Somehow the events Wednesday made me think of the Beer Hall Putsch. It was almost comically inept and no one took it seriously. Hitler was only sentenced to 5 years in minimum security jail for treason and was released after 8 months. You look back at it now and think how could they have been so stupid as to release him.
Likewise the events now. Trump should have been removed from office years ago. He is still there. After sending a mob to the capital to punish Congress for not declaring him president the Republicans are too timid to do anything to stop him. David Frum in the Atlantic points out that Trump could declare martial law and stop Biden from being inaugurated. Unthinkable, impossible, someone working for him sent out a tweet that there would be a peaceful transfer of power. Why people put so much trust in a random tweet is beyond me.
I think the senate needs to do it's duty and remove him from office before he does more damage.
One thing I find very frustrating in discussing the events of last summer is that I have nothing like a quantitative scale of what happened - how many people were involved, how many injuries were caused by participants, how many injuries were caused by police, how many buildings were damaged; and most importantly, I have even *less* information about any other potentially comparable events, like the 2017 women's march, various marches and/or riots in 1965 or 1968, events in other countries. Everything I've seen in any news outlet seems woefully incomplete and/or anecdotal, so all I can see is people reporting what they want to report about whether any events last summer were actually destructive.
I see someone's been going through this thread posting a link to a quantification of the insured property losses due to events of May 26-June 8 in the low ten figure range (https://www.axios.com/riots-cost-property-damage-276c9bcc-a455-4067-b06a-66f9db4cea9c.html) which is definitely a helpful start. But it's really hard for me to tell how to compare that to even Rodney King in 1992, because I don't know whether more or fewer businesses carry the relevant kind of insurance, so I can't tell if this is a large or small figure.
I'm terrified that this is the equivalent of the remilitarization of the Rhineland. These people put themselves at enormous political and personal risk to do something dramatic yesterday. They are open to enormous punishment - the Dems would be entirely within their rights to invoke the 14th amendment and expel the rebellious senators and representatives who objected last night, and everyone who broke into the capitol should face charges of sedition and insurrection. But Dem leadership seems to want to not do anything. Right now, Republicans are inclined to condemn yesterdays attack. But if there's no consequences forthcoming, they will shift to welcoming it and within a year it will be a celebrated victory by the right. This just feels like one of those moments we're going to desperately want back, where every moment counted and Dems just ... went home.
This is a great chance to practice your short-term prediction skills, Matt! What's the chance that Trump is impeached? Is removed via the impeachment process? Is removed via the 25th amendment process? Resigns in disgrace? Pardons himself? Pardons the MAGA mob?
The symbolism of Ossoff and Warnock together was powerful for me too, for the same reason (aside from the personal connection to Goodman). In addition - Ossoff is the first Jewish senator from the state where the lynching of Leo Frank took place, a lynching that arguably launched modern American Jewish political activism. This symbolism is little compared to what Warnock represents, but for me it is powerful.
Given the sartorial accoutrements of some of the mob, I want to start a meme that refers to Trumpistas from here on out as "buffalo heads." That will commemorate and keep alive the memory of what they and their abettors in the Congress tried to pull off today. You heard it first here.
Just want to leave this here - take it as you will:
Just saw an image from the Capitol putsch. Two white men with MAGA hats, looking like they're in a festive mood. Scrawled on the wall was "MURDER THE MEDIA."
I immediately thought of the 2016 Nevada Democratic caucus.
We have more and more violent examples of this kind of nightmare anti-democratic behavior on the right, but they're not alone.
More damaging that the riot rhetoric is the "corporate Democrats are like Republicans" and whatnot. No one on the left should blur the line between what the GOP has fomented and any Democrat.
Last I read it was the Repubs who wanted to breakup California to lay their hands on some of those electoral votes. By the way, why do we need a North AND South Dakota. I mean 4 senators for 1.7 million people and California with 40 million gets 2? I understand the historical reasons why the Senate has the representation it does. But I really. think it's time we revisited those assumptions. The Constitution is over 200 years old. It needs reform.
The Senate was set up not for mere "historical reasons." It's meant to be a check on pure majority rule. There is no good reason to change that and good reasons not to.
