The DC establishment stood with Rep. Tony Gonzales for as long as they thought they could get away with it. It opposed Brandon Herrera completely. It's standing with Sen. John Cornyn now, despite his support for our gun rights while also spearheading the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.
Because, at the end of the day, the establishment doesn't give a damn about gun rights.
Everywhere you look, pro-gun candidates are opposed by the establishment, all so they can support squishy incumbents, but the truth is that more and more gun rights supporters are seeing it for what it is.
Texas gun owners have spent years watching Senator John Cornyn side with the gun confiscation lobby in Washington.
From helping pass the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act — the largest federal gun control bill in decades — to expanding the federal gun ban registry through Fix NICS, Cornyn has repeatedly worked with Democrats to advance policies that threaten the Second Amendment.
Biden even thanked him from the Rose Garden for it.Now, according to reports out of Washington, Cornyn is once again placing political leverage ahead of the American people.
Sources say Cornyn has been involved in stalling key parts of President Trump’s agenda, including recess appointments needed to install pro-Trump officials in the federal government and legislation such as the SAVE America Act, which would require proof of citizenship to vote.
But Cornyn is not operating alone.
The effort reportedly involves Senate Majority Leader John Thune and establishment Republicans in Washington who are determined to keep Cornyn in the Senate.
For the Washington political class, preserving their power structure appears to be the priority — even if it means slowing down the agenda that millions of grassroots conservatives supported.
The Establishment’s Candidate
The push to protect Cornyn reportedly includes figures within the Republican political establishment as well as individuals close to President Trump’s political operation, including Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita.
To grassroots conservatives and Second Amendment supporters, this is exactly the kind of insider maneuvering that has frustrated voters for years.
While Washington insiders work to preserve their influence, gun owners are left asking a simple question:
Why is the political class working so hard to protect the Republican most responsible for advancing Biden-era gun control?
The answer to that is that the political class will almost always side with one of their own over an upstart. The only time they won't is when it's clear that the incumbent cannot win. That's it.
Cornyn is getting the official backing of the swamp because he's one of them. They're going to back one another, not out of some idea of loyalty, but because they know if they don't, they might be the next on the chopping block.
With Cornyn, as we saw with Gonzales, what mattered was that the person in office had an "R" after their name. It doesn't matter what they do, just so long as they're on the right team, and if they're an incumbent, then they're assured of party support from now until the end of time, regardless of how terrible they are on pesky things like gun rights.
When people complain that gun rights advocates are too purist, the truth is that we have to be, because if we don't, the GOP establishment will ignore us entirely.
As it is, they ignore us more than they probably should.
They're rallying around Herrera here and now only because they have no choice if they want to hold onto the TX-23 seat. They'll rally around Cornyn until and unless Attorney General Ken Paxton beats him in the primary, then they'll switch their allegiances.
I get that part.
What bothers me, though, is that they'll back someone terrible on gun rights or anything else until the end of their days without a care for anything so long as they're wearing the right team's jersey.
It's time to kick a little booty, take a few names, and remind the political forces out there that we're still here, we still care about our gun rights, and that we will not be ignored.
