I have yet to see an op-ed calling for Republicans to be civil, to tone down the rhetoric, to moderate their stance. It's just accepted that they do what they do. Fine. But tone-policing the Dems and hand-wringing about civility is the rhetorical equivalent of victim-blaming
I mean, there are kiddie concentration camps in Texas, McConnell has broken the Senate, and there's a rightist putsch underway in the judiciary, but God forbid someone yell at congressmen in a restaurant or talk about single-payer health care, because that just leads to anarchy!
"While we appreciate that Dr. King has a dream, we worry that his critique of segregation is harsh enough to upset Sheriff Connor and thus hurt his movement's prospects. This 'march on Washington' is simply too confrontational to be effective."
Democracy doesn't die in the dark, it dies in broad daylight, strangled by false-equivalence sophistry from the self-appointed arbiters of discourse.
Calls for civility are no more than demands for deference, or silence.
