We have to stand together against rioting and violent protests. We have to support a vigorous response by law enforcement, arrests of those responsible, and prosecution to the full extent of the law. We have to make clear violence is just never an acceptable way to influence politics and a democracy can not tolerate this, not ever, and not now.

That we, as in the political establishment, the media, the schools, corporations, pro sports, and sometimes even self-proclaimed non-partisans, failed to do that in a summer of rioting and violent protests, where the Portland federal building has been under assault since June, and rioters fire bombed the courthouse in my hometown of Madison, WI, certainly weakens the case for doing so now. You can’t be more upset when one side does it than the other.

This summer I heard a lot along the lines of “riots are the language of the unheard, etc., etc.” It wasn’t excusable then and it’s not excusable now.