"Act Like You Love Each Other and Want to Work Together"

"What happened, happened. People don't like to be interrupted and shouted down. They don't like to have their agenda hijacked by someone with a different agenda. But sometimes, when you're not getting heard, and your needs aren't getting met, you have to interrupt and insist on your agenda. That's fine, and for #blackslivesmatter, it could be that a sleepy progressive convention in the middle of the summer was a good time to interject and demand recognition. We'll all recover. We'll survive. Perhaps we'll all be better off for it.
"But how about some recognition that you hijacked the agenda and interrupted and shouted people down and denied people the ability to have their needs and desires met? They didn't respond the way you wanted? Well, you own that, because people never respond well in those circumstances. And now you want to heap contempt on their heads on top of it?
"No, this is all wrong.
"And for the folks on the other side who traveled to Arizona to hear what Martin O'Malley and Bernie Sanders had to say and to maybe have the chance to engage them in a civil dialogue, maybe you should take that frustration you're feeling and try to understand what it's like to live in a country with mass incarceration and unaccountable murderous police. I think that’s a lot more frustrating for the communities most affected than not getting to hear a speech.
"The problem isn't how people reacted in the moment, which was natural, but how they are behaving now."


Martin Longman in The American Prospect reacts to the tumult at the Netroots Nation meeting in Phoenix.


In The Washington Monthly Longman reacts again after the contretemps in Seattle.

And Jonathan Chait in New York sums up the situation.