Get a grip, Joe, you timorous mouse of a man. But that’s just a joke. I know you’re not really concerned about “civil discourse” in the abstract. You’re annoyed that the people have started paying attention and are not sitting back in awed reverence like the most confused and cowed first grader watching that nice man on TV. You thought that when the Democrats won — “I won!” — they’d be able to roll up their preferences into 1000-page bundles and there wouldn’t be anything people could do about it. But — lo and behold! — they used speech, free speech, they spoke their minds, sometimes harshly and with hot emotion, but they got themselves heard. If you think that is “heading toward a cliff” without “the usual brakes,” then I say you don’t believe in a free democratic society.