The New Incivility : "Playing With Fire"
THERE IS A YAWNING LEGAL AND MORAL GAP between First Amendment–protected activity, no matter how angry and boisterous, and a true mob.
That the mainstream media pretends otherwise doesn’t make it any less true. In the last few days, the media has rationalized and minimized genuinely menacing, troubling left-wing mob action.
Screaming protesters picketing on a sidewalk are in a fundamentally different position from screaming protesters who invade private property to chase a senator from his meal. Angry demonstrators chanting in front of the Supreme Court are different from people who break police cordons and pound on its doors. Handmaids silently mourning the birth of Gilead are not the same as men and women who disrupt Senate hearings and votes.
Legally protected protest is safe. It’s consistent with the best traditions of American dissent. It’s truly what “democracy looks like.” Mob action, by contrast, is dangerous. It creates imminent risk of personal harm. It’s designed to frighten and intimidate. There is no place for the mob in a constitutional republic.
It is a simple fact that prominent Democratic politicians and left-wing activists are making dangerous calls for direct action, and it’s a simple fact that #Resistance protesters are crossing dangerous lines. If leading members of the media cannot recognize the risks, then they deserve the public’s distrust. If Democrats keep stoking those fires, then they don’t deserve the public’s votes.
It’s time for Democrats — and members of the media — to dial back the rhetoric. It’s time to stop excusing, rationalizing, and minimizing behavior that is dangerous, menacing, and threatening. When public disorder threatens, and when we’re one wayward shove or impulsive shot from a truly ugly moment, it’s imperative for the people who aspire to lead to shed their preferred narratives and unite behind a single, common idea: Dissent, yes. Mobs, no.
FULL ARTICLE
