Conservatives pray with rosaries, leftists attempt assassinations — ‘both sides’ have a civility problem!

The snarky left-wing satire of Twitter personality Doug J. Balloon piously echoes a key liberal conceit — that conservatives deserve no credence, no sympathy, and no column inches in major outlets. He went viral with a typical tweet over the weekend.

On the one hand, this is the same history erasure that led to reporters falsely asserting that a “tan suit” was President Barack Obama’s only scandal. (There was that disastrous, illegal war in Libya, multiple blatant violations of his own revolving-door rules, droning American children to death, outright lying about the effect of his healthcare plan, the fact that he employed Rahm Emanuel, and dozens of others.)

On the other hand, this sort of commentary is a bit creepier because it reflects the belief that the Left is completely innocent of political violence and that conservatives deserve no protection or concern.

This is absurd, of course. An armed leftist traveled to D.C. a few years back with the intention of mass-assassinating Republican members of Congress. Pro-abortion groups have taken credit for a series of firebombings and vandalism at pro-life crisis pregnancy centers. Catholic churches have been desecrated and vandalized both before and since the overturning of Roe v. Wade. And earlier this summer, a pro-abortion extremist flew to D.C. equipped to assassinate Brett Kavanaugh and two other anti-Roe justices in an effort to save Roe v. Wade.

The false assertion that left-wing political violence amounts merely to disturbing conservatives’ breakfasts evinces a belief that violence and attempted violence by leftists against conservatives or religious people and their institutions don’t count as political violence.

That’s probably why the corporate media pay so little attention to it.

When outlets do note this violence, it’s often in the tone of “Conservatives Pounce!”

The Atlantic article complains about pro-lifers’ “fixation on the threat of ‘Jane’s Revenge,’” which is supposedly a “bogeyman.” But bogeymen are make-believe, and these attacks are real. Not only that, but the media’s suppression of the story becomes evidence that the right is overblowing the threat: “News articles about the threat of Jane’s Revenge have also clustered at conservative sources.”

Meanwhile, right-wing political violence, such as the recent attack on an FBI agent following the agency’s raid of former President Donald Trump’s compound in Florida, gets much more media attention, and totally nonviolent activity gets roped in with violence.

The best example of that this week is also from the Atlantic.

So you get it? If conservative or religious people do it, then it’s political violence. If leftists do it, it’s no big deal, even when it involves assassinating people.