Jon Meacham on Sen. Padilla: It Is a Real Tactile Sense of Menace in the Country

EXCERPT:

MEACHAM: "I mean, almost all public officials, including, perhaps most frighteningly, judges, who are supposed to be the umpires, who are supposed to be part of the field, but have a certain authority, are in a — I don’t want to say an unprecedented threat environment, to use that term of art, but it is a real tactile sense of menace in the country. And I think what David has written about so well is really well -- are points really well taken. Part of what’s happened, I think, Katty, is — well, first of all, the historical point you ask about, the last time it was this bad, not to shake everybody’s Friday morning even more than it’s already shaken, given what’s going on, was the pre-Civil War period where you had an extraordinary amount of political violence. And we know how the 1850s turned out.”