Traditionally, when we thought of the political Left, we thought mostly of a set of governing beliefs and an approach to human flourishing that was simply different from ours.

Whereas we on the Right believed in individual liberty, individual responsibility, equal opportunity, and limited government, they believed in collective responsibility, equality of outcome, and a more active governmental role in our lives.

Those were the days.

What we failed to fully grasp, though, was that these beliefs are existential to leftism and that political power is the means to their end. What we’re seeing now is a holy war for political power — a war in which eliminationist rhetoric and even presidential assassination get a wink and a nod. Saturday’s attempt on Donald Trump’s life was the third in two years. Whether we want to admit it or not, presidential assassination attempts are becoming routine. How sick is that?

And why might that be? Think about the vile and dehumanizing terms the Left uses to describe the American president and his supporters: Nazi, tyrant, despot, authoritarian, totalitarian, fascist, racist, white supremacist, insurrectionist, domestic terrorist, Christian nationalist, rapist, pedophile, homophobe, transphobe. They equate the American president to Adolf Hitler, and they call him “an existential threat to our democracy.”

And then they act surprised when one of their deranged minions takes it upon himself to defend his country and rid it of that menace, that existential threat. Does anyone doubt that Cole Tomas Allen believed he was behaving heroically on Saturday night when he tried to assassinate Trump?

In his manifesto, Allen wrote that he was “no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes.” Hmm, where might he have gotten that language?

Think of the corrosive effect that this violence has on our politics. When we were kids, our teachers used to tell us that we could one day grow up to be president. But what young person today would want to sign up for the vitriol, the vilification, and the attempted assassination?

Never mind our children and our young people, and never mind this latest presidential assassination attempt. Think about the successful assassination of Charlie Kirk. Now ask yourself: Who among American adults would sign up for a life in politics of any sort? We’re chasing away the best and the brightest — or at least the best and the brightest on the Right, because that’s where the danger is.

Prior to the era of Donald Trump, it would’ve been unthinkable for an American president to wear a bulletproof vest at every public appearance, but that’s the very real discussion underway right now in the White House.

Whether intentionally or not — and I think it is intentional — those on the Left are making politics more dangerous and less attractive to those on the Right. And that can be nothing but bad for the American Experiment.

No one has been trying to assassinate Democrat presidents. But they’ve tried three times now to assassinate Trump, and they succeeded in assassinating Kirk. They nearly killed Steve Scalise. They tried to kill Justice Brett Kavanaugh. And they parade around outside the Washington Hilton with “Death to tyrants!” signs.

These people are serious, and worse, they’re unrepentant. They’re downright alcoholic in their violence, and they can’t even concede that they have a problem.

Don’t believe me? Consider what House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said during a news conference yesterday when asked about his vow last week to wage “maximum warfare” on the Republicans. “You can continue to criticize me for it. I don’t give a damn about your criticism.”

America: Do you really want a guy like this to be your next speaker of the House? Do you really want him to be second in line to the presidency, immediately behind Donald Trump and JD Vance?

Or take Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy, who said recently, “We’re at war right now to save this country, and so you have to be willing to do whatever is necessary in order to save the country.”

Ask yourself: What does the senator mean by that? That we’re at war, and that you have to be willing to do whatever is necessary to save the country? Who’s the “you” he’s referring to? Is this a call to action for our nation’s Trump-deranged sleeper cells?

“The left-wing cult of hatred against the president and all of those who support him and work for him has gotten multiple people hurt and killed,” said White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt at her briefing yesterday, “and it almost did so again this weekend.”

If you think any of this is overblown, Ben Whedon at Just the News has compiled a list of the Left’s legacy of violence.

There’s nothing even remotely resembling such a list on the Right. And that’s just the way the Left wants it.