This is a good question, and a complicated one. A few thoughts...
First, I think it's crucial to distinguish on both moral and strategic grounds between different kinds of combativeness. What Maxine Waters called for, for instance, falls far short of Trump's day-in-day-out provocations.
I'm not calling for the left to act like Trump. I don't think anyone of any significance on the left is acting like Trump, or is likely to.
That being said, though, I don't see much support in election results or polling for the idea that the American people are currently yearning for civility. There's a lot of us yearning for decency, and a lot of us repudiating Trump, but civility? Where's the evidence?
I think it's also important to question who's paying attention to what happens to Sarah Sanders, or to what Maxine Waters says, five months out from a midterm election.
Short answer: "Not swing voters." It's mostly partisans who care about this stuff, and I see no reason to give a damn what partisans on the right think about it.
As for partisans on the left, I'd be shocked to learn that this kind of thing was going to depress Dem turnout in the fall. My gut tells me the opposite is true, both directly and indirectly, although my gut is admittedly biased.
But ultimately, I think the effect of this kind of confrontation of Trump officials isn't going to be felt at the ballot box. If it's felt at all, it'll be in helping to spark mobilization of people on the left for other kinds of direct action in coming months.
I want to see marches. I want to see blockades of ICE centers. I want to see mass protests outside admin officials' homes. I want to see people sitting down in front of buses taking kids from their parents. I want to see people putting their bodies against the gears.
And yes, I think that Sarah Sanders getting asked to leave a restaurant makes that other stuff more likely to happen. And yes, I think that's a good thing.
