Look, I’m not left or right, okay? But let’s be honest. The right usually trusts cops. The left usually doesn’t. That’s just how it shows up. Watch a protest. Right-leaning rallies? Flags, chants, speeches, maybe a little shouting, then done. Left-leaning protests? Sometimes a loud few block streets, clash with police, break stuff. Not everyone, not all the time, but enough to notice.
And don’t start saying it’s only one side. There’s bad on both sides. Jan 6, riots in 2020, it is all there. But if you don’t trust the system, you push harder, you test it. Then cops push back. Then the media clips it and runs it nonstop. Suddenly everyone thinks the other side is worse.
The media is not helping. They skip the calm people, the moms with signs, the students marching quietly. Those stories do not trend. Anger sells. Fear sells. Clicks sell. Meanwhile, the majority of people, left and right, just want to be safe, to live their lives, to have fairness. That stuff does not make the front page.
Here is what really screws things up. We made politics a team sport. Us versus them. That is it. Once it is teams, normal disagreements turn into threats. Protests get called violence when nothing illegal happens. Real attacks like what happened to Kirk or Melissa Hortman? They barely get coverage or get twisted to fit a narrative. And everyone gets angrier because the story is always the other side’s fault.
And let’s be real. Ignoring violence on your own side but pointing at the other? That just feeds the extremists. They notice. They take it further. Pretending one side owns political violence is what keeps the cycle spinning. Condemn both or watch it get worse.
Think about it. How long can this go on? When every protest feels like a battle, every disagreement feels life or death, when trust is gone and neighbors see each other as threats? Hatred is no longer words. It is a machine grinding down trust and normal life. And most people barely even see it happening until it is too late.
h/t Ash