Groping for answers to Donald Trump’s victory, the mainstream media piled onto a new theme on election night: That whites with no college education had turned out to push him over the top (the unspoken subtext being that he won only with the support of ignorant rednecks, a thought that comforts liberal media elites).
On Wednesday morning, nbcnews.com advanced this theory by posting an analysis crediting rural voters for electing Trump. Co-author Chuck Todd, to his credit, was the only pundit to give a nod to the NRA on election night, but by Wednesday he was back to ignoring the power of gun owners.
The truth is that Hillary Clinton thought she could ride gun control all the way into the Oval Office—and the media voiced their full-throated approval. Millions of NRA members rose up in defiance of the media and defeated Hillary, and ignoring this achievement won’t change the facts—no matter how many of those who tipped the scales live in rural areas.
