Marcus claims no one violated Trump’s right to free speech by disrupting the rally, that it would have been safe for him to appear on stage. Maybe so. But anyone who read accounts of the protests—or of the protests the next day in Kansas City—knows that their purpose was to disrupt the event and force its cancellation.

Marcus claims that those trying to paint Trump as the victim are engaged in “spurious nonsense of the worst kind.” But there is of course an even worse kind of spurious nonsense, and it begins by conflating high-minded notions about competitive free speech and “the marketplace of ideas” with mob action.

After seven and-a-half years of feeling bullied by the Obama administration on everything from gay marriage to the IRS targeting scandal to the habitual use of the executive branch to harass political enemies, it’s understandable that conservatives might be tempted to adopt strong-arm tactics to silence their political enemies and gain back lost ground. Every time an angry mob shuts down institutions or disrupts the rule of law, voices on the Right murmur about the need to fight fire with fire.