Quote of the Day
Several House Democrats are warning that the Democrat base has become increasingly radicalized in its resistance to the Trump administration. Democrat politicians are frightened by many of their leftist constituents whose growing anger has “morphed into a disregard for American institutions, political traditions and even the rule of law,” according to a new report from Axios.
In the eyes of some liberal voters, Democrats aren’t doing enough to counter the president’s agenda. One House representative said, “Our own base is telling us that what we’re doing is not good enough … [that] there needs to be blood to grab the attention of the press and the public.” Some have suggested that they need to “be willing to get shot” visiting ICE facilities or federal agencies.
Data confirms that the Left has become increasingly warm to the idea of violence. One recent report found that 55 percent of left-leaning Americans thought political violence could be acceptable, responding that “it would be at least somewhat justified” to murder Trump.
Jonah Apel
July 9, 2025
‘There Needs To Be Blood’: House Democrats Are Frightened by the Radicalism of Their Own Base | The American Spectator | USA News and Politics
Fifty five percent of left-leaning think political violence could be acceptable! Not, 55% of the most radical, that is 55 percent of the left-leaning. What would the polling numbers be if you asked the committed leftists? Would it be 90 percent?
There is a reason for the calls for violence. It is in their nature:
The Second Amendment is about protecting us from modern liberals.
Prepare appropriately.
The partisan media is looking for their next Michael Brown, George Floyd or Trayvon Martin. That is to say, they want a drug-addled and/or violent thug to be white-washed of their manifold sins so their deaths can be used to catalyze more riots.
Get ready for the heartrending story of some choirperson who was standing on a streetcorner, minding their own business, possibly on the way home to have a wholesome glass of milk and read the Bible before a reasonable bedtime after helping the underprivileged with homework at the community center. Naturally, they were just about to get their life turned around after a series of misunderstandings with law enforcement, dutifully met with their parole officer on at least 40% of their scheduled check-ins and were looking forward to a bright future as a [aspiring rapper|social worker|nurse|undisclosed variety of entrepreneur|college student|social justice activist|youth pastor|semi-pro sports player]. And then, outta nowhere, a peaceful protest appears and cops start whalin’ on them for no reason. Our protagonist, who always wears black pants, hoody, sneakers and a backpack, and carries their fairly new skateboard (they’ll do their first ollie any day now!), di’int do nuffin, just got caught up in the situation, and somehow just ended up straddling a fallen officer with the skateboard held in both hands over their head when four other officers completely misread the situation and opened fire, gunning this proto-saint down in the prime of their life. Their momma is going to be all over the news, while their father (who they haven’t seen in a decade) will start a GoFundMe.
The U.S. was formed out of violence. We decided our rulers were wrong and we wanted freedom, so we took it by shooting them until they left us alone. And many folks commenting on this very blog have regularly said “The tree of liberty must occasionally be watered with the blood of patriots,” so it’s not like leftists are the only ones advocating and willing to use violence.
If you believe the Constitution is valid and should be followed, you can’t look at the severe and regular violations of many of its core directives by this administration and not acknowledge that at some point violence might be necessary to restore constitutional order. I realize for most folks commenting here it’s not their ox being gored, so everything is hunky dory, but that position isn’t logical or constitutionally valid.
Or put another way, claiming liberals are violent savages and conservatives are pure as the driven snow is neither historically nor logically accurate.
And btw, Epstein didn’t kill himself, and Trump’s a pedo rapist. Just to, y’know, throw a little spice in the soup….
Right on time with the regular dose of whattaboutism and “both sides do it” false equivalency.
I like to be prompt, and I wouldn’t want to disappoint. I know your obsession with not acknowledging the hypocrisy of the right, and wouldn’t want you to miss an opportunity.
Sorry, busy today doing final shopping and packing for Scout camp. I will be spending the whole week instructing at the rifle range and casually mentioning Boomershoot.
I appreciate your balance, John. Perhaps you can point out the public figures on the right calling for blood? Or the polls saying a significant number of people on the right are accepting of violence and the assassination of Democrats? And perhaps a report on the assassinations (and attempts) of Democrat versus Republican politicians in the last 20 years would provide some insight.
And I know you have read my comments about the lack of due process by this administration. And probably my comments about abortion which have significant divergence from most people who consider themselves on the “right” or “conservative”.
