Rep. Maxine Waters and public officials should be held to a higher standard with their comments, but instead the congresswoman resorted to "mob-rule" mentality with her "dangerous" rhetoric, Jonathan Wackrow wrote in a column for CNN.
Wackrow, a former Secret Service agent, damned Waters' comments calling for harassment of White House officials because it could lead to exactly that.
"These statements go beyond breaking the norms of civil discourse; they are dangerous, as they can be misinterpreted as a call to physical action or harm against an individual and people who associate with them," Wackrow wrote for CNN.
Wackrow, who was in the presidential protection division of the Secret Service, writes that he is "keenly aware of the evolutionary process by which a protest that grows around a politically charged ethos can act as the catalyst for violent action by an individual or group."
All it takes is for one bad actor to "co-opt the issue for the purpose of causing damage and harm," which could spell physical trouble for an unsuspecting White House or administration official in their private lives, Wackrow writes.
"As a public official, Waters should be held to a higher standard in her comments and actions," Wackrow writes. "But rather than exemplifying a higher standard, Waters has retreated along the behavioral continuum toward endorsing mob-rule to satisfy a political goal.
"Calling for harassment of administrations officials and urging others to 'push back on them' is the wrong approach. It only perpetuates a political environment filled with vitriol and hate," Wackrow wrote.
"I call on Waters to re-evaluate her comments and find a more productive pathway to address the immigration issues — one that brings help, not harm."
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