David Hines

The Left and Right don't just want different things. They also have different abilities, goals, resources, and senses of propriety.

Meaning: *contemporary political violence from the Left and from the Right will look very different.*

I took a detailed look at violence in the 1970s in my earlier tweetstorms about DAYS OF RAGE... (links coming next)

Now, 2017 isn't going to be the 1970s. Goals, situations, and cultures change. The actors want different things. But we can look for hints.

Like, what kind of people will do this stuff?

The mental model we have for domestic terrorism in 2017 is shaped by what scares us: mass shooters and jihad. '70s radicals were different.

'70s radicals wanted to get away with their crimes. They wanted to avoid detection, didn't want to get arrested, didn't want to die.

Most '70s bombers had no moral objection to killing people, but they also didn't go to any great lengths to maximize body count.

That's pretty different from 21st-century mass shooters (who tend suicidal) & jihadists (for whom a high body count is part of the message).

Some suicidal mass murderers choose political targets, though it's uncommon. Overseas jihadists draft depressives, but it takes organization

When we're talking about domestic political violence, we're mostly talking about *stuff that is coldbloodedly plotted by serious people.*

So maybe we can hope that political violence in the US, '70s-style, won't go all-out for massive numbers of deaths? Well... maybe.

The way I see it, domestic conflict in the United States could operate in basically four stages:

1) cold Civil War 2) targeted political violence, mostly short of murder 3) political violence with murder as the default 4) Civil War II

The United States should start seriously talking about National Divorce before we get to stage 3.

We're in Stage 1 now. Stages 2 and 3 are what we're concerned with: the public getting mobilized. What'd that look like, on Left and Right?

People tend to think that the Right will be an awesome, horrific force in political violence. The SPLC's donations depend on that idea.

Righties tell themselves that *of course* they'd win a war against Lefties. Tactical Deathbeast vs. Pajama Boy? No contest.

Why, Righties have thought about what an effective domestic insurrection would look like. Righties have written books and manifestos!

It's horseshit.

The truth: Left is a lot more organized & prepared for violence than Right is, and has the advantage of a mainstream more supportive of it.

You think that's unfair? Okay, well: *imagine an abortion clinic bombing ring getting presidential clemency.* http://www.cnn.com/US/9909/10/faln.clemency.02/index.html …

Imagine an abortion clinic bomber *getting a comfortable job at an elite university.* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernardine_Dohrn …

Outrageous, right? No way the Right could get away with that. But the Left does! And the press gives them cover.

(This is the "hypocrisy and media bias" section, by the way.)