"YOU DON'T hand matches to an arsonist, and you don't give power to an angry left-wing mob," President Trump tweeted this month. "Democrats have become too EXTREME and TOO DANGEROUS to govern."
Republicans have found themselves unable to gain traction on the issues. Neither their budget-busting tax cut nor their efforts to blow up Obamacare have proved as popular as they expected. So they have seized on a new and despicable tactic three weeks from Election Day: arguing that Democrats are an angry horde bent on destroying people. This is more or less direct a quotation from the president, the Senate majority leader and a host of other Republicans.
"The Democrats are willing to do anything, to hurt anyone, to get the power they so desperately crave," Trump said last week. "They want to destroy," he added.
Republicans conjure images of activists screaming at lawmakers during the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation proceedings, rude behavior they inflate into a mortal threat to the republic and only a small taste of what Democrats want to do. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said last week that "only one side was happy to play host to this toxic fringe behavior." He continued: "They haven't seen enough. They want more. And I'm afraid this is only Phase One of the meltdown."
The conservative media has nodded along approvingly, even invoking the 2017 shooting of House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., and warning that Democrat-fueled lawbreaking is on the way.
It is one thing to oppose, as we have opposed, the hounding of public servants as they go about their lives with their families. It is a mistake, in our view, both ethically and as a political matter, for Democrats to vow to match Trump in his rudeness. But neither the small number of people who heckled Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, in a restaurant nor former attorney general Eric Holder's recent misguided recommendation to fight dirty come anywhere close to justifying Republicans' decision to demonize and delegitimize an entire political party.
It is, of course, more than a bit rich for Republicans to be criticizing Democrats for their tone. It is not even a decade since they were happy to benefit from boiling tea party rage at President Barack Obama. During the 2016 election, Trump at times encouraged violence.
But the main point here is not the hypocrisy. Democracy can work if citizens can view the opposition as patriots such as themselves who happen to disagree, perhaps fervently, about the issues of the day. It cannot work if citizens view one another as enemies. Trump's desperate efforts to salvage an election by turning the opposition into enemies - and the pathetic willingness of his party to follow along - is another dangerous escalation in his assault on essential democratic norms.
Commentary on 10/17/2018