Liberal opinion writer E.J. Dionne, Jr. of the Washington Post thinks so.  He writes that the power and influence of the National Rifle Association has been broken.  What he serves up as proof is the 2018 election, the one where the Republicans under the inept leadership of Paul Ryan lost the House of Representatives.

It is worth considering Dionne's argument if for no other reason than to gain insight into the liberal mind.  After all, he speaks for many on the left, and to defeat the enemy it is necessary to know them.

Before he makes his case that the NRA is fading, Dionne takes the required swipe at those in flyover country, the structure of the U.S. Senate, and by implication the Electoral College.  He says:

And let's concede up front that the vast overrepresentation of rural states in the U.S. Senate tilts the system, undemocratically, towards those that claim that government is powerless to take meaningful steps against mass killings.  That fact that Wyoming and Idaho have as many as Senate votes as New York and California underscores the challenges that remain.

Interestingly, Dionne neglects to mention low-population blue states like Delaware, Vermont, Rhode Island each have as many Senate votes as to pro-NRA states like Texas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.  So much for objectivity.

Now, here is where Dionne gets down to business.  He tries to drag the NRA into the Russian collusion conspiracy theory that the Democrats and their lapdog media allies have bet the farm on.  He cites a Washington Post story where Maria Butina pleaded guilty of being an unregistered Russian agent.  This woman is said to have 'courted' NRA leaders. According to the WaPo, this: 

[H]as intensified questions about what the gun rights group knew of the Russian effort to shape U.S., policy, and whether it faces ongoing legal scrutiny.

Did you get that?  Is the NRA under the federal microscope for possible involvement for colluding with Russia?  To further augment this damning implied accusation, Dionne writes:

"NRA spending on the 2016 election surged in every catagory."  The bulk of this money went to supporting Donald Trump. As the Post journalists wrote, the key question – which is being posed openly by Democrats but is no doubt of interest to prosecutors – is "whether the group's spending spike was ties to its Russian connections."

I have little confidence that it dawns on the readers of this propaganda that 2016 was a major presidential election, and all special interest groups pulled out all the stops for their candidates.  But why should facts matter if they get in the way of the Democrats' fondest wish of siccing Witch-Hunter Robert Mueller on the NRA.  That would be a two-fer for the left.  Tie up the NRA in legal nonsense, thus distracting it from protecting our Second Amendment rights, while adding another log to fuel the Russian collusion conspiracy myth.

The NRA is under incessant attack from Democrats and the Democrat media.  But is it dying?  Is its influence waning?  I think not.  The fact is the National Rifle Association is actually the foremost civil rights organization in America.  Its success relies not on donations to candidates but by informing and activating its five million members to vote.  By recklessly trying to tie the NRA in with the ongoing Mueller soap opera could well increase NRA's membership and strengthen the organization's resolve.  If not, the country is in deep do-do.  The 1st and 2nd Amendments are the foundation of our freedom, and as such, both are hated by the left.