Do people seriously not do the basic fucking self-examination of "OK, if this exact same news item were happening with the parties flipped, would I be having the same reaction?"

Evidently not. Seems like basic Intellectual Integrity 101 to me. But honestly? If we were the ones storming the White House, you know deep down in your heart we'd all, INCLUDING ME, be spouting rationalizations about why this is legal and fine. And the conservatives, naturally, would be screaming about how it's a war against them and a coup and the end of democracy forever. And they, too, would be idiots. *sigh*

Sorry, that's just the way humans work. And if you have a rational about why it's Different For Us... well, that's nice. People always do. ALWAYS.

I'm not saying that we DON'T have a superior cause, nor that that cause might not indeed better justify us invading the Capitol. I'm saying that we both know damn well most of our reactions to this have NOTHING to do with those detailed reasons nor any serious thought into them, and EVERYTHING to do with the same dumb in-group/out-group shit that's always plagued humanity.

Doesn't mean the people in the Capitol Building are not wholly (a) wrong (b) bad (c) seditionist (d) criminal or (e) proto-fascist at best. It just means that just like them, when the chips are down, we think being "NOT the bad guys" -- i.e. just belonging to the right club and mouthing the right dogma -- is enough to justify what we do, even if it breaks the law or hurts people.

There's a parallel universe, I PROMISE YOU, where we fell for a Stalin-grade leftist narcissist who played us like fiddles and YOU AND I ARE FUCKING LOVING IT and have zero moral qualms about any of it.

Or maybe in that universe, you just got tired of my handwringing and up and shot me. That's fine.

@zebratron2084

Yeah, people love their polarizing, charismatic leaders. But if what you posit is true, I'd have expected Bernie to at least have soundly taken the primary.

I think Team Blue has attracted more people that are able to at least get a bit into the mouth of their animal selves - If for no other reason than because if you think doing that's worthehile, you're going to be repulsed by Team Red, pretty quick.

@Orb2069 I'm probably badly biased, admittedly, by the fact my timeline tends to lean WAY more radical than stuffy old 20th-century neo-Marxist me...