ONLY IN THEIR WEST WING/NPR FANTASIES: Does the Left Lose because It’s Too Civil?

We’re still endlessly debating how we “got Trump” in 2016. But one of the chief reasons is that many Republicans — down to the very marrow of their bones — believed that the GOP had been “too nice,” and that nominating gentlemen like Mitt Romney meant that the party was unilaterally disarming in a no-holds-barred political war. There is still deep rage at the way in which lefties who allegedly yearn for civility painted Romney as a greedy, racist monster who was indifferent to cancer deaths and sought to put African Americans “back in chains.”

No, Democrats aren’t losing because they’re “too nice” or because they yearn for dialogue. The better explanation is that they’re losing in part because their own incivility and rage drive millions of Americans to the polls to vote in perceived self-defense. Their own incivility and rage falsely escalate too many political disputes to matters of life and death. What’s the argument after claiming that Republicans are intentionally killing people? Is there a rhetorical step beyond that?

No, the next step is physical violence, and we’ve seen plenty of that from the left over the past year, up to and including, as the Daily Caller noted in August, “Bernie Bro James T. Hodgkinson, Attempted Assassin Of Steve Scalise, Already Being Erased From History.”