When protests – and threats – come to officials’ front doorstep

Shortly after the draft opinion overturning women’s constitutional right to an abortion in the United States was leaked, activists began showing up outside the homes of Supreme Court justices. On many nights since, protesters have marched and chanted along the tree-lined street in suburban Maryland where Justice Brett Kavanaugh and his family reside.

To some, these demonstrations, which have been nonviolent, represent a last-ditch effort to try to send a message on an issue of vital importance. Many others, however, see them as harassment – and a breach of privacy that could ultimately endanger public officials. 

Those fears seemed to play out this week, when police arrested a man in his mid-20s, armed with a pistol and other weapons, who told them he was in the neighborhood to assassinate Justice Kavanaugh.

Following the neighborhood protests in early May, the Senate unanimously passed a two-page bill that would boost security for Supreme Court justices and their families. The bill has yet to be voted on in the House, a measure that Republicans have pushed for in recent days. But House Democrats’ delay isn’t because they disagree with the basis of the bill – it’s because they don’t think the Senate bill goes far enough. They want to add protection for clerks, staff, and their family members as well. 

Threats against federal judges have jumped fourfold in recent years, and threats against elected officials in Washington have increased ninefold. A Brennan Center poll from earlier this year found that 1 in 6 local election officials have experienced threats, and a Johns Hopkins survey found more than half of local public health departments were targets of harassment during the first year of the pandemic.

Experts say it all reflects a political environment in which the stakes across a range of issues suddenly seem greater than ever – and the outcomes often all or nothing. With the country closely divided, many voters feel as though the views of the other side are being unfairly imposed upon them. That sense of powerlessness, along with the erosion of norms surrounding political discourse, has led to a rise in confrontations and a greater potential for violence.

“Politics feels existential now because there is so little overlap in the middle,” says Rachel Kleinfeld, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who studies democracies facing polarization and violence. “It used to be that a moderate Republican from New England and a conservative Democrat from the South used to overlap quite a bit in their policy beliefs. But now we see very little overlap – and that has a huge impact on your daily life: what your kids learn in school, if you can have an abortion or carry a gun.”

From fringe toward mainstream?

Many experts point to the unprecedented attack at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as a prime example of what can happen when confrontation is encouraged by a political leader. And while the man arrested near Justice Kavanaugh’s house was reportedly upset about expected conservative-leaning rulings on abortion and guns, the overall trend toward violence has been far more prevalent on the right.  

“When a mainstream party has aggrandized violence as a way of serving a citizen, that brings political violence into the mainstream,” says Ms. Kleinfeld. “Political violence that used to be a fringe phenomenon of the left and right 50 years ago is no longer fringe on the right.”

A Washington Post-University of Maryland poll from December found that one-third of Americans think it is sometimes justified for citizens to take violent action against the government. Broken down by party, the divide is stark: Twenty-three percent of Democrats surveyed feel this way, compared with 40% of Republicans. 

Many Republicans, however, are blaming Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer for Wednesday’s event in Chevy Chase, Maryland, sharing clips of the Democrat telling Justice Kavanaugh that he has released “the whirlwind” with the court’s draft abortion ruling and “he will pay the price.”

And officials are preparing for more violence in the future. Two layers of fencing still surround the Supreme Court as the Department of Homeland Security and state governments are expecting “increased incidents” of unrest or criminal behavior after the final abortion ruling is released later this month. 

“Being in these echo chambers – which more and more Americans find themselves in – leads individuals to see more differences across groups of people,” says Alauna Safarpour, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government who has studied views on violence. “If you see less of yourself in other Americans, it could be less of a leap to think these people are inherently evil. Incidents like this really speak to the need to get to know people unlike yourself.” 

To this point, Michelle Peterson says she has a “personal line” when it comes to protesting. Standing alone outside the Supreme Court on a drizzly afternoon in mid-May, holding a handmade sign that says “My Body My Choice” in front of the recently erected fencing, Ms. Peterson says she declined to join fellow activists outside the justices’ homes because she herself is a mother. 

“I understand that they are public figures, that these people are protesting within the limits of the law, and that’s well within their rights,” says Ms. Peterson, a stay-at-home mom in Silver Spring, Maryland. “But as a mom myself with two teenagers at home, I don’t want my address out there. And it just takes one nut.”

New technology, less privacy

Social media and the internet have played an undeniable role in this trend.

Within a few minutes of searching online, this reporter was able to track down the home addresses for Supreme Court justices. And activist groups such as Ruth Sent Us, which has been organizing most of the neighborhood rallies, have shared locations on Facebook and promoted marches across these suburbs almost every night of the week this month.  

Meanwhile, they themselves have been victims of the same dangers they are criticized for inflicting on others. When asked to speak with the Monitor, several members of the group declined to be interviewed for fear of their own safety. 

“We are being doxxed, swatted, getting non-stop death and rape threats and gory photos sent to us via all channels,” one member texted the Monitor. “Do not put our names out there,” instructed another. “You will be endangering our lives.”

But the limits of social media have also worked to reinforce an American tradition of public protests – even if the style of these protests feels more dangerous today. 

“You have this media landscape with the claim, ‘You can reach millions of people with a click of a mouse!’ But unless you have thousands of followers, no one hears you online,”  says Timothy Zick, a law professor at William & Mary and author of the forthcoming book “Managed Dissent: The Law of Public Protest.” “People are still doing these classic forms of protest because the visual sends a message ... and people are desperate to get their point across.” 

The desperation in part reflects how politics has devolved into a zero-sum game. Single-party control of Congress for substantial periods of time is less common than it used to be as elections become increasingly competitive – meaning that the policies directly affecting Americans’ day-to-day lives can be completely upended by a few votes.

“Not only do the issues feel existential, but the fight feels winnable to either side. So we are correct as a country that the stakes are very high,” says Ms. Kleinfeld. “But it would behoove people of all parties to realize that no one wins when people start using violence to solve political problems.”