Sorry but respectfully disagree. Having moved to France, I am now a convinced majoritarian. One person, one vote, majority rules. Our system is much too restrictive of collective political action by the citizenry. Not only has America stopped making progress on important issues under our system it has actually regressed in regard to issues like income distribution and racism. Under our system you don’t have to come up with good counter proposals if you want to maintain the status quo, you just need to know how to manipulate the arcane rules to your advantage. There needs to be open and fair competition in the marketplace of ideas. And if you don’t have any ideas you shouldn’t be able to stand in the way of people who do. Anything else is a recipe for the kind of political and social stagnation that led to last night’s escapade.
I think this is quite plausible - my thought is just that *even if* one disagrees with this thought, and thinks that something *more* than a majority should be needed, then the existing Constitution is *not* the way to go, since all it does is disempower disfavored majorities by empowering other favored majorities (and even some subsets of those majorities that don't add up to a majority).
"Not only has America stopped making progress on important issues under our system it has actually regressed in regard to issues like income distribution and racism."
Nonsense.
"And if you don’t have any ideas you shouldn’t be able to stand in the way of people who do."
*Everyone* has ideas, even if the idea is simply "I do not support the change you wish for."
If you want a check on pure majority rule, you need something anti-majoritarian - not something pro-minoritarian. Make a 2/3 majority requirement, or require a majority *plus* something else. Don't just doubly-empower any majority that includes the right group of people.
Any majority that includes majorities in 25 states that add up to 270 electoral votes. That is, any majority that includes the current Republicans is doubly-empowered under the current system - they get far more than majority power despite holding a bare majority of the population.
**I mean, other than as an attempt to keep the Democratic Party in power.**
I think it's perfectly fine to try to do things that bolster the power of the non-nihilistic, non-traitorous party. It would be good for America if we could pull it off. And obviously there'd be nothing to stop a (chastened, reformed) Republican Party from competing in those new states.
I think the idea that one party can beat the other into submission is mostly a bad one. If the reasons for changing the rules are largely for power, it does nothing to encourage the other side to reform and lets them off the hook for their own mistakes in the interest of power. If the Democrats can figure out how to govern well and solving they can beat Republicans in the short term and encourage them to reform in the long term.
What's really the alternative here? Is there some path to an overwhelmingly powerful Democratic Party that I'm not seeing? Adding a couple D-leaning states or court-packing barely changes the calculus and invites escalation
It's a little weird that PR has been a non-state part of the US for I think about a hundred years and they have about three million people - bigger than a lot of states, and yet they're in limbo indefinitely.
What is their language and culture? Do you really think it's more distinct from the language and culture of Florida than the language and culture of Hawai'i?
And in any case, wouldn't having a distinct language and culture be *more* of a reason to have full representation in the regime that governs the island?
Spanish and Puerto Rican. It is a fairly unified culture - though assembled from many different roots. (There is also the New Nuyorican culture, but let's no go there.) Florida certainly doesn't have a unified culture, and I my knowledge of Hawaiian culture is pretty shallow, but I can easily imagine that it is not too unified.
"And in any case, wouldn't having a distinct language and culture be *more* of a reason to have full representation in the regime that governs the island?"
Hence the second part of my comment noting that there has always been a Puerto Rican independence movement. That movement may be waning today compared to most points in the island's history, but I think its existence is a major reason that it never really clamored for statehood.
For DC, taxation without representation as it stands now. PR doesn’t pay federal income tax, but as a territory, they should have the right to join as a state, just as Hawaii did.
Because 700,000 citizens live in it and they deserve voting representatives in Congress. Make the seat smaller, to include the government buildings near the National Mall, and make the remainder of DC either its own state or part of Maryland.
What changed in 1865 was that the worst war the United States has experienced, before or since, came to a bloody end. And I know you can't possibly be so witless as to be seriously suggesting an equivalence between residing in in the District of Columbia or a US territory with chattel slavery.
You could make an argument that they deserve full representation in the House (DC currently has partial representation, at least procedurally), but not in the Senate.
I wish that everyone who is a citizen and pays taxes be "properly represented in Congress", yes. I can't wrap my head around why anyone would wish otherwise, but perhaps I am overly dim.
To make it so Republicans have to win closer to 50% of the national senate popular vote to hold a majority. David Shor has done great work on the GOP slant of the senate
'Why should I give political self-determination to American citizens even when it will likely shift the power slightly (but not even close to evenly) toward my political opponents' is not the gotcha you think it is.
