THE KEY WORD IS “CLAIM:”

UPDATE: He’s not wrong:

MORE:

The center holds. Barely. For now. Don’t take that for granted. Reader John Steakley writes:

The right thinks the left is stupid. The left thinks the right is evil.

I confess that it took me a while to fully understand what this statement meant. What it’s saying is that the right measures the left intellectually, but the left measures the right emotionally. Each side concludes that the other fails.

The right says that the left’s math doesn’t add up. The left says that the math is irrelevant as long as the outcome feels good.

But each side’s response to the other is starkly different. One side doesn’t resort to violence against those who can’t do math, but the other side proudly resorts to violence against those on the right cast as evil.

These two sides aren’t even speaking the same language. They aren’t pursuing the same goals. And they aren’t measuring each other or themselves by the same standards.

The right is appalled by Charlie Kirk‘s murder. But if it turns out to be a politically-motivated murder, the left will ultimately feel it as emotionally justified (despite whatever lip service they initially offer). And that feeling in the heart of the passionate left will invariably shock the cooler minds on the right.

This is where the right faces an existential decision: do they cower away from the emotional violence, resort to counter-violence, or stick together and stay the peaceful intellectual course?

I hope they choose the third option. But it is always the most difficult.

Indeed.