass shooters were law-abiding enough under our current gun freedoms to get their guns, then they weren’t law-abiding. More gun freedoms will make even more eventual mass shooters law-abiding until they aren’t. It’s not a winner.
Focus on solutions.
At all costs, avoid the popular universal background checks, red-flag laws, banning AR-15s, and other so-called “sensible gun laws.” Or declare the Democrat agenda won’t work; plus, it’s unconstitutional. Our talented legal team backs that up.
For a few alternate ideas, see the smash-cut hit-job video by an anti-gun liberal Democrat fake news group with 50 solutions proposed by our fellow patriots on Fox News.
The liberal video was intended to own us, but in fact, the 50 solutions are helpful. Use them as needed.
See the image above. The solutions range from arming school security guards, safety officers, administrators, teachers and staffers, to installing better, higher fences, locked doors and bulletproof glass, promoting Judeo-Christian values and returning to God, raising kids properly, and fighting the anti-police narrative.
Our loyal firearms industry really likes #49: “Arm yourself everywhere.”
Keep it simple.
Do not overestimate our constituency. Most aren’t as educated as we are.
But as our former president expressed, we love the uneducated. And they hate educated people, so keep your intelligence to yourself.
Don’t use proven facts and logic, dive into the details of gun policy, or walk through your position. Less is more; more is quicksand.
Stick with attacking the liberal Socialist Democrats and their evil conspiracy to disarm America, take over the country, and cancel our Constitutional right to defend our liberty and our children.
That’s what our base constituents want to hear. That’s all you need tell them.
Above all, don’t attempt a clever sound bite, like one of our colleagues who said, “There’s no silver bullet.”
When in doubt, follow #43, “Don’t talk about the shooting.”
More mass shootings will come and go.
Our core constituents don’t really care—it’s the price to protect our rights; freedom isn’t free.
Other Americans will move on and forget, or go numb.
So let’s not overreact to the liberal mainstream media headlines hyping the shootings to pull on people’s heartstrings for the Democrat Socialist agenda.
Instead, let’s keep our powder dry and eyes on the prize: Protecting America’s freedom to protect our guns. We have most of the states, a U.S. Supreme Court majority, and coming this fall, the U.S. Congress. They’re all backing us up. Then in 2024, we’ll have the White House!
Help our leaders help us — and keep us free! And feel free to contribute whatever you can.
Jeffrey Denny is a Washington writer.
