Thread by @Doctor_Zer0

As Vice President Vance pointed out yesterday, there is no equivalency or "both sides" argument to be made about political violence. Support for violence is orders of magnitude worse on the Left. "Political violence is sometimes justified" is a mainstream Democrat Party position.

There are good reasons for this. One is that Democrat political rhetoric has shifted almost entirely to contempt-signaling. The Party does little but spew bile at those who disagree with its decrepit ideology, or try to enforce laws the Party doesn't like.

When your Party is unified by hatred, it's no surprise that online conversations turn rancid very quickly. Lefties compete for status online by coming up with the most extravagant invective for people they hate. Wishing death upon them is the pinnacle of contempt.

This is not limited to online conversations or fringe weirdos. Former President Joe Biden frequently fantasized in public about using the military to kill people who resisted his gun control agenda. He chuckled at the notion of hayseeds fighting back against the U.S. Army.

Another reason for the flowering of violent radicalization on the Left was the Democrats' reckless response to Trump winning both of his elections. Even more so in his second term, they routinely portray Trump as a dictator who seized power in a coup, and his voters as Nazis.

This mindset is ubiquitous even in the shallower waters of the left-wing fever swamp. Go to any mainstream pop-culture site, and you will be overwhelmed with movie, game, and music reviews that casually assume the reader is living in a fascist dystopia.

Telling people they've been conquered by an illegitimate fascist dictator is dangerous, especially when the bulk of your party believes political violence is justifiable, at least in "extreme" circumstances. "Resistance" role-playing is not harmless fun.

But the biggest reason for the Democrats' descent into political terrorism is that their ideology is inherently coercive. Every single one of their positions involves using massive amounts of force to make unwilling Americans comply. They are socialists and collectivists.

Socialism is an effort to pretty up coercive violence and tyrannical force, excusing them as the aggressive pursuit of "fairness" and "equity." Socialism is hanging lace curtains on the windows of a tank. All forms of collectivism are intrinsically compulsive and violent.

The Democrat Party teaches its followers that no good-faith disagreement with its positions is possible. There can be no "resistance" against THEM. Democrats believe a growing number of issues have been "settled," and the people do not get to vote against the "consensus."

Democrats have worked feverishly to store as much power as possible in the permanent bureaucracy, which no one gets to vote against. On a growing number of issues, they believe subjecting righteous State power to a popular veto through elections would be absurd.

No one can refuse to "pay their fair share." Democrats say wanting lower taxes is greed, demanding smaller government is heartless cruelty, and owning private capital is an abomination. No one can be allowed to vote against climate change, diversity, or redistributive "justice."

All of this is inherently coercive, and frankly, one of the big draws for left-wingers is the fantasy of using government power to kill, imprison, or ruin those who resist. The gulags were not an unfortunate side effect of the Soviet system - they were the POINT.

Today Democrats tell us that enforcing laws they don't like is "authoritarian," even though it is far more authoritarian to assert that your Party can nullify laws by fiat, without winning elections or passing legislation. They encourage violent "resistance" against enforcement.

All of this is political terrorism, very much including the idiotic Democrat notion of "sanctuary cities," which are a form of terrorism against the law-abiding - a totalitarian Party nullifying laws, without a care for the death and suffering inflicted on the law-abiding.

Nobody on the Left is under any illusions that the endgame of Democrat politics would be a world of greater freedom, liberty, and harmony. They know they're supporting a totalitarian party, and as long as the Party hurts people they don't like, they're completely on board. /end