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In addition to lies, censorship, and intimidation tactics, radical left-wing activists have long used violence to try to silence and destroy their political opponents and advance their utopian goals — and now that they don’t have power, the U.S. is going to see even more of it.
History teaches us that violence is a core value of leftism, and as we see that displayed almost daily this year, whether it’s the attacks on Teslas, the attempted murder of politicians, or the glorification of murderers, a new study has confirmed what history already knew: There is a direct connection between leftism and support for violence against political opponents.
The penchant for justifying or calling for political violence has become so pervasive that the researchers, who studied available intelligence analysis and social media posts, said an “assassination culture” has developed on the left.
“These attitudes are not fringe,” the researchers wrote, “they reflect an emergent assassination culture, grounded in far-left authoritarianism and increasingly normalized in digital discourse.”
For example, of those left of center politically, 48 percent said it was “at least somewhat justified” to assassinate Tesla founder Elon Musk, while 55 percent said it would be justified to assassinate President Donald Trump.
Meanwhile, 39.8 percent of leftists said it was justified to destroy a Tesla dealership.
The study also found that left-wing social media outlet BlueSky is playing a key role in propagating radical ideology, including what researchers called the “memeification” of Luigi Mangione, the alleged assassin of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thomas.
Since Thomas’s assassination , many on the left have rushed to defend Mangione, hailing him as a hero.
This study shows a terrifying reality, but it isn’t anything new.
For example, just a year ago, 27 percent of university students surveyed by College Pulse and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) said that violence is justified in order to stop a conservative from speaking on campus.
In 2023, a Harvard/Harris poll found that 36 percent of liberals thought Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel was justified, while 51 percent of those ages 18 to 24 said it was justified.
Even a cursory glance of recent news offers numerous examples of violence by those on the left.
Keying or otherwise vandalizing Teslas and firebombing dealerships and shooting out charging stations has become ho-hum it is so common.
A registered socialist recently set fire to Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s home while he and his family hosted members of the Jewish community for Passover Seder; he told police he targeted Shapiro for “what he wants to do to the Palestine people.”
A lipstick-wearing man who is a member of “500 Queer Scientists” firebombed a GOP office in New Mexico, as well as a Tesla dealership.
Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, Nikita Casap, 17, allegedly murdered his mother and stepfather to “obtain the financial means and autonomy necessary” to assassinate President Trump.
President Trump endured at least two assassination attempts last year.
Those are but a small sampling of political violence from the left—and that’s just in the last 12 months.
Yet even a short memory shows scores more instances of political violence by the left.
Black Lives Matter set numerous cities ablaze over the last decade, most notably during the summer of 2020.
In 2017, James Hodgkinson, a passionate Bernie Sanders supporter shot several GOP congressman at a GOP baseball practice, including Rep. Steve Scalise, who spent weeks in critical condition before ultimately recovering.
In 2023, the transgender killer of three staff members and three elementary-age children at Covenant Christian School left notes indicating that she was spurred on by transgender ideology and hatred of white people.
During the “Summer of Rage” after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a pro abortionist terrorist group known as “Jane’s Revenge” kicked off a wave of attacks on over 100 churches and pro-life pregnancy centers, including firebombings, threats, and assaults.
In the midst of all this, Nicholas Roske, a California man upset about the Supreme Court’s decision showed up at Brett Kavanaugh’s house with a handgun, zip ties, pepper spray, a knife, and a crowbar with the intent to assassinate the justice. Fortunately, U.S. marshals interrupted him as he was heading towards the house, and Roske was recently convicted in federal court.
Yet despite this clear pattern of leftist violence over the past decade, CNN made the truly asinine claim when discussing Mangione, “While America’s roots are soaked in bloodshed, violence in the country today is mostly from right-wing extremism. From Oklahoma City, to Charlottesville, to January 6, there is simply no equivalent on the left.”
I agree. There is no equivalent between the left and right when it comes to political violence..
