Mobs, Civility, and Lawlessness

            Three words reverberate in our public discourse these days: mob, civility, and lawlessness.

            Commentators on the right accuse the left of inciting mob violence, while the left responds that there are no mobs, only protestors exercising their rights of free speech. Perhaps the screamers at the Kavanaugh confirmation hearing and from the Senate gallery during the voting thought they were doing just that, but those screamers lacked the one quality that could have commanded respect for their opinions: civility.

            Hillary (can’t she just go away?) chimed in last week that civility won’t be restored until the Democrats regain control of Congress. Was she suggesting that the right is uncivil, or was she threatening that Democrats would continue to incite mob lawlessness until the loons on the left outvote the deplorables on the right?

            It is true that President Trump rallies his frenzied base with his intemperate speeches and tweets. But his followers were not the ones harassing Republican senators outside their offices, in  elevators, or commuting to work; they were not the ones banging on the doors of the Supreme Court on Justice Kavanaugh’s first day on the bench; they were not the ones following Maxine Waters’ orders to confront Trump supporters in restaurants, gas stations, and supermarkets; they certainly were not the ones wearing masks while breaking windows and setting fires to prevent conservatives from speaking at universities.

            I don’t know if the “Kavanaugh effect” will be enough to prevent the Blue Wave from gaining control of the House or the Senate in the upcoming elections. But I don’t think Democrats have been helping their cause. George Melloan recently said it best: “It is not a good omen when leaders of a major party and its adherents in the press seem to justify lawlessness simply because they don’t like the president the country elected.” Amen.