“How did politics get like this?” It’s one of those questions that, though its precise meaning is obscured, nevertheless suggests its subject matter plainly. What is meant by “this”? How did it get like what, precisely?

In today’s context, it is likely to mean: How did politics get so unpleasant? That might refer to the astonishingly crude rhetoric exchanged between President Trump and his detractors. But it also applies to the behavior, not just to the words, of the #Resistance. When did it become accepted practice for left-wing militants to barrack conservatives in restaurants and hound them as they try to get to their cars? Where did members of the screaming mob hammering on the Supreme Court door learn that this was the way to oppose confirmation of a qualified justice against whom flimsy falsehoods had been leveled? Who taught social-justice warriors that free speech was a problem rather than the foundation of liberal democracy and that people without “woke” opinions should be denied the chance of being heard?