Which politician is next to be shot?

It was only a matter of time before the politicians and the angry mob crossed paths. And with Americans already fired up about an endless supply of political scandals, the result is playing out across the country.

First it was Department of Homeland Security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen who was cornered in a Mexican restaurant. The mob — with cameraphones rolling — chanted, heckled and eventually drove her out of a Washington, D.C. eatery. The irony, of course, being that she is one of the players behind the immigrant detention policy that has split families and jailed children, many of whom coming from Mexico.

Days later at another restaurant, this one in Virginia, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders was refused service. The owner said it’s such a divided time that sometimes you have to make decisions based on your morals. Sanders, through her official White House Twitter account, politely bashed the woman who didn’t want to serve the Trump employee.

Remember the recent ruling about a baker who didn’t want to make a wedding cake for a gay couple. He said it was against his beliefs and a court ruled in his favour. Well, there we go, folks. That opens the door for anybody to refuse service to anyone.

Even though we know it’s already a monkey-see-monkey-do world thanks to the likelihood protests will go viral, Democratic congresswoman Maxine Waters has encouraged her supporters to harass elected officials who back Trump. To that I ask my favourite question: What could possibly go wrong?

In a society that is so enraged by the smallest things, where the littlest disagreement turns into a violent attack, where lines are drawn and so too are guns — it’s a wild world out there… and that’s just the United States.

I’m a Canadian and watching from the sidelines. I have no stake in the political debates firing up in the U.S. But even I, observing from a distance, know that it’s only a matter of time before the violent assaults on elected officials ramps up.

Certainly I am not condoning violence against people, so before you say I am encouraging it, that’s not at all what I’m doing. But even I can sense where this is headed.

In recent years we’ve seen at least two elected officials shot: Steve Scalise in 2017 at a baseball practice and Gabrielle Giffords back in 2011 outside of a grocery store.

My next question — as sick as it might be — is Who’s next?

Angry mobs of people seem to take their protests one step further nowadays. It’s no longer about whose sign is the biggest or whose chant is the loudest. It’s about taking it to the next level to have an impact and get noticed — usually for the wrong reasons.

I’m by no means a psychic but even I envision where this is going. I sense a lot of wounded or dead people as a result of American protests in the coming months. As President Trump likes to tweet: Sad.