“As someone who served in the Trump White House, I witnessed the destruction & chaos firsthand,” Olivia Troye charges in a pinned post on X. “A second Trump term will bring more turmoil.
“As a lifelong Republican, I may not agree with Kamala Harris on everything, but I trust her to protect our freedoms, uphold the rule of law & provide steady leadership on the world stage,” Troye continues. “That’s why I’m voting for Kamala Harris,” Troye claims, adding a “#RepublicansforHarris” hashtag.
As someone who served in the Trump White House, I witnessed the destruction & chaos firsthand. A second Trump term will bring more turmoil. As a lifelong Republican, I may not agree with Kamala Harris on everything, but I trust her to protect our freedoms, uphold the rule of law…
— Olivia of Troye (@OliviaTroye) August 4, 2024
How she can make any of those claims with a straight face would be a mystery if it wasn’t already abundantly clear that everything she represents is based on deception. Case in point is her group’s very name.
“The California-based nonprofit 97Percent took its name from a debunked Quinnipiac poll that claimed 97% of Americans supported mandatory background checks,” Lee Williams wrote in a Second Amendment Foundation Investigative Journalism Project special report. “97Percent says it focuses on policies that both gun owners and non-gun owners support.”
What it says it does and what it does are two very different things. And it’s not like the idea for elites (in this case, “Tech founder, social entrepreneur and philanthropist” Adam Miller) to divide and conquer with fake grassroots groups is a new one, as this correspondent reported in a 2021 Firearms News exposé:
“We’ve seen it all before, Astroturf groups funded by elites that ostensibly spoke for ‘reasonable’ gun owners. 15-plus years ago, it was the American Hunters and Shooters Association, touted by idiotic “sporting use” type “gun writers” as representing “the middle ground.” What they didn’t tell their readers was that AHSA was bankrolled by Boston real estate developer John Rosenthal, founder of “Stop Handgun Violence,” … Their Board of Directors included honchos from Crime Guns Solutions, ex-BATF careerists who worked to give ammo to the gun maker lawsuits… AHSA had ties with a Democrat consulting group, DCS, whose clients included Nancy Pelosi and John Conyers. And their executive director was the aforementioned NRA lawyer Robert Ricker, who went from accusing those suing gun manufacturers to being in it for the money to helping sue gun makers.”
As circumstantial evidence that 97Percent is also a Potemkin Village funded by hidden hands that’s been designed to attract media amplification and create the illusion of widespread public support, its social media followings offer a clue. For a group that’s been around for years and enjoyed publicity puff pieces presented as “news” by major players like The Washington Post, as well as slick national advertising campaigns, it’s hardly unreasonable to expect they’d have attracted more than the 12.8K X and 10K Facebook followers they’ve amassed to date—with no indication as to how many of those are gun owners motivated by finding common ground solutions, as opposed to just Democrats.
But the deceptive campaign to look bigger than they are and present themselves as relevant to gun owners has continued, as documented by this correspondent in a series of follow-up articles on AmmoLand Shooting Sports News. The reports explored:
- How the 97Percent “Policy Roadmap” was just a ploy to advance citizen disarmament.
- How with four intolerable infringements the group was promoting under the guise of “commonsense gun safety.”
- How despite the spin about gun owner support, the group was bringing no one together.
- How a deceptive “petition” falsely claimed gun owner support.
There’s more weasel wording in 97Percent’s “Mission Statement” from its Candid/Guidestar profile, accompanying its IRS Forms 990:
TO REDUCE GUN VIOLENCE BY RAISING AWARENESS ABOUT GUN SAFETY AND GIVING VOICE TO THE VAST MAJORITY OF AMERICANS WHO SUPPORT PRAGMATIC APPROACHES TO REDUCING GUN-RELATED DEATHS IN AN OBJECTIVE AND NON-PARTISAN MANNER THROUGH VARIOUS JOINT VENTURES, ADVERTISEMENT CAMPAIGNS, SOCIAL MEDIA, AND OTHER MEDIUMS OF COMMUNICATION.
That’s a lot of horse offal to pitchfork through as there’s nothing “pragmatic” about swindling Americans out of their rights. The phony proposals that won’t do a thing to “reduce gun-related deaths” but will make the “law-abiding” more vulnerable and less free. But that’s not the biggest bit of misdirection. Saying they are “objective and non-partisan” is the biggest pile.
Sure, they have their share of Vichycons, ex-Pence aide Troye being a prime example. Not only did she endorse Joe Biden and cut ads for Republicans Against Trump before she backed Harris (after announcing serving in the Trump administration was the “honor of her life”), but White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany “dismissed [her] as a coward” describing her claims as “fabricated smears and flat-out lies,” and Retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, a national security advisor to Pence, said he fired her for cause and escorted her from the premises.
Betrayals by GOP turncoats is hardly new. AmmoLand has reported in detail on such destructive and hateful desertions before, including how subversive groups like the Lincoln Project and Defending Democracy Together are working to hand over control to Democrats, with everything that means for the right to keep and bear arms and for the Republic.
97Percent is cut from the same cloth, and it shouldn’t go unnoticed that its “advisory board” includes former NRA lobbyist Abra Belke. Gun owners have seen that before, too, notably including CCRKBA “Gun Rights Defender of the Month” Robert Ricker going to the dark side, Richard Feldman’s Ricochet: Confessions of a Gun Lobbyist, and more recently, Giffords darling, candidate for Montana governor, and former gun industry executive Ryan Busse.