I'm curious to hear where the supporters of PR statehood draw the line? (personally I haven't formed a strong opinion). The population of American Samoa is only 55,000, but it seems like the arguments that apply to PR would largely apply there, too.
As far as I am aware, Guam, US Virgin Islands, American Samoa, or the Northern Mariana islands have never voted on statehood, but if they wanted it, I don't see a good reason on principle that you could oppose it. No one ever talks seriously about how we need to combine the Dakotas because of their small size, so 'How many people live there?' isn't a good principle for determining whether a real territory should have statehood, with a reasonable expectation that it has to be an actual established governing state that is a part of the US.
If American Samoa or any of the other small but established territories wanted statehood, they currently have governors and are American citizens, so I don't see why not.
They would be hugely over-represented in the electoral college and the senate and also in the House if it didn't expand. But that's currently the case in Wyoming.
But in any case, both D.C. and Pueto Rico are large enough and have been clear enough about their desires that I don't see how you could oppose the enfranchisement of American citizens based on the principle of 'They would almost certainly vote for Democrats'.
Federalism doesn't mean giving power to a minority to run the executive, and enact laws without opposition from the majority. That's just an even more extreme form of majoritarianism that super-empowers your favored majorities (i.e., any majority that includes 25 states adding up to 270 electoral votes).
Federalism means having a *check* on *all* majorities, not just a check on disfavored majorities.
Nobody's saying that, in addition to making new states, we must also repeal the 9th or 10th amendments. Anyway, adding states is legal. It's right there in the constitution!
How is adding 2 new states, one with around the same population as Wyoming, and the other with around the same population as Iowa, at all incompatible with federalism?
Clearly the mob today is justified at stopping the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory, damaging the capitol building, etc because Antifa/BLM riots bad.
They should reread Matt’s post because he does not draw that kind of equivalence and, although not hyperbolic like most of the media right now, is pretty clear that he sees the treatment of today’s “protesters” as quite different from the treatment of left wing protesters.
He calls it a putsch and an insurrection. He notes that the national guard was deployed in force in June and even includes a helpful picture. I think we need to take the following point more seriously and quit lumping (or pretending) Matt in with the false equivalency crowd.
“If this goes down in the books as a fun day at the zoo for the people involved, we will see more of it. Especially because given what we know of the partisan makeup of American police forces, the odds will always be that mobs of this sort tend to get kinder treatment than leftwing mobs.”
When people were talking today about law enforcement against the rioters, I was thinking about George Washington and the whiskey rebellion. Deterrence can be important but if it goes too far it can slow down the process of healing and moving on.
The underdiscussed consequence of liberal participation in the erosion of norms that promote lawlessness is that given the partisan makeup of police forces, it'll make it increasingly less likely that they'll actively intervene to protect Democratic lawmakers.
I'm fearful that an erosion of norms of civility that lead to a woman in pussyhat yelling at a Republican official at lunch or small groups of anti-police brutality demonstrators standing outside the Mayor's house, being viewed as acceptable, will lead to armed neckbearded men yelling at Democrats in restaurants and camping outside their homes.
Somehow the events Wednesday made me think of the Beer Hall Putsch. It was almost comically inept and no one took it seriously. Hitler was only sentenced to 5 years in minimum security jail for treason and was released after 8 months. You look back at it now and think how could they have been so stupid as to release him.
Likewise the events now. Trump should have been removed from office years ago. He is still there. After sending a mob to the capital to punish Congress for not declaring him president the Republicans are too timid to do anything to stop him. David Frum in the Atlantic points out that Trump could declare martial law and stop Biden from being inaugurated. Unthinkable, impossible, someone working for him sent out a tweet that there would be a peaceful transfer of power. Why people put so much trust in a random tweet is beyond me.
I think the senate needs to do it's duty and remove him from office before he does more damage.
One thing I find very frustrating in discussing the events of last summer is that I have nothing like a quantitative scale of what happened - how many people were involved, how many injuries were caused by participants, how many injuries were caused by police, how many buildings were damaged; and most importantly, I have even *less* information about any other potentially comparable events, like the 2017 women's march, various marches and/or riots in 1965 or 1968, events in other countries. Everything I've seen in any news outlet seems woefully incomplete and/or anecdotal, so all I can see is people reporting what they want to report about whether any events last summer were actually destructive.
