Protests, of course, are supposed to make people uncomfortable. But the particular form of discomfort that comes with a demonstration at a family’s house is one that prior generations of activists mostly avoided.

Before the current era, “I can’t think of a demo held at the house of a cabinet official or leading senator,” said Michael Kazin, the Georgetown University historian and longtime student of American political movements. This wasn’t simply about wanting to play nice with big shots. “Protesters usually wanted (and still want) to show power in numbers, and the best way to show that is to take over the Mall or a major avenue.”

Partly, the new rules of engagement are a
function of social media, where a memorable bit of provocation at someone’s residence is as likely to go viral as a snapshot depicting 100,000 like-minded protesters at the Lincoln Memorial. (The former is also a lot easier to organize.)

Mostly, though, they’re another effect of the perpetual state of war that defines contemporary politics — a battle where the stakes involve absolutes like freedom and democracy and America as we know it, and where the old norms seem like a silly luxury.

That’s also why the Washington conversation about home protests tends to be so mind-numbingly stupid. Critics forever cite the good old days of political civility. Protesters predictably respond by accusing their targets of being the true cause of our torn social fabric: The Supreme Court took away a fundamental right — and now these entitled justices are bellyaching about a few people banging pots and pans outside their front door?

Inevitably, partisan finger-pointing ensues: One side is a terrifying mob, the other is a hypocritical bunch of insiders seeking the undeserved privilege of being left alone. And around and around we go.

In academia, there’s actually an interesting conversation right now about the ethics of protesting. “There are conceptual tools we have in political theory and philosophy to think about it,” Northeastern University philosophy professor Candice Delmas, who has written extensively about the subject, told me. “There is the question of what, exactly, they’re trying to do.”

That sort of practical framing, I think, is largely missing from the Washington political conversation: Do these protests help the protesters’ cause? And, beyond that, do they move society in a direction that boosts the activists’ own idea of justice?

Among other things, such an analysis would suggest that you don’t have to care one whit about the personal comfort of Mitch McConnell or Samuel Alito or Antony Blinken — or even Antony Blinken’s kids — to think it’s better for demonstrators to stick to the Capitol or the Supreme Court or the State Department and leave private houses and political families alone.

At the core of any effective protest, there’s a theory of change. Maybe the goal is to change the mind of a powerful official. Maybe the goal is to generate media attention in order to win new supporters. Maybe it’s about trying to provoke a horrible police reaction that convinces the general public of the rottenness of the powers that be.

All of these goals have long lineages — and showing up at a public servant’s home is an iffy way to achieve any of them.