It was inevitable, of course.

We’re just too close to the tipping point. We were here 150 years ago, when the South, which had been running the country for years — despite the fact that the North was bigger and growing faster — saw a specifically northern leader elected president. It was too much for them, and they broke up the country — or tried to.

With so many people seeing the future close in on them — a future in which their values and understandings lose their special status, in which whites, and men, and Christians are no longer on top — it is was inevitable that someone, somewhere was going to snap. And of course the first one to go would be a total nut job. (There are always plenty of them around.)

Don’t be surprised in the next few days if you hear voices on the Right demanding that the Left “tone down” it’s rhetoric as well. We can’t. The struggle between the future (us) and the past (them) cannot be ducked, and it will probably get worse before it gets better. But that future is worth whatever pain it takes to bring it to birth.

And besides, only one side is talking relentlessly about using violence.