I see someone's been going through this thread posting a link to a quantification of the insured property losses due to events of May 26-June 8 in the low ten figure range (https://www.axios.com/riots-cost-property-damage-276c9bcc-a455-4067-b06a-66f9db4cea9c.html) which is definitely a helpful start. But it's really hard for me to tell how to compare that to even Rodney King in 1992, because I don't know whether more or fewer businesses carry the relevant kind of insurance, so I can't tell if this is a large or small figure.
I'm terrified that this is the equivalent of the remilitarization of the Rhineland. These people put themselves at enormous political and personal risk to do something dramatic yesterday. They are open to enormous punishment - the Dems would be entirely within their rights to invoke the 14th amendment and expel the rebellious senators and representatives who objected last night, and everyone who broke into the capitol should face charges of sedition and insurrection. But Dem leadership seems to want to not do anything. Right now, Republicans are inclined to condemn yesterdays attack. But if there's no consequences forthcoming, they will shift to welcoming it and within a year it will be a celebrated victory by the right. This just feels like one of those moments we're going to desperately want back, where every moment counted and Dems just ... went home.
This is a great chance to practice your short-term prediction skills, Matt! What's the chance that Trump is impeached? Is removed via the impeachment process? Is removed via the 25th amendment process? Resigns in disgrace? Pardons himself? Pardons the MAGA mob?
The symbolism of Ossoff and Warnock together was powerful for me too, for the same reason (aside from the personal connection to Goodman). In addition - Ossoff is the first Jewish senator from the state where the lynching of Leo Frank took place, a lynching that arguably launched modern American Jewish political activism. This symbolism is little compared to what Warnock represents, but for me it is powerful.
"Apparently on Trump’s orders", could we get a citation for this?
Given the sartorial accoutrements of some of the mob, I want to start a meme that refers to Trumpistas from here on out as "buffalo heads." That will commemorate and keep alive the memory of what they and their abettors in the Congress tried to pull off today. You heard it first here.
This piece from Noah Smith is so good.
“ Japanese lessons for the American coup -
1930s Japan had repeated coup attempts by rightists. We can learn from their mistakes.”
I didn't realize having one's bicycle stolen can inflict such terrible emotional scars.
(Note to self: scan threads before engaging, lest you're unaware you're engaging with a troll).
Just want to leave this here - take it as you will:
Just saw an image from the Capitol putsch. Two white men with MAGA hats, looking like they're in a festive mood. Scrawled on the wall was "MURDER THE MEDIA."
I immediately thought of the 2016 Nevada Democratic caucus.
We have more and more violent examples of this kind of nightmare anti-democratic behavior on the right, but they're not alone.
Chuckie is an idiot savant. “Demigogoc”?
Does this riot make Trump 2024 more or less likely? The answer is definitely less likely, right?
More damaging that the riot rhetoric is the "corporate Democrats are like Republicans" and whatnot. No one on the left should blur the line between what the GOP has fomented and any Democrat.
What’s the purpose of making new states? I mean, other than as an attempt to keep the Democratic Party in power.
Last I read it was the Repubs who wanted to breakup California to lay their hands on some of those electoral votes. By the way, why do we need a North AND South Dakota. I mean 4 senators for 1.7 million people and California with 40 million gets 2? I understand the historical reasons why the Senate has the representation it does. But I really. think it's time we revisited those assumptions. The Constitution is over 200 years old. It needs reform.
The Senate was set up not for mere "historical reasons." It's meant to be a check on pure majority rule. There is no good reason to change that and good reasons not to.
Sorry but respectfully disagree. Having moved to France, I am now a convinced majoritarian. One person, one vote, majority rules. Our system is much too restrictive of collective political action by the citizenry. Not only has America stopped making progress on important issues under our system it has actually regressed in regard to issues like income distribution and racism. Under our system you don’t have to come up with good counter proposals if you want to maintain the status quo, you just need to know how to manipulate the arcane rules to your advantage. There needs to be open and fair competition in the marketplace of ideas. And if you don’t have any ideas you shouldn’t be able to stand in the way of people who do. Anything else is a recipe for the kind of political and social stagnation that led to last night’s escapade.