And yet, it’s hardly a surprise. This type of media propaganda, whether it’s negligence, spin, censorship, or justification, is a key factor in the left’s ability to propagate violence and largely get away with it.
Just take former Washington Post journalist Taylor Lorenz’s gushing praise of Mangione as to why left-wing women swoon over the murderer. “Here’s this man who’s a revolutionary, who’s famous, who’s handsome, who’s young, who’s smart, he’s a person who seems like he’s this morally good man, which is hard to find,” Lorenz stated.
Lorenz previously noted that she wanted more healthcare CEOs to die.
Or remember in 2019, the perpetrator of the El Paso massacre, was branded by the media as “anti-immigrant” and “right-wing” while a review of his manifesto showed he was a socialist primarily motivated by his environmentalist views claiming that humans were overpopulated and destroying the environment. The media later even made up the term “eco-fascism” trying to tie radical environmentalism to the right.
Contrary to CNN’s claims, my problem when writing this article wasn’t trying to find examples of left-wing violence to support a forced thesis; my problem was being overwhelmed by how many examples I could include.
Left-wing violence has been common since its infancy. One need only brush up on the French Revolution, the first truly Marxist uprising, though it pre-dated Karl Marx himself.
Though the revolution started out relatively peaceful, the mob within a few years had decided to unleash its “Reign of Terror” to punish any and all who the “revolutionaries” viewed as an enemy of their new “liberty.” Far from stopping at the murder of the French royal family, the mob soon targeted the wealthy, clergy, and average citizens.
Yet the unhinged and erratic actions of the proto-Marxists weren’t limited to violence against political opponents. They changed street names and the calendar in an attempt to remove any references to the Catholic church or its saints or the culture that came before. To them, history started with their new system of government, which they infamously described as “Year Zero.”
However, an ideology founded on hatred and violence will soon eats its own. Those French radicals who had orchestrated the guillotines and enthusiastically cheered the decapitation of everyone from kings to nuns inevitably found their own heads on the literal chopping block due to paranoia and their supposed lack of enthusiasm for the cause. Even Jacobin leader Maximillian Robespierre met his end at the hands of other leftists.
The French Revolution was not an outlier. The same pattern repeats in every leftist revolution. The nation’s culture and history are erased, opponents are dehumanized, violence is justified, and unimaginable death and destruction follow.
There were the Bolsheviks and their cruel murder of the Romanovs and millions of political opponents and “class enemies,” including Russian Orthodox clergy, followed by Stalin’s demonic policies and purges that led to the deaths of tens of millions.
Also in the 20th century was Mao Zedong, the leader of the Chinese Communist Party, who during his Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward enslaved, tortured, and starved his people, killing up to 65 million people.
Then there’s lesser-known instances of leftist violence such as the bombings and murders committed by left-wing groups like the Weather Underground, the FALN, and the Symbionese Liberation Army in the 1970s.
Leftists only have one goal: obtaining and maintaining power. Because they cannot win power through the merit of their policies, they only have a handful of approaches: manipulation, censorship, intimidation, and violence.
Manipulation and censorship have failed in America. Intimidation through cancel culture, ad hominem slander, and lawfare also failed to hold power.
Americans aren’t buying what the left is selling anymore.
So what are committed radical supposed to do? Turn to the only tool they have left in their toolbox: violence.
In the minds of deranged leftists, their cause is noble, their opposition is less than human, and they are justified in eliminating them, by any means necessary.
And they are far from being isolated or chastised for their beliefs.
They are surrounded by others who believe the same way.
Mangione has received nearly $1 million in donations for his defense fund.
There is something the typical American has to understand: Leftists hate you.
I could try to parse out the exact targets of their hatred, but the shortest way to say it is if you are a Westerner of any skin color who holds non-leftist values on any subject, you are the enemy.
I thought about writing something about “bringing down the temperature” of political discourse, but that would be pointless. The left will never change its language or its goals and it will never respect anyone who opposes them.
It must be thoroughly and resoundingly defeated in the hearts and minds of Americans, at the ballot box, and in our culture.
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