Though nearly two weeks have passed since the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, the details remain fuzzy and don’t add up. The shooter, we are told, was a 20-year-old guy with long hair and an underbite who once starred in BlackRock commercials. There were massive and suspicious failures in security—to such a degree that Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, after evasive testimony before a congressional inquiry, was forced to resign.

Most of the speculation surrounding the event has centered around the motives of the shooter, why the Secret Service failed so spectacularly, and whether this was a coordinated effort from within the Biden regime. If previous experience serves as any guide, much of this speculation will remain unanswered and occupy conspiracy theorists for generations. The news media, however, has already moved on—focusing its attention now on Biden dropping out of the race and the push for Vice President Kamala Harris to be his replacement.

That said, the left should take a moment to consider that its repeated assertions that Trump is a fascist Nazi who will destroy American democracy have radicalized progressives, even the so-called normies among them, to a dangerous degree. We now live in a world where corporate media routinely spreads misinformation to smear Trump, the Biden Justice Department continually subverts the law in an effort to bankrupt and imprison Trump and members of his inner circle.

As a result, the Democratic electorate has largely broken ties with conservatives and is sanguine about foul play in elections if it produces their desired result. Now a suicidal deadbeat has attempted to carry out an assassination plot, resulting in the death of one innocent and grave injuries to two others. Tensions between citizens are high as many leftists openly lament that Trump survived.

Which prompts the question: How deep does this radicalization go? At what point does a Biden-supporter/Trump-hater begin to harbor misgivings about the lies and exaggerations and ask whether they might encourage violence? Is it worth it for the sake of winning elections and holding power?

These questions are hard for conservatives to process because, being relatively normal, we don’t have a helpful frame of reference for them. Our rampant dislike of politicians, particularly of Democrats, does not result in conservative media insisting they are dictators on par with Adolf Hitler (who everyone knows is the secular stand-in for the devil). Moreover, no prominent pundits or politicians urge conservatives to circumvent law and order or to engage in terror tactics or cancellation. Hence, there’s no real conservative equivalent to the dehumanizing concept of “deplorables.” The closest insult we can muster is “communist,” but that label isn’t so much contemptuous as it is descriptive, and some leftists even take it as a badge of honor.

Those eager to cite the events of Jan. 6 to smear the right should consider that there is no real comparison. The riot on Jan. 6, 2021 was not an assassination attempt, nor was it an insurrection, no matter how many times corporate leftist media wants to insist otherwise. Rather, some protesters of the 2020 election were peacefully allowed into the Capitol while others were violently beaten back. Three years later, there’s actually good reason to think that the escalation of violence was actively encouraged by the FBI and other government agencies. All of the people who died that day were unarmed protesters who posed no threat to anyone—Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who was falsely reported to have been bludgeoned by protesters, actually died of a heart attack after the event.

More importantly, nearly every conservative denounced the events of that day—often excessively so. The very thought of people using violence or intimidation to advance a conservative agenda was repugnant. Consequently, many peaceful protesters have been unfairly tried and imprisoned by the Biden regime without much pushback from anyone.

We can only imagine (though its sheer improbability makes it difficult) what would have happened if the roles had been reversed. Let’s say that Biden came out of his basement to give a speech to a crowd of his supporters, and a shooter attempted to assassinate him. And let’s say his security detail suspiciously neglected to secure the area or respond to people pointing to an armed civilian crawling up to a roof within a clear line of sight to Biden.

Without any prompting from corporate media, most conservatives would be horrified and afraid if this happened. The thought of a Republican president who would enable such an attack and neglect the personal safety of his Democratic opponent violates all the principles and priorities of conservatives. It is likely that there wouldn’t be a conservative movement to speak of after such an event.

This doesn’t seem to be the case with leftists who appear fine with the Hitler talk, to the point of relishing it, and who openly agonize about a potential violent response from conservatives, even as they claim the whole thing was staged to assist Trump. If the shooter had hit his target and Trump had been assassinated, we can guess what would have happened. As happened with dissent on COVID policy and serious reports about Hunter Biden’s laptop, all the investigations would be shut down or covered up, social media platforms would be censored, and the corporate media would attribute this ordeal to insufficient gun control and Trump’s hateful language. And, as in 2020, Biden and the Democrats would quickly move on and win the next election while conservatives were persecuted and marginalized into oblivion.

To those who have been so radicalized that they don’t find this shooting the least bit disconcerting, I can only implore them to examine their consciences and reconsider the people and ideas they’re supporting. At the very least, it is time to stop this vicious tribalism and start treating our politics and one another with the respect due to fellow citizens. None of this is normal and the demonization of political opponents is leading the country into a very dark place (some might say a new Dark Age). This shooting is only the most recent example.