I think this is quite plausible - my thought is just that *even if* one disagrees with this thought, and thinks that something *more* than a majority should be needed, then the existing Constitution is *not* the way to go, since all it does is disempower disfavored majorities by empowering other favored majorities (and even some subsets of those majorities that don't add up to a majority).
"Not only has America stopped making progress on important issues under our system it has actually regressed in regard to issues like income distribution and racism."
Nonsense.
"And if you don’t have any ideas you shouldn’t be able to stand in the way of people who do."
*Everyone* has ideas, even if the idea is simply "I do not support the change you wish for."
If you want a check on pure majority rule, you need something anti-majoritarian - not something pro-minoritarian. Make a 2/3 majority requirement, or require a majority *plus* something else. Don't just doubly-empower any majority that includes the right group of people.
Who is doubly empowered?
Any majority that includes majorities in 25 states that add up to 270 electoral votes. That is, any majority that includes the current Republicans is doubly-empowered under the current system - they get far more than majority power despite holding a bare majority of the population.
So just something hypothetical.
**I mean, other than as an attempt to keep the Democratic Party in power.**
I think it's perfectly fine to try to do things that bolster the power of the non-nihilistic, non-traitorous party. It would be good for America if we could pull it off. And obviously there'd be nothing to stop a (chastened, reformed) Republican Party from competing in those new states.
I think the idea that one party can beat the other into submission is mostly a bad one. If the reasons for changing the rules are largely for power, it does nothing to encourage the other side to reform and lets them off the hook for their own mistakes in the interest of power. If the Democrats can figure out how to govern well and solving they can beat Republicans in the short term and encourage them to reform in the long term.
What's really the alternative here? Is there some path to an overwhelmingly powerful Democratic Party that I'm not seeing? Adding a couple D-leaning states or court-packing barely changes the calculus and invites escalation
"It would be good for America if we could pull it off."
Not in the opinion of nearly half of Americans.
It's a little weird that PR has been a non-state part of the US for I think about a hundred years and they have about three million people - bigger than a lot of states, and yet they're in limbo indefinitely.
What's so weird about it?
When we've had territory with substantial populations that have been part of. theUS for a while, we've made them states.
I get how Guam could stay a territory forever, it's got like 165k people. We could have an argument about whether the US should have territories.
But Puerto Rico's kinda state-sized? They have 2x the population of Hawaii and 4x the population of Alaska.
And they have their own language and culture. And there has long been an independence movement.
What is their language and culture? Do you really think it's more distinct from the language and culture of Florida than the language and culture of Hawai'i?
And in any case, wouldn't having a distinct language and culture be *more* of a reason to have full representation in the regime that governs the island?
(By the way, New Nuyorican is a typo.)
"What is their language and culture?"
Spanish and Puerto Rican. It is a fairly unified culture - though assembled from many different roots. (There is also the New Nuyorican culture, but let's no go there.) Florida certainly doesn't have a unified culture, and I my knowledge of Hawaiian culture is pretty shallow, but I can easily imagine that it is not too unified.
"And in any case, wouldn't having a distinct language and culture be *more* of a reason to have full representation in the regime that governs the island?"
Hence the second part of my comment noting that there has always been a Puerto Rican independence movement. That movement may be waning today compared to most points in the island's history, but I think its existence is a major reason that it never really clamored for statehood.
They have a great tax deal which seems to have been perpetually wasted.
https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc901
For DC, taxation without representation as it stands now. PR doesn’t pay federal income tax, but as a territory, they should have the right to join as a state, just as Hawaii did.
The Seat of the Government of the United States should have no special status? Why not?
Because 700,000 citizens live in it and they deserve voting representatives in Congress. Make the seat smaller, to include the government buildings near the National Mall, and make the remainder of DC either its own state or part of Maryland.
They haven't deserved it for 230 years. What changed this year?
"Black people didn't deserve to be free between the 1600s and 1865, what changed that year?"
What changed in 1865 was that the worst war the United States has experienced, before or since, came to a bloody end. And I know you can't possibly be so witless as to be seriously suggesting an equivalence between residing in in the District of Columbia or a US territory with chattel slavery.
They have deserved it always.
You could make an argument that they deserve full representation in the House (DC currently has partial representation, at least procedurally), but not in the Senate.
Um... so that the people who live there are properly represented in Congress?
Should Guam be a state?
