There is decidedly more events of left wing violence. — AmadeusD

This just does not line up with the facts. Could you please provide a source for this?

The right simply doesn't kill people for their opiinons. The left will. — AmadeusD

What a wholly unfounded statement.

For every crazy on the left, I can find for you two crazies on the right. Here's one specific example - death threats against election workers and candidates in the 2024 election spiked to over 2,000. Fed by Trump's lies and hate, many MAGA lashed out against those Trump said were the enemy.

According to Gary M. Restaino, the U.S. attorney in Arizona, “There’s a common denominator in many of these cases: election denialists announcing an intent to violently punish those who they believe have wronged them.

He’d announced that a judge had sentenced an Ohio man, Joshua Russell, 46, to 30 months in prison for sending death threats to Katie Hobbs, then Arizona’s secretary of state, between August and November 2022.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/13/us/politics/election-workers-threats.html

Not only Kirk, but two attempts on the President's life. — AmadeusD

I think it's been made apparent that in all three cases an unstable person for personal reasons did what they did. In no way is it representative of what you term "the left" and "the right" -

-- which, lumps a whole lot of different people together. It is viewing the world through an "us vs them" lens and that leaves no room for critical thinking.

I'd like to add - it is important to distinguish "regular people" from political leadership. Leadership sets the tone, and Trump has solidly embraced violence, just like he gave the green light to the J6 rioters.

It's leadership that especially has to be held accountable.

I'm a agéd leftist; my experience has been that very ideologically committed leftists (Marxists) can be intolerant of other people's statements, when they don't match the ideology.

I've been denounced for disagreeing with the idea that the working class must achieve class consciousness in order for the global warming crisis to be averted. "I never want to speak to you again", he said, and he hasn't for several years. It would be just great if the working classes DID achieve class consciousness this afternoon, but our enlightenment doesn't seem to be on the horizon, and at this point, the global warming crisis is becoming present tense, rather than future tense.

Defenders of embattled ideology (which Marxists are, pretty much, especially in rampantly capitalist economies) are reluctant to agree with the opposition on anything. That said, the opposite very conservative, ultra-religious types are in the same boat. They find it difficult to grant credit to dissenters on just about anything.

Ideology is a chunk of the problem, as is personality. Some people have rigid personalities who experience pain when they have to bend, even a little. Some informed ideologues, left and right, are able to be flexible enough to agree with opposing ideas.

Group think sets in, too. Social dynamics make it difficult to wander even a little from the party line, be that revolutionary or reactionary in nature.