An angry group gathered outside the house of Minnesota journalist Liz Collin and beat a pinata made in her image until it burst open. At least it had candy inside it.
Back in May, opponents of Democratic Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear took to a tree in front of the governor’s mansion and hanged him in effigy.
Federal officers sent to Portland had their personal information leaked online, giving mobs the chance to track down them and their families. Local officers have been similarly doxxed, Portland Deputy Police Chief Chris Davis said.
Activists coalesced at the doorstep of Minnesota State Sen. Warren Limmer to let him know that “we’re here, we’re lit, we’re taking over this shit.” One voice said over a loudspeaker, “We’re speaking peacefully,” as a shirtless man knocked on the front door and welcomed Limmer outside. They took turns yelling at his house for at least an hour and 40 minutes.
Protesters gathered similarly outside the home of Chad Wolf, who is acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. “We must make it uncomfortable for them,” a woman said, standing in the street. “We will not be good Germans.”
In another American city — it is unclear where — street marchers gathered at an establishment where patrons were sitting outside. “You can put your ice cream down for five seconds and give us respect,” a young woman yelled through a horn. She proceeded to turn on a siren as others beat on metal pans, running several of the patrons off.
What we have been seeing for the past several months is a level of indecency and aggression that betrays any sense of national kinship that remains, all in the name of righting injustices. The screaming, the swearing, the veiled and unveiled threats are completely base, emotive, and unconvincing. Being yelled at through a loudspeaker is not welcoming. It does not make anyone want to engage. Those kinds of strategies are sure to have a 100% fail rate.
We could probably implicate Saul Alinksy first, but the strategies on display are akin to the more recent and less-than-virtuous proposal put forth by Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters, who suggested in 2018 that people harass Trump Cabinet members. Get out, create a crowd at gasoline stations and restaurants, and you push back at them, she said. People did it. Now, they are doing it at individual residences, too.
The behavior extends beyond these instances to the more malign: arson, theft, property damage, physical violence, assault against police. It is argumentum ad distruptem. More than that, it is a disruption of what once in the civic realm was sacred: homes, businesses, communities, physical health. If the social contract has any substance at all, it surely includes a provision that not all kinds of behavior are permissible, no matter the cause, no matter the level of anger.
Theodore Dalrymple wrote some compelling words for New Criterion that are worth considering:
The disturbers of the peace fancy themselves as disturbers for the peace, justifying their actions by raising the stakes, and it feels righteous. If life in America really is no better than it was in 1849, or 1905, or 1958, then all behaviors would seem worth permitting, even encouraging. Maybe it really would be worth starting over.
As Peter Augustine Lawler wrote, “Revolutions always do great harm, and only under extraordinarily oppressive circumstances can they reasonably be expected to do more good than harm.” Today is hardly 1776. Now is hardly 1860. It is not worth starting over.
