After a well-publicized case of political violence—such as a riot or assassination—commentators often speak of the need to “end polarization” and “cool down the rhetoric.” They sometimes assign blame to both sides and urge everyone to step back.
I’m all for reducing polarization and hate. But in our present situation, “both sides” are not equally at fault. As between the right and left sides of the political spectrum, the overwhelming majority of attacks are coming from the Left. The Right could act and speak like St. Francis of Assisi, but it would do little to reduce hate and violence.
In other words, those directing their comments to both sides are committing the fallacy of false equivalence .
The Evidence
Let’s examine the evidence:
Assassinations and assassination attempts: With a single exception of the wack-job who killed a Minnesota state lawmaker, the motivations for recent assassination attempts have been almost exclusively leftist. Examples include the assassination of Charlie Kirk and the two attempts on President Trump. Likewise, the suspect in the attempted killing of Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro apparently wanted to punish Shapiro for not supporting the “Palestinian” cause. And despite all the media chatter about Proud Boys and white supremacist groups, for political violence the Right has nothing like Antifa.
With rare exceptions, the Left is shooting at the Right. The Right is not shooting at the Left. (Nor should it!)
Riots: In the 60 years I’ve been following politics, every publicized political riot except the one on January 6, 2021 has been fostered or stoked by left-wing activists. The playbook for January 6 itself was written by leftists: their 2011 occupation of the Wisconsin capitol, the 2018 storming of the Supreme Court and invasion of the U.S. Senate office building, and the 2020 George Floyd insurrections. It was replayed when leftists flooded back into the Senate office Building last year.
Almost without exception, political riots are caused by the Left, not the Right.
Suppression of dissent. The leftist Biden Administration launched the most massive attack on the First Amendment in peacetime American history. Another confirmation of this just came from Alphabet, the parent company of Google and YouTube, which revealed that “Senior Biden Administration officials, including White House officials, conducted repeated and sustained” efforts to get Google and YouTube to censor content.
On college campuses, the dominant leftist culture routinely suppresses conservatives. Contrary examples are almost unheard of.
The Left is suppressing the Right; the Right is not suppressing the Left.
Ultimate political goals. Conservatives and libertarians believe in freedom and small government. Most just want to live and let live. Leftists, by contrast, favor using force to bend others to their will. They favor moral shaming, higher taxes, more government spending, more economic regulation, more central authority, more restrictions on free speech, more bureaucratic control of health care, less scope for religious liberty, and seizure of private property.
Even when leftists use the term “freedom,” they do so perversely. That is, they apply the word “freedom” to programs of coercion. For example, the “freedom” of a sex change operation or an abortion always entails forcing others to pay for it or otherwise participate.
The Left seeks to coerce the Right; the Right is not trying to coerce the Left.
Political rhetoric. I’m not always happy with President Trump’s political rhetoric. But one reason it stands out is that it is so unusual for a conservative or a Republican to talk that way. We have learned that over-the-top rhetoric almost always comes from the Left. For many years, leftists routinely have labeled pro-freedom conservatives as extremists, radicals, Fascists and Nazis.
In 2021, I published the results of a Google Ngram that documented the point. The Ngram surveyed the use of various political insults in 20th and 21st century American writings. The results showed that the phrase “right wing extremist” appeared far more often than “left wing extremist.” Similarly, “far right” appeared much more often than “far left,” and “ultra conservative” much more than “ultra liberal.”
In other words, people on the Left were hurling these insults far more frequently than those on the Right. What made the findings particularly weird was that the period surveyed included the Cold War—when the dominant threat to America really did come from the far Left (Communism). But even in that climate, more opprobrium was hurled against the Right.
Here’s a personal experience along the same line: When I was active in Montana politics, I proposed a school choice plan far less sweeping than the one then promoted by then-President George H.W. Bush. So my plan was more moderate than the one proposed by a moderate Republican. Yet leftists charged that my plan showed that I was a “radical” and an “extremist.”
I admit that in the realm of rhetoric—unlike the others listed above—conservatives bear some blame. But even when conservative language was more measured, that restraint did not blunt the violence and suppression coming from the Left.
What Has Happened
When I was growing up, there were plenty of political liberals. They believed in government action, but they also recognized that individual human rights are important. Correspondingly, they acknowledged that there are limits on how much government should control people.
That has changed. Yesterday’s liberals have been largely replaced by today’s totalitarian leftists.
I first noticed the change about 15 years ago, while working on an interactive political website. Many of our participants were new “progressives” rather than old liberals. Like the liberals, they favored activist government. But unlike the liberals they acknowledged no moral limits on government—so long as it did what they wanted it to do. As I wrote at the time, America was being attacked by a new breed of totalitarians.
Those totalitarians have now infected much of American society and many of our institutions.
How We Should Respond
We cannot successfully appease totalitarian leftists, or get them to play nicely with us by playing nicely with them. (Read the much-overrated Saul Alinsky if you doubt me on this point.) They are unappeasable. Nor can we compromise with them—because, having gotten some of what they want in the compromise, they always will be back for more.
History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes. That’s why we can learn from history. Consider three historical parallels:
During the American Revolution, a large minority of Americans (called “Tories”) rejected the very idea of Independence. Many of them went to war against their fellow Americans, and were guilty of atrocities far greater than those inflicted by the British.
The hard-core Tories could not be appeased. They had to be defeated. Those who remained irreconcilable had to leave the country.
During the Civil War, a large minority of Americans rejected our Founding Creed. They did not believe that “all men are created equal,” nor did they concede that African Americans had any rights at all. Indeed, the more extreme Confederates (and I am not including heroes like Robert E. Lee in this category) literally held racial views that prefigured those of the Nazis.
Those people could not be appeased. They had to be defeated and denied the right to participate in government.
During the Cold War a small Fifth Column of Americans betrayed their own country by working for brutal foreign totalitarian powers. Those people had to be removed from positions of influence, and those guilty of espionage or violence had to be incarcerated or executed.
Reconciliation will not come by playing gently with totalitarian leftists. It will come when we defeat them.
Robert G. Natelson, a former constitutional law professor who is senior fellow in constitutional jurisprudence at the Independence Institute in Denver, authored “ The Original Constitution ” (4th ed., 2025). He is a contributor to the Heritage Foundation’s Heritage Guide to the Constitution.”