The fundamental difference between the founders and today’s anarcho-syndicalists shilling for totalitarianism is that the founders knew the issues deserving violent responses were not in the minds of the bystanders, but in the minds and charters of the king-appointed government officials, and the answer for the bystanders were such books as “Common Sense” by Thomas Paine, and “broadsides”, which today would be referred to as flyers or circulars, instead of violence which was the proper response to violence by the rulers.
Such violence as the government’s response to the demonstration of January 6,. 2021, which curiously (for the land of the free) included agents provocateurs causing a riot on one side of the capitol building while unknowing demonstrators demonstrated on the other. Or is this too incendiary for “mere spice”?
“Such violence as the government’s response to the demonstration of January 6,. 2021, which curiously (for the land of the free) included agents provocateurs causing a riot on one side of the capitol building while unknowing demonstrators demonstrated on the other.”
So Jan 6 was a false flag operation, is that your theory? Who exactly were these agents provocateurs, and why hasn’t Trump prosecuted them?
We want blood!
If Trump was actually destroying their playhouse? That would be the typical communist reaction.
As for Americans? “The soul is willing, but the flesh is weak”.
Most people don’t see the need to fight if you have a comfortable house and a full belly.
The hand full of real communists here are the ones you see on TV. They ain’t going to get dirty. And the street ones ain’t got the muscle.
So that leaves us with the clown-show info-war we see today.
Which to me is just cover for the real problem. That being the reset of the Keynesian economic doom-loop.
If Trump were truly serious about wanting to get rid of illegals?
He would arrest the people that hire them.
And NO ONE in America can “live” on minimum wage, NO ONE. You can’t rent a house and pay all the bills on labor caste wages.
Then truly shut off the government support mechanisms.
Just like the war on drugs. We can find every J6’er we want.
But we can’t seem to find the Crips, Bloods, or Cartel members anywhere?
No one in government ever figured out most drug use is paid for by the government? By our borrowed tax dollars?
Ever wonder why all the terrorists in the world that vow to kill the “great satan” walked across the border for 4 years haven’t done anything yet?
Even though they could take us down over night.
The trick here is to keep your attention on BS. While they finish cleaning out fort Knox. Then blow up society to cover the getaway.
And come back with; “we need this new improved system so this can never happen again”.
Till it does. Again.
You make some good points. Two things, though.
One, minimum wage was never intended to be a living wage. It’s supposed to be for starter jobs, e.g. teens with their first summer jobs at McDonalds, not for a family of 4 to live on as sole income.
Two, while I certainly agree that jailing those who hire illegals is needed … These days, with sanctuary states like California, it seems to me that illegals can have quite a comfortable lifestyle without being employed if they know how to work the system. And that’s not counting those who are here as part of drug gang distribution and enforcement, etc. – they are certainly “working” but the employer isn’t going to be looking at W-4s.
The minimum wage introduced in 1938 had nothing to do with teenagers or fast food jobs. It was designed to end the exploitation of workers in industries that were particularly abusive, and to end child labor. The captains of industry at the time were perfectly happy to send 10 year old kids into coal mines, and the more civilized folks decided this was a bad thing. At the time the minimum wage was set with a multiplier that would allow a family of 3 to support themselves above the poverty line.
The only reason the minimum wage can’t support a family of 3 anymore is the multiplier has been continuously reduced, arguably because business leaders are under constant pressure to minimize labor and material costs at the expense of their workers, but also because the upper and middle classes have decided they don’t like wealth transfer polices and are perfectly happy to have massive wealth inequality (Google the Gini coefficient).
Business folks point out that the minimum wage raises overall product prices, which is true. What they tend to avoid talking about is that this is really a wealth transfer policy: within the context of the same increased prices, poor people have more money to spend as a result of increased wages, whereas middle and upper class people do not. And since we live in a society where many folks think being poor is a result of poor character, complaints abound.
Actually, the original reason for minimum wage laws was to make black labor non-competitive.
