America Is Backsliding Toward Its Most Polluted Era

My brother wrote about this (and I won't pretend to understand the nuances).

This project explores the changing meaning of hunting in American political and cultural life from 1945 to the present by mapping the evolution of the ideas, vocabulary, and values legible on the pages of nationally circulated outdoor magazines. These sources suggest that huntingÆs public significance transformed in both character and intensity over the second half of the twentieth century. In the immediate postwar decades, the political culture forged and propagated in these magazines reflected a faith in government, in collective engagement, and in public life. However, in the 1970s, the ideas and principles articulated by many hunters and outdoor writers increasingly privileged individual rights, questioned the utility of state action, and defended private prerogatives. Concurrently, the degree to which hunting gave shape to the identity of American sportsmen heightened dramatically during this pivotal decade.

https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/4613/

Randall Williams is your brother? He’s one of my favorites from the Meateater crew. Thanks for sharing his dissertation, I’ve been meaning to check it out at some point.

I didn't read the paper, but this sounds very familiar and similar to the change in the NRA.

Pre 1970s the NRA was very much a hobby gun club meant mostly to keep american boys/men using guns for war readiness, along with promoting hunting/outdoor recreation. Then, in the 1970s, the NRA changed tune. After a big leadership shakeup the organization became very proactive in promoting anti-government, 2nd amendment, and "patriot" ideals. This likely stems from the Nixon impeachment, wherein republicans felt "wronged" and actively started seeking out revenge.

The federalist society was also born out of this same period and sentiment. The sentiment is that nixon's impeachment was a hit job. That's when we saw the advent of conservative media and the idea that "emotions are more important than fact" started to get some traction.

There's a great This American Life episode on the NRA's transformation from a hobby group to a lobbying group. I think this is it, https://radiolab.org/podcast/radiolab-presents-more-perfect-... . Great episode, highly recommend. It really puts the whole 2a movement into perspective.

What all these analysis are missing is that the 1970s was a time of substantial government growth. These organizations all pivoted to pushing back against government because their customers (dues paying members) were deeply concerned about government. State governments were doing the same made possible by federal spending.

And today they are all for a strong government which includes them. Dd they change ideals, were their ideals dropped on the way, were they not really against government from the beginning?

They evolved over time to focus on the MVP of their original product - “winning” / making sure that no republican president is ever going to be impeached

Sort of like the people who were protesting the Iraq war, but had no problem with Obama intervening militarily in Libya in 2011. Did they change their ideals, were their ideals dropped, or did they just stop caring when the news stopped doing daily middle east body counts after January 20th 2009?