In the week since protests greeted Brett Kavanaugh’s historically narrow confirmation to the Supreme Court, Republicans have coalesced around a single talking point: Democrats are an uncivil mob. “Only one side was happy to play host to this toxic fringe behavior,” Mitch McConnell said on Thursday. “Only one side’s leaders are now openly calling for more of it. They haven’t seen enough. They want more. And I’m afraid this is only Phase One of the meltdown.” Donald Trump, who offered to pay for the legal fees of supporters who were arrested for beating up protest, has called Democrats “unhinged” and said that the party has “gone wacko.”
You don’t hand matches to an arsonist, and you don’t give power to an angry left-wing mob. Democrats have become too EXTREME and TOO DANGEROUS to govern. Republicans believe in the rule of law - not the rule of the mob. VOTE REPUBLICAN!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 7, 2018
Scott Wagner, the Republican nominee for governor of Pennsylvania, did not get the message that the GOP is now the party of patient, civil discourse. In a Facebook Live video, he threatened to stomp Democratic Governor Tom Wolf’s face while wearing “golf spikes” if Wolf did not stop airing negative advertisements.
“Governor Wolf, let me tell you, between now and November 6th you’d better put a catcher’s mask on your face, because I’m going to stomp all over your face with golf spikes,” Wagner said in a two-minute rant. “I’m going to win this for the state of Pennsylvania, and we’re throwing you out of office.”
A spokesman for Wagner told PennLive that his rant was “not meant to be taken literally.”