“Liberals need to stop being nice. Right away. Now,” Joe Randazzo penned in an essay called “Never Stop Yelling at Ivanka Trump” on Medium a few days after “L’Affaire JetBlue.” For anyone who might have missed that story, the soon-to-be first daughter was confronted by Dan Goldstein, a fellow airline passenger, who said to her face: “Your father is ruining the country.” By most accounts Goldstein was “agitated” but still civil; he was removed from the flight not for any legal infraction, but for violating “plane etiquette.”

Since then, Goldstein, who happens to be gay, has been alternately vilified and praised over the incident. Goldstein and his husband have been called out as “disgusting,” and “cowardly,” with anti-gay slurs abounding. One Facebook poster wished “someone would hunt them down.” Some called for Goldstein’s husband to be fired from his teaching job and their toddler to be removed by Child Protective Services because gay men are not fit to parent.

On the other end of the spectrum, Randazzo vociferously defended Goldstein, referring to him as a “gay Jewish American hero.” The squall on the plane turned out to be only a prelude to the storm that followed, as left and right faced off (again) — this time, on just how civil protesters should be in the Age of Trump.

What will — or should — be the tenor of the anti-Trump dissent in the months and years to come? Do we throw all pretense of civil behavior out the window? Randazzo disdains any call for post-election civility, writing: “This sham of tolerance and civility has done nothing for the Democrats and everything for the GOP.” He ends his piece with a call to “Keep shouting in their faces. Keep confronting them wherever and whenever possible,” which is precisely the low road Donald Trump and many other Republicans took this past year.

Okay, so here’s my question: When did civility become incompatible with protest? Why do some people consider civility an antonym — anathema, even — to political action and dissent? Because, and I’m raising my voice, it’s not. Have we forgotten how Mahatma (Sanskrit for “high-souled”) Gandhi used nonviolent civil disobedience to free India from British rule and inspire civil rights movements worldwide? Or how the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. changed the course of a nation by rooting his protests in his long-held values of love and justice — practicing and teaching nonviolent civil disobedience? Can’t we use these principles to fight the good fight without turning the next four years into one continuous smackdown by both the left and the right?

I say yes. I say we must.

To better understand this approach I spoke with the Rev. William Barber II, president of the North Carolina chapter of the NAACP. The activist and coalition-builder — a modern-day King — has spent more than a decade leading what he calls a “moral movement” of blacks and whites, young and old, gay and straight, Democrats and Republicans. Since 2013 his “Moral Mondays” have brought protesters to Raleigh to speak out against what he calls the “extremist” actions of North Carolina’s state government. They’ve purposely taken the “moral high ground,” making sure their complaints were “deeply rooted in our deepest values and not just about hatred,” Barber told me. And they’ve routinely been arrested for doing so.

Barber made clear that any definition of civility as meaning “courteous” or “polite” is too simple. Civility “cannot mean just stand down, or that you just pray, or you don’t be disruptive,” he said. The Protestant pastor says he believes in a larger meaning of civility, a definition that captures a truly civil approach to social justice. As an analogy, he reminded me of how Coretta Scott King defined violence after her husband had been assassinated. Paraphrasing Mrs. King, Barber said, “Violence is denying people an education, living wages, health care . . . [it’s] racism and police brutality.” Just as being violent does not require raising a hand against another, Barber said, acting in a civil manner is not about a tone of voice but about an approach to a civilized life — it’s about our values and who we are.

I asked Barber to address Randazzo’s allegation that civility hasn’t worked to aid progressive causes. Barber quickly listed three victories in the Tar Heel state that he says would not have been possible without his movement’s work: The defeat of the Republican governor and the GOP candidate for attorney general, and the election of an African American judge to the state Supreme Court.

“That’s because we’re taking the moral high ground,” he said.

Again and again, Barber cautioned that we don’t want to fight extremism with extremism, ending our conversation with these words: “I can’t use hate to stand against hate. . . . We have to go to a higher ground.” Wise advice for everyone, whether Democrat or Republican, left or right, black or white, straight or gay.

Agree or disagree with my perspective? Let me know in the comments section below.

Email questions to Civilities at stevenpetrow@gmail.com (not all questions can be answered). You can reach him on Facebook at facebook.com/stevenpetrow and on Twitter @stevenpetrow.