I think it may have been the cartoonist Scott Adams who first pointed out that people are playing two different movies in their heads. I’ve mentioned that notion here from time to time.
I have come to the conclusion that for many Democrats the movie they are playing is Casablanca. They see themselves in either the Humphrey Bogart role or the Paul Henreid role. “Welcome back to the fight. This time I know our side will win”.
Right movie. Wrong role. Arguendo, let’s assume that everything they’ve said about Trump is true. Just assume it. Traitor. Corrupt. Racist. Incipient dictator.
Proximate threat to the Republic. And so on.
They’re no Paul Henreid much less Humphrey Bogart. They’re not even Claude Raines. They’re the Vichy government. Making nasty remarks out of the sides of their mouths and throwing up impediments isn’t the heroic Resistance. It’s the not-at-all-heroic Vichy government, just trying to get by and signal a little disapproval along the way.
If they were really the Resistance, they’d be throwing bombs, placing IEDs, attempting assassinations or destruction.
They’re pretending to role-play Casablanca. Faux heroics. They know that if they really tried to emulate actual French Resistance violent sabotage even the tiniest amount the political blowback might be such that California would be in play and Laurence Tribe might grumble and complain that they went a little bit too far. Unfortunately many of the acolytes of #Resistance treat it as a game, and that’s extremely dangerous to people and the rule of law.
A crazed Bernie Bro shooting up the Congressional Republican baseball team is an anomalous one-off; repeated bombings and attempted assassinations of Republicans would end up with a lot of people dead. The throw switch between calm acceptance of regrettable events and red zone killing rage isn’t that sticky in a lot of people, and many of those same people have guns and will use them to avenge loved ones, faith in the criminal justice system being that low with them. Baiting the bear stops being fun when it sinks its fangs into your arm and tries to pull you through the fence. Releasing illegal immigrant child rapists and threatening Supreme Court justices is baiting the bear.
There have been at least two attempted murders of Republic Congressmen by Democrat operatives.