TINVOWOOT
Google makes short work of that request. Here’s Trump calling for protestors to be shot:
https://www.axios.com/2022/05/02/trump-call-violence-presidency
Tom Cotton calling for citizens to “take matters into their own hands”:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2024/04/19/tom-cotton-kari-lake-republicans-violent-rhetoric-trump/73358859007/
And of course January 6:
https://www.npr.org/2022/12/23/1145209559/jan-6-committee-final-report
Lots of folks on the right are salivating at the thought of civil war, so they can finally get a chance to wipe out all the savages on the left. Or as one guy put it, “these traitorous fuckstains:”
https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4187490-republicans-just-cant-stop-calling-for-civil-war/
https://www.vice.com/en/article/trump-supporters-are-threatening-civil-war/
We’ve got Vance Bolter successfully killing dem politicians:
https://www.npr.org/2025/06/16/nx-s1-5433748/minnesota-shooting-suspect-vance-boelter-arrested-melissa-hortman-john-hoffman
Here’s a guy in New Mexico:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/03/24/republican-loser-attempted-democrat-political-assassin/82640888007/
Etc.
It’s easy when your guy is in power (I’m not saying Trump is your guy, Joe, I’m speaking generally) to say that the folks turning to violence to change things are being savages. But I have memory during the Obama and Biden administrations of plenty of folks on the right calling for “watering the tree of liberty,” and I watched them storm the capitol on Jan 6. So when I hear folks on the right say “we’re the party of peace and law and order, and liberals are a bunch of violent savages,” it just strikes me as hypocritical/gaslighting.
Everybody uses violence when it suits them. Full stop.
What I see missing is the percentage of “right-leaning” Americans thinking political violence could be acceptable and indicating that “it would be at least somewhat justified” to murder one of the more recent Democrat presidents. Even if the poll was a couple years old that would be more convincing to me that the party members of both sides are somewhat similar in their propensity to violence.
According to PRRI’s survey, Republicans are significantly more supportive of violence than Democrats:
https://www.npr.org/2023/10/25/1208373493/political-violence-democracy-2024-presidential-election-extremism
Though in both cases that support doesn’t rise above 23%. The vast majority of people on both sides don’t support violence as a means to achieve political goals.
Thank you.
Did you read in my post where the “left-leaning” U.S. population now has 55% believing “political violence could be acceptable”?
That was my point. 55% is a scary amount and is over double what any other group has had in recent years.
I did, and I don’t quite know what to make of it. In the question they ask whether the murder of Donald Trump would be “justified,” which is a different phrasing than whether it should actually be done. I’m guessing that if the question were phrased as “Do you think Donald Trump should be killed,” the answers would be different. Same as with Luigi: lots of folks will say he was justified in his action, but if you ask them “Should other health care CEOs be killed” I rather doubt they’ll answer in the affirmative.
I also think the internet has polluted a lot of these sorts of polls because folks are now willing to say crazy shit a lot more freely than they were 30 or 40 years ago, because saying crazy shit online is just normal now.
That particular poll also confuses me because it says that 20% of *right wing* folks agreed that killing Trump would be justified (vs. 56% of left wing). What’s up with that?
I only read the articles at the first few links, but I was struck by context of the suggested violence. If your car is surrounded by protestors, it may very well be you would be justified to “take care of it yourself”. Are these protestors trying to break your windows to get access to you?
Are there reports of intimidation and violence at polling places? If so, then “putting on a Glock” might be an appropriate action to protect yourself. Yet the writer was the opinion that anyone carrying a gun was evidence of evil intent.
These types of cases do not compare to mobs of people looting stores, firebombing buildings and cars, beating people bloody or to death because they are wearing a red cap.
On second thought, I don’t want to see blood.
But half the light poles in DC with someone from government hanging from it? Ya. From congress through all the big letter agencies.
That’s the only “polling” I would take serious.
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Any student of history who has been paying attention for the past couple of decades has known that eventually it will come to violence…and we are now arriving at that point. The left simply WILL NOT GIVE UP or go away. And they WOULD rather burn it all down rather than not be allowed to rule.
I’m fascinated by your notion that the left should give up and/or go away. Do you actually believe conservatives are “right” and everybody else is “wrong” and that if only the world were ruled by conservative principles everything would be fine? That there is no place for opposition?
There are lots of folks from recent history who think leftists are bad and should be eliminated. Millions of alleged communists were massacred in Indonesia in the 1960s on exactly that theory. Here’s a picture of the right-wing militias standing over them in a trench right before executing them:
https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryPorn/comments/tdp6xd/victims_of_the_indonesian_communist_genocide/
Tell me more about how liberals won’t give up unless they get to rule, and how the mass graves created by the right in their anti-communist fervor aren’t exactly the same.