Speaking at a Manhattan fundraiser, then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton boiled down the 2016 presidential election into a simple scenario. On one side, you had the Trump supporters, the “basket of deplorables,” the “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic — you name it.” And on the other, you had the normal voters: the Democrats.
This moment became one of the election’s watersheds. And it inspired a new fervor among President Trump’s base because it confirmed what many voters had long suspected: establishment politicians are elitist, out-of-touch, and negligent.
It seems Virginia Democrats didn’t learn from Clinton’s 2016 mistake. The state is currently embroiled in a contentious debate about gun control and whether Richmond has the right to limit the rights of gun owners in the rest of the state. At a public meeting in Fairfax County this weekend, one Democratic state senator stood up and declared that Second Amendment supporters are “little kids” who ought to be ignored.
Sen. Dave Marsden then sent a follow-up letter to his constituents and said “too many” Second Amendment supporters in the state “appear to have mental health issues.”
“A significant number of these things were indicative of very unstable people, and this is worrisome,” Marsden explained during a radio interview. “The responses I was getting were from people who showed signs of having mental health difficulties.”
Virginia is already divided. Seventy-five of its 96 counties have declared themselves Second Amendment “sanctuaries” in response to the state legislature’s proposed gun control legislation, and nearly 100,000 Virginian gun owners have organized at county and town meetings across the state to make themselves heard. Dismissing their legitimate concerns, as Marsden did, is not just counterproductive; it’s political suicide.
Democrats might have won both of the state’s legislative chambers in November, but they still govern a people largely divided on the issue of gun control. As of October, 47% of Virginia voters supported candidates in favor of gun control, and 44% opposed them. That’s a tight margin, which means Democrats can’t afford to ignore the other half of the debate if they hope to keep their majority for long.
The only way to grow support for gun control is to convince gun owners that it’s necessary. Marsden certainly isn’t doing that. Instead, he’s resorting to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 tactic by discrediting and dismissing the concerns of Second Amendment supporters with disdain. The political consequences of this strategy can be severe. Clinton learned that the hard way. And now it seems Marsden will, too.
