One would think that a Democrat Party that lost a President John F. Kennedy; an Attorney General, Robert F. Kennedy; saw a civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; and, a black activist Malcolm X, all killed by assassination in times of inflammatory political rhetoric, would resist speech and actions that could produce similar heinous acts.

Not quite.

Just look at the incendiary and violence inciting tone and language of former Secretary of State and Democratic Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton and former Attorney General Eric Holder.

Clinton recently said that “you can’t be civil with a political party that works to destroy what you stand for.” The dog whistle meaning: Do whatever you want to them and their families.

Former Attorney General Eric Holder, in his own dog whistle message to Antifa and other radical groups, said “when they go low we kick them.”

In other words, Clinton and Holder are telling Democrats’ mob allies we have seen in action over the past several weeks: It’s OK, take off the gloves. Give them more of the same — and more.

As President Trump said regarding Holder’s comment on “Fox & Friends”: “He better be careful what he’s wishing for. That’s a disgusting statement for him to make. For him to make a statement like that is a very dangerous statement.”

Trump is right. We are now in a full-fledged cultural and political war where violence and intimidation of public officials is a valid method of combat.

On June 27 of this year, in an article entitled “Someone Is Going to Die If Liberals Continue Extreme Behavior,” I stated, in part: “the caustic and toxic gasoline of hate speech’ was inviting someone ‘to light the match that will ignite a bond fire of political assassinations… ’”

Since then, political discourse and civility in America has descended to even lower levels.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., recently told a Kentucky radio station that he feared “there’s going to be an assassination. I really worry that somebody is going to be killed, and that those who are ratcheting up the conversation … they have to realize they bear some responsibility if this elevates to violence.”

And who is ratcheting up the conversation?

Before, during, and after the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, political discourse and civility by progressives and Democrats descended to new levels. Republican Senators were confronted and harassed at the airport, Senate Office Building hallways, elevators, restaurants, and received death threats and obscene messages.

Protesters tried to disrupt the Kavanaugh Senate roll call vote and pounded and clawed at the doors of the United States Supreme Court after Kavanaugh had been confirmed.

To all of this mob rule and disruption, including the recent police tolerated shut down of traffic, damaging of cars, confrontation and harassment of drivers by Antifa in Portland, Oregon, there has not, to the best of my knowledge, been one word of disapproval from Democrats at any level.

Their silence signals their support. Things are so bad that Paul’s wife, Kelley, expressed her anger in a CNN Op-Ed in which she called on Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., to “retract” his earlier statement where he urged his followers to “get up in the face of congresspeople.”

In what could be also addressed to all Democrats, she called upon Booker to “condemn violence,” “the leaking of elected officials’ personal addresses” from a Senate directory given only to Senators, and “the intimidation and threats that are being hurled at them and their families.”

As far as I know, neither Booker nor any Democrat Senator has condemned any of the violence, intimidation, threats, and leaking of Senators personal information Paul mentions in her letter. In fact, Judiciary Committee member Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, twice refused to answer a journalist’s question on whether she thought harassing Republican senators in restaurants was taking things a bit too far.

Paul asks in her letter, is uncivil conduct and actions such as those the Paul’s and other Republican Senators have been the victim of “…the way to express concern or enact change? Or does it only incite unstable people to violence making them feel that assaulting a person is somehow politically justifiable?”

One thing is clear from their silence: The Democratic Party and its leaders in the House and Senate approve of the mob-like tactics of anti-Kavanaugh protesters during the past few weeks and the harassment of Republican officials in the months before.

If Democrats failed to condemn protesters harassing Republican Senators in the Senate office buildings and public places, you would at least think that Senate Democrat women would vigorously condemn the Women’s March for tweeting a photo of Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, emblazoned with the words “Rape Apologist.”

I hope that Sen. Collins realizes that they are not her friends.

She defended Sen. Diane Feinstein, DCa., on allegations that Feinstein leaked Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s letter to the press. Yet, as far as I know, Feinstein has not returned the favor and criticized Women’s March organizers and others on the left for their attacks on Collins.

The question is how long will it be before Sen. Paul’s fears are realized?

Clarence V. McKee is president of McKee Communications, Inc., a government, political, and media relations consulting firm in Florida.