How to avoid being gaslit
Look at the empirical data and ask questions. Most of all, exercise your memory.
Greg Gutfeld gives a seminar in how to deal with the “both sides do it” hoax. He demonstrates two key points for critically thinking about the claim:
1. Ask: “Was this particular person demonized by the opposition?”
2. Ask: “Are you forgetting evidence that the motive was leftist (or “leftist”)?”
Gutfeld correctly pointed out that the Minnesota Dems were killed by someone who said that Dem Tim Walz asked him to do it.
The killer in that case is obviously insane, but this fabrication insinuates that the delusional motivation was not stoked by Trump/MAGA/Conservative ideas. The contrary is more likely.
Likewise, GG points out that the Shapiro fire was by a person who expressed support for Hamas. Again, the implication is that he was not motivated by rightwing ideas.
Do these facts surprise you? It is not surprising that you are surprised. I went back through the media reports and discovered that these inconvenient facts are never mentioned in the results given by the algorithm or, which is to say the same thing, mainstream reporting.
Is the fact that both sides do NOT do it surprising?
It should not be surprising. Polls have shown that Democrats (or the left) support assassinations and censorship by margins far higher than any other cohort in American politics.
Prior to the Kirk assassination, the left’s attitude had been accompanied by stunningly violent rhetoric, reaching levels that could be characterized as incitement.
The recent polling on censorship is supported by past polling with similar results.
On college campuses, there is a history of physical attacks on conservative students and their efforts to communicate their message, including Antifa attacks on Turning Point. Political violence has involved professors who identify with leftwing causes.
Leftwing violence is organized and directed at those who offend leftwing sensibilities.
The fact pattern of leftist violence in leftist enclaves reminds those acquainted with history of the gentle treatment accorded to the Brownshirts in Weimar Germany. The shutdown of speech on campuses and in Seattle resulted in no penalties for the censors. The implication is that this behavior is tolerated because the judicial and political elites are sympathetic to the “noble intent” of the violent. In Weimar, Nazi Brownshirts were often given far lighter sentences for assault and murder than Communists because their nationalist motivations showed that they had their hearts in the right place.
So, both sides don’t do it. The historical and sociological evidence shows that one side has been provided a permission structure, legal impunity, and ideological justifications to “do it.”
And they are doing it.