The violent mobs on the right are pretty easy to find. Sometimes they are shouting about blood and soil, or whining about how they can't get jobs because they don't know how to fucking read, or they're scared to go to the bathroom, or... whatever. They violently assault minorities, anyone who challenges them, worship people who violently assault reporters or call for it (like Trump and Gianforte), and generally make us wonder why we didn't just let the south secede. (Try it now! Please! Go away!)
As hypocritical as Donny is, though, there are angry mobs on the left. The restaurant confrontation thing is real. The latest target was none other than Mitchy-Poo McConnell. If you haven't seen this one, here's the link. I know, this is the first, and hopefully the last time I link to TMZ, but I do try to link to the original source when possible. This kind of thing has happened to Ted Cruz, Sarah Huckabee Pathological Liar-Sanders, and it'll keep happening wherever a Republican tries to eat a meal in public. Was Mitchy ever in any physical danger? No. Nobody was blooding-or-soiling him, although maybe soiling all over him is something I could support. As I have written before, when the epitaph for American democracy is written, it will say, "Murdered in cold blood by Mitch McConnell."
Angry mobs. There is an asymmetry here. One side really is violent, and the other side is just being jerky. However, this is a part of a general breakdown in the polity.
Here's a speech question. When does a speaker bear responsibility for the actions taken by the audience? Incitement to violence is a real thing, but you have to go pretty far to get to that point. The First Amendment has broad protections. Far more expansive than those in, for example, European democracies. Hate speech is, for example, constitutionally protected here. Note that I am about as much of a free speech absolutist as you can find. Yet, I'll never call an African-American the n-word. I won't even type it. I'll never call a woman a slut. I'll never call a gay person a fag. I'll type those latter two words, partially because the context is a refusal to use those words on their own, partially because they are not as toxic as the n-word, and partially because typing "the s-word," sounds like a reference to "shit," and I have no problem with the word, "shit," and typing, "the f-word," sounds like a reference to, "fuck," and I have no problem with the word, "fuck." I must type these words in order to make clear which words I am referencing, so anyone feigning offence at the fact that I typed them here is full of fucking shit. I will not, however, call such people the n-word, s-word or f-word. I have fuckin' standards.
However, as noxious as those slurs are, their usage is constitutionally protected. Being a reprehensible piece of fucking shit isn't always illegal, and some methods of being a reprehensible piece of fucking shit are constitutionally protected. "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech." There's nothing in there about words you really don't like. Yes, people have tried to argue that the words, "no law," don't really mean, "no law," but those people are either idiots or moral cowards, and I have no use for such people. No law. Two words. Add the space, and it is a total of six characters. Which of those six characters is unclear, motherfucker? In binary, you can even count that on one hand! (Granted, in binary, you can count pretty high on one hand, but anyone too stupid to understand the phrase, "no law," is probably lost by now anyway. Still, I got in a binary counting joke!)
In order to get to incitement to riot, or something like that, you have to be able to draw a very strong, direct connection between a specific speech, and a specific group of people rioting in a specific place at a specific time. The bar is high. Why? "No law." You can be held accountable for the consequences of your speech, but the speech itself cannot be prohibited. That's how the law works.
Now, why is everything in our polity turning into a dumpster fire? Donald Trump is a big part of it. So is Mitchy-Poo, but Trump's rhetoric is violent. Regularly. His rhetoric is racist, misogynist, authoritarian at least, and frequently borderline fascist. When you promise to pay the legal bills of anyone who assaults protesters at your rallies, praise a guy who assaults a journalist, and so forth, you are encouraging violence. Donald Trump degrades everyone and everything.
Legally, has he crossed any lines of incitement? No. Sorry, fellow Trump-opponents, but he hasn't.
Morally and ethically, who is responsible? Anyone who commits any act of violence is responsible for their actions. You are responsible for your own actions. Always and forever. That's critical to First Amendment law. The speaker is not responsible for making you do what you do. You are. However, speakers are influential. And those who do not consider the impact of what they say and do are behaving in immoral and unethical ways too.
The point is that in moral and ethical terms, this isn't a dichotomy. It isn't a question of placing the blame on one or the other. Legally, the system assumes individual autonomy, and thereby assumes that whoever commits the crime takes the blame. However, if you tell your followers that the press is the enemy of the people, that you will pay the legal bills of anyone who assaults protesters, and all of the other things that Trump says to encourage his followers to be an angry, violent mob, then he does bear moral culpability for the degradation he has caused. Legally, when his followers beat up protesters during the 2016 campaign, it was his brownshirts who were responsible, but morally and ethically, Trump had blood on his blood-and-soil hands.
And Mitchy? His rhetoric does not compare to Trump. However, nobody in the history of this country has done more to degrade the rule of law and small-d democratic norms than Mitch McConnell. Does he bear responsibility for public fury? The guy who took his doggy bag cost him some money. Based on my knowledge of the law, that's probably a misdemeanor, but as for the anger directed at him, does Mitchy deserve to be treated with respect? What is the proper response to a man who spends every day of his career undermining small-d democratic norms and the rule of law? Do you get to appeal to the rule of law when you work so hard to protect a criminal president from any investigation or consequences of his misdeeds? Rule of law has to work both ways.
Angry mobs are real. There is a "paradox of news" effect going on here, though. Remember what I call "the paradox of news." If a phenomenon is common, it doesn't get news attention. If it is rare, it gets covered, so you think it is normal, which is the opposite of the truth. These angry mob phenomena are unusual events, but they are indicative of degrading norms in the country. Negative partisanship, and blah, blah, blah. Who bears responsibility? Legally, whoever commits any individual act bears responsibility for that act. Morally and ethically, the people who have degraded the system bear responsibility too.
The two worst? Those would be Trump and McConnell. Trump for his rhetoric, and McConnell for his systematic campaign to destroy small-d democratic governing norms. Tracing back through history, I'd add Newt Gingrich and a few others, but right now, Trump and McConnell are the biggest problems in the political system in that they are the two most destructive individuals actively working right now.
Do you fight an angry mob by being polite and civil? Yeah, good luck with that. The result of two groups in escalating states of anger and mob mentality? Do I have to spell it out for you? Right now, the "angry mobs" are the exceptions rather than the rules, but the direction of movement is, shall we say, discouraging.
