Rep Maxine Waters Calls for Political Violence

Does She Know Where This Leads?

Democratic congresswoman Maxine Waters, calling for attacks on the Trump administration at a rally in Los Angeles Saturday: “If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them, and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.”

How exactly does Maxine Waters think this is going to shake out?

Does she think this tactic will be used only by leftist protesters, only against Trump cabinet officials, and that in no circumstance will “pushing back at them” lead to violence against those targeted individuals? Does she think that there is no possible scenario where the security details assigned to protect cabinet officials from harm respond to threatening behavior with force? Does she think that there’s a scenario where the cabinet officials, the president, and his supporters in general decide that because so many leftists are angry, they had better change their minds and their policies?

Does she envision a near-future where Trump and the Right in general avoid policy proposals that offend or anger Leftists, out of a fear of being targeted for “pushback” that will make them unwelcome anywhere?

The only counter-evidence for these scenarios is the entirety of human existence and the complete history of angry mobs. Angry mobs are not discerning or careful. They do not distinguish between their initial target and anyone who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Charles Murray described how an angry mob at Middlebury College attacked political-science professor Allison Stanger as she attempted to walk him to his car after a disrupted speech event.

Stanger disagrees with Murray politically — but the mob didn’t care; she was next to him and for that she got a concussion.

Angry mobs are not good for deterring a particular unwanted behavior. They are good for instilling fear and giving a lot of people an excuse to let out all of their antisocial or violent impulses with a thin patina of moral righteousness. “I’m not harassing and assaulting another human being, I’m standing up for human rights!” No doubt the man who tried to kill as many GOP congressmen as he could at the baseball field in Alexandria, Va., believed he was standing up for good causes and doing the right thing.

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