The NRA for awhile now is about making that whore Lapierre money. He'll take any dick willing to pay. it just so happens that the sleaze on the right has far more johns.
We shouldn't make the mistake of thinking that there is any kind of actual political or philosophical reason for the ass-licking Wayne likes to provide. He's just a whore and renewable energy doesn't pay - probably because it's not trying to fuck people over.
The real story here is that La Pierre was a nothing before he and the board agreed they needed a PR firm to run the fund-raising. That firm was Ackerman-McQueen, and they took La Pierre and made him a demagogue-like spokesman, training him in all the ways to stir people up, ghost-writing books for him to put his name on, building him into this hero image that convinced an awful lot of people. He was a crap public speaker until they got him coaches who pretty much tore his poor skills to shreds and re-trained him.
This relationship made La Pierre look good enough that his salary kept getting raised, while he essentially let Ackerman-McQueen take over running the NRA, effectively signing over his duties and serving as a figurehead. As money rolled in, Ackerman-McQueen got a chunk of it under standard fund-raising practices, and since money rolling in equates to success in the eyes of most Americans, Ackerman-McQueen was allowed to take over more and more of the political side of things.
Many NRA members realized over two decades ago that something was fishy, especially when LaPierre, guided by the PR firm, declined to push issues that could have been won and would have firmed up the Second Amendment, instead spinning things into more appeals for more money. Two different reform movements over the years were smacked down, and after each one -- as well as after some membership-driven moves to change the by-laws to make the organization more responsive to its members -- the Board was persuaded to propose changes which actually put even more power into the hands of the executive vice president, which has been La Pierre so long that few NRA members remember anyone different. Over time it's been made difficult to get anyone not a crony of La Pierre elected to the Board, turning that into a decent rubber-stamp outfit that would just lap up whatever Ackerman-McQueen fed La Pierre as his lines for the day.
So while La Pierre has certainly sucked up whatever perks that could be wrangled from the Board, and gone overboard taking advantage of them as this all went to his head, the real story is an ad agency hired to manage fund-raising built a money machine that had little to do with actually defending the Second Amendment and quite a lot to do with milking what they regarded as an unstoppable cash cow. And what's happening now was described as the inevitable outcome by some of the reform elements twenty-five years ago.
If you actually sit down and talk to NRA members, the stereotype breaks down quickly. Most of them are not opposed to regulation, are not political zealots, and are actually interested in protecting wildlife and the environment. But that doesn't make good T.V. so you only ever see slavering trailer trash showing their ass in public in the most ignorant way possible.
The NRA is actually quite effective in the realm of "protecting wildlife and the environment"; one of the sub-organizations is dedicated to that. But that, along with the fact that the NRA has gotten awards for advancing gun safety from respected organizations, doesn't play well for the media, any more than the fact that the NRA trains police or supports suits defending the FIrst Amendment.
For a long time I've asked why the NRA people I know who are complaining about the political wing are still sending them money, I always hear that the NRA does other things - well, now we know, it's doing shit but taking the cash. It didn't start out that way, but when you spread your legs for dirty sleaze, you get the clap.
No, it's doing a lot --but no one looks at all the good things when the big event of the PR-driven machine is always focused on money.