I would say, so, yes. Perhaps together with other far-flung US territories in Pacific (Saipan, Samoa, etc)? We could call it "Pacifica."
Why would citizens of those two places want to become a state with people thousands of miles away?
Same reason people in El Paso "want to become a state with" people in Beaumont and Amarillo.
Because they're on the same side of the Rio Grande? That doesn't seem plausible.
Do they want to be?
Don’t you wish that they were “properly represented in Congress”?
I wish that everyone who is a citizen and pays taxes be "properly represented in Congress", yes. I can't wrap my head around why anyone would wish otherwise, but perhaps I am overly dim.
Maybe one day you will meet a Guamanian who can explain it to you.
To make it so Republicans have to win closer to 50% of the national senate popular vote to hold a majority. David Shor has done great work on the GOP slant of the senate
Yeah, so what I said. Majoritarian rule.
I mean, the alternative is just a Minority rule.
'Why should I give political self-determination to American citizens even when it will likely shift the power slightly (but not even close to evenly) toward my political opponents' is not the gotcha you think it is.
I'm curious to hear where the supporters of PR statehood draw the line? (personally I haven't formed a strong opinion). The population of American Samoa is only 55,000, but it seems like the arguments that apply to PR would largely apply there, too.
As far as I am aware, Guam, US Virgin Islands, American Samoa, or the Northern Mariana islands have never voted on statehood, but if they wanted it, I don't see a good reason on principle that you could oppose it. No one ever talks seriously about how we need to combine the Dakotas because of their small size, so 'How many people live there?' isn't a good principle for determining whether a real territory should have statehood, with a reasonable expectation that it has to be an actual established governing state that is a part of the US.
If American Samoa or any of the other small but established territories wanted statehood, they currently have governors and are American citizens, so I don't see why not.
They would be hugely over-represented in the electoral college and the senate and also in the House if it didn't expand. But that's currently the case in Wyoming.
But in any case, both D.C. and Pueto Rico are large enough and have been clear enough about their desires that I don't see how you could oppose the enfranchisement of American citizens based on the principle of 'They would almost certainly vote for Democrats'.
“I mean, the alternative is just a Minority rule”
No, the alternative is federalism.
Federalism doesn't mean giving power to a minority to run the executive, and enact laws without opposition from the majority. That's just an even more extreme form of majoritarianism that super-empowers your favored majorities (i.e., any majority that includes 25 states adding up to 270 electoral votes).
Federalism means having a *check* on *all* majorities, not just a check on disfavored majorities.
Nobody's saying that, in addition to making new states, we must also repeal the 9th or 10th amendments. Anyway, adding states is legal. It's right there in the constitution!
How is adding 2 new states, one with around the same population as Wyoming, and the other with around the same population as Iowa, at all incompatible with federalism?
https://twitter.com/davidshor/status/1277794239536074753?lang=en
Ha!
tl;dr of way too many of the comments here:
Clearly the mob today is justified at stopping the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory, damaging the capitol building, etc because Antifa/BLM riots bad.
They should reread Matt’s post because he does not draw that kind of equivalence and, although not hyperbolic like most of the media right now, is pretty clear that he sees the treatment of today’s “protesters” as quite different from the treatment of left wing protesters.
He calls it a putsch and an insurrection. He notes that the national guard was deployed in force in June and even includes a helpful picture. I think we need to take the following point more seriously and quit lumping (or pretending) Matt in with the false equivalency crowd.
“If this goes down in the books as a fun day at the zoo for the people involved, we will see more of it. Especially because given what we know of the partisan makeup of American police forces, the odds will always be that mobs of this sort tend to get kinder treatment than leftwing mobs.”
When people were talking today about law enforcement against the rioters, I was thinking about George Washington and the whiskey rebellion. Deterrence can be important but if it goes too far it can slow down the process of healing and moving on.
The underdiscussed consequence of liberal participation in the erosion of norms that promote lawlessness is that given the partisan makeup of police forces, it'll make it increasingly less likely that they'll actively intervene to protect Democratic lawmakers.
I'm fearful that an erosion of norms of civility that lead to a woman in pussyhat yelling at a Republican official at lunch or small groups of anti-police brutality demonstrators standing outside the Mayor's house, being viewed as acceptable, will lead to armed neckbearded men yelling at Democrats in restaurants and camping outside their homes.