In defense of incivility

President Trump himself is 10 times more uncivil than any DSA protester. He’s a man who has boasted about sexual assault on tape, who threatens to jail his political opponents, who lies with practically every breath, who makes a mockery of deliberative democracy, and who is more publicly coarse and rude than any president since Andrew Johnson. And because he is the most powerful person on Earth, that incivility is 10,000 times more influential than any lefty protester on Earth.

I can see why this moment in history is upsetting to people who strongly value a politics of moderation and respectful dialogue. But when the party in power is doing evil, terrible things, there is going to be a political reaction. For people whose families are being ripped apart, or their water poisoned, or their health insurance snatched away, politics is not a parlor game. If electoral pathways are currently not available — because the next election is some months hence, or the legislature has been rigged through gerrymandering and voter ID laws, or people simply have no congressional representation at all — that political force is going to flow another way. It’s ridiculous to expect otherwise.