Progressives Contra Civility: "Protest Isn't Civil"

Van R. Newkirk II at The Atlantic.
   I think this is an interesting question.
   A few observations:
   First--needless to say--progressives have a double-standard. (Counterpoint: every view and every movement contains multitudes. Countercounterpoint: shut up.) On the one hand, even disagreeing with them itself literally constitutes an act of violence. On the other hand, them surrounding and shrieking at political opponents and calling for this to happen every time they are sighted in public is perfectly acceptable.
   Second, isn't there a kind of sliding scale here? Yes, the left has flipped its shit. But separating kids from their parents...it's a serious matter. Especially if you don't understand the increments by which we got to such a place. Perhaps, uh, energetic protests are defensible in such a case. (Counterpoint: the left initiated mass physical assaults on Trump supporters before he was even elected. Countercounterpoint: how is that relevant? Countercountercounterpoint: is that actually a serious question?)

   Third: isn't the real cause for concern that the left has both a theory and a practice that rejects the very idea of civil discussion and public reason? Isn't it that The Red Hen Incident isn't really an isolated occurrence? The postpostmodern mishmash provides the trickle-down Foucaultian theory that everything is about power; "reason," "civil discourse," etc. are mere fairy tales created by evilstraightwhitemen because they are effective rhetorical means for controlling others. That's the theory. Antifa, BLM, violent suppression of political incorrectness on campus, etc. are the practice.
   (Masterpiece Cakeshop was a small hiccup, a tiny exception in an overall trend toward liberalization of the relevant laws. It's a small, reasonable, principled exception...and not even one that forged new law. Where does this point go? Anywhere? I lost track of what I was thinking.)
   Of course my view is that the left is unhinged and out of control. It can't tolerate not getting its way. Its working toward ever-more-egregious overreactions to any refusal to immediately accept its dictates. But, then, I'm all worked up about it all, so I could easily be wrong.

Eh...I already think that's taking it too easy on the aggressive left. Newkirk voices the familiar leftist complaint that civility favors the status quo...but civility also favors social stability and non-violence.
   In fact, the status quo should be favored. So that's not a bug, it's a feature.
   And to say that the status quo is favored doesn't mean that it is unchangeable. It's eminently changeable. In fact, right now it's probably changing too rapidly.
   Buried down in here is a conflict between two conceptions of society and government. On the conservative conception, the status quo is the output of a long, informal, but serious experiment, and it should be altered only by increments, after long thought, for very good reason. On the leftist conception, the status quo is nothing; it's an arbitrary starting point supported merely by habit and tradition, which are morally and epistemically weightless. We're smart enough to think of something better without even trying that hard! Radical change is to be favored, including radical change of the very rules by which we adjudicate conflict and disagreement. From the perspective of conservatives, the left wants to change the rules anytime it doesn't win. From the perspective of the left, the rules themselves are arbitrary--or, worse: have nothing to be said for them other than that they were engineered specifically to favor evilstraightwhitemen.
   The left wants the ability to reject civility in cases where civility impedes their projects; does anyone think they'd generalize that judgment to cases in which incivility benefits the other side? They're also pretty happy about employing violence when it benefits them (e.g.: "punch a Nazi"). Does anyone doubt they'd scream bloody murder if given a dose of their own medicine? (How about "punch a commie"?) And if the status quo decided to adopt the leftist view that violence is a legitimate means to political ends...well...that'd be not only the end of the left, but the end of democracy...
   tl;dr: the anti-civility position is nuts.