It can’t go unsaid that by going full Tim Walz and promoting Kamala Harris for president, every one of these people, including former “stalwarts” like Gun Rights Policy Conference-attending Joe Walsh, former NRA endorsees Adam Kinzinger and Joe Scarborough and others, are helping to bring about the Democrat agendas on guns and on setting 30M+ illegal aliens on the “pathway to citizenship.”
Read what Democrats want to do about guns. And that’s just what they’ll admit for now.
Then look at Kamala’s record, and her threat to impose infringements via “executive actions.”
“Bipartisan” 97Percent and “Republican” Olivia Troye say, “That’s the common ground we build on.” It could also be the common ground those who demand surrender (or else) bury those who defy them in.
It’s fair to ask why some gun “influencers,” by appearing in the group’s panels, are in effect, legitimizing 97Percent with their followers — and will continue to do so unless they cut all ties and tell us why.
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.
“…NRA lawyer Robert Ricker”
How many more NRA lawyers are there besides this idiot & William Brewer, who are closeted 2A haters?!? As if there weren’t enough issues to justify nuking NRA from orbit!!
As for “Republicans” who support Commie Kamala, you’re not Republicans. You’re RINOs with a strong communist streak running right to your black hearts!
If it weren’t for the knowledge it would be taken as a sign of belief in communism and support for Harris, I’d put this on a t-shirt. I needed a smile this morning, thanks. Maybe make it into campaign signs and plant them on your neighbors’ lawns along side their one for Harris/Timmey. BTW folks, click on the image because there is another good one behind it.
No such thing as ” gun violence ” and Olivia Troye appears to be an idiot .
Key point for the uninitiated. Full disclosure: I never did a tour of duty in the puzzle palaces in DC. The closest I got was the school houses in Quantico. But here is the truth of the matter. Everything within 100 miles of the Washington Monument is corrupt. Everything. It is not only corrupt but it is corrupting. I saw this in my fellow Marines when they went from the Fleet Marine Force to DC. All of the sudden they became ever so much more knowledgable that we knuckle draggers who were actually out accomplishing the missions. The view from… Read more »
I’ve long believed that if Putin were to nuke Washington DC, he would be doing the American people a solid. I also suspect that he knows it, too!
To borrow from Obiwan Kenobi. “Washington, DC. You’ll never see a more wretched hive of scum and villainy!”
You’ve no doubt seen my meme, apparently.
And now Luke Skywalker can be seen at the DNC sitting in the congregation looking sour and demented like so many of the Democraps. Why do so many Democraps look like they hate themselves and everyone else? Could it be that their women are so ugly and vicious that no man dares risk his genitals to such creatures? And so the men turn to each other as do the women since the women can’t get a man to copulate with them? Never has an administration paraded their perverts so prominently as this one. Even Barry Sotero tried to hide the… Read more »
Leftist women are ugly because what lives in one’s heart will always rise to the surface. All that hate and misery adds up! And misery loves company, which is their pathological need to make everyone else miserable!
Bullshit! Not everything within 100 miles!! I’ve seen the weak fall and now to the demonrats and I’ve seen the strong stay strong. I will never give in to their bullshit and don’t appreciate the broad brush comment.
It’s easy to see how people could turn their back on the republicans because of one thing that has happened again and again. The buying of people to change their stance. Remember what bloomturd almost said when he Freidan slipped talking about working with prostitutes, oh I mean politicians. ” I never met a politician I couldn’t”. BUY was the word he hesitated on and didn’t finish. It seems the new game that has been going around since the Obummer administration is, be a strong 2nd amendment supporter so people like Soro’s and Bloomturd will buy you out for millions… Read more »
This should serve to prove that the Republican Party is not a Conservative Party nor is it a constitutional Conservative Party. The elites, the consultant and staffer classes are DC and state capital big government careerists. They do not reflect the values of the grass roots. The vast majority of my friends here in Mohave County AZ are conservative Republicans. They are a majority of the party in Arizona but we have our (declining) 15% who are McCain PROGRESSIVES who subscribe to policies straight out of the Woodrow Wilson era. Those folks party with the likes of Lil Mark Kelly… Read more »
The so called party of Lincoln was hatched in Wisconsin by avowed Marxists!
No money to the NRA until there is real reform. First, fire the anti gun Brewer Law firm. Two, fire all corrupt officers. Three, bring NRA into full compliance with all laws and regulations. Four, last but not least, end all financial abuse.
Then, we can consider donations.
Gun control groups are frauds, but this one pretends to be on the side of gun owners and fails at the fakery miserably.
The RINO’s coming out for the leftist gun-grabbers have a much better epithet attached to them: political whores. Got to wonder how much Soros and Bloomberg are paying them for servicing.
I concur. I refer to the people who vote Democrat because of the government handouts they receive as “vote whores.”
Interesting how many people are in this article with links to the NRA…
She is the emery within the republican party which has been infiltrated over the years. This women Troye represents what the deep state is and just how imbedded they are. Trumps team did him a disservice while he was president there are many more male female young old and all dangerous. Wipe the White House clean every member must go along with most all of the governments agency’s that are hiding places for shape shifters like this women. I am sadden by what the republican party has become in a way they are now worse then the democrats in their… Read more »
Treason writ large.
we’re gonna see how dumb “Americans” really are
Don’t forget zombies. They “vote” a lot too.