The events that unfolded over the weekend in Chicago were harrowing. Law enforcement officers—charged with protecting the public and enforcing federal law—were attacked in broad daylight. U.S. Border Patrol agents, conducting a routine patrol of the city’s South Side, were reportedly set upon by an organized convoy of ten vehicles that boxed in their detachment. According to a statement from the Department of Homeland Security, the agents “exited their trapped vehicle, when a suspect tried to run them over, forcing the officers to fire defensively.”
During that confrontation, one agent shot an armed woman already known to law enforcement for doxing and threatening immigration-enforcement personnel. Remarkably, she survived and drove herself to a hospital before being arrested, alongside another attacker at a separate location. Independent reporting has corroborated these accounts, citing prosecutors’ statements and video evidence captured by witnesses. The episode was not a misunderstanding or an accident—it was an assault on law enforcement by people intent on inflicting harm.
Yet the narrative offered by Illinois Governor JB Pritzker suggests a strange inversion of reality. In interviews with national media, he appeared to excuse the attackers’ behavior, claiming that federal officers “fire tear gas and smoke grenades, and they make it look like it’s a war zone.” According to Pritzker, people on the receiving end of that enforcement are “frankly incited to want to do something about it, appropriately.” In other words, the government-sanctioned defense of our borders and enforcement of the law somehow justifies being met with violent attacks.
If such logic sounds familiar, it should. This is part of a broader pattern among Democratic politicians and their allies: a reflexive defense of political violence when it benefits their narrative and a simultaneous condemnation only when it becomes politically inconvenient.
Consider the case of Virginia attorney general candidate Jay Jones, who allegedly fantasized about the violent deaths of a top state Republican and his young children. Not surprisingly, the left-leaning think tank Center for American Progress and its president Neera Tanden sought to contextualize the remarks rather than demand real accountability. “It was still awful and disgusting,” Tanden said on Meet the Press, but she immediately pivoted to equating Jones’s behavior with any conservative criticism of Democrats, arguing that both sides are guilty. Her interlocutor, Marc Short, former chief of staff to Mike Pence, reminded viewers that he has consistently condemned right-wing political violence—including the January 6 riot—and has “paid the price” for doing so. Tanden’s response? A transparent attempt to shift attention away from the misbehavior of her political allies.
This is the problem. Political violence is self-reinforcing. Those who witness it take inspiration from similar acts, emboldening themselves to act, often in the name of vengeance. Yet those who should be confronting this pattern are, more often than not, either silent or selective in their condemnation. The Democratic Party’s handling of violence—from DNC protests to attacks on federal law enforcement agents—is illustrative. Too often, their responses are strategic rather than principled: condemn when convenient, minimize when it might hurt electoral prospects.
In Virginia, for instance, Democratic leaders have acknowledged the grotesque nature of Jones’s remarks but stopped short of calling for his withdrawal from the race. Senator Mark Warner, gubernatorial nominee Abigail Spanberger, and State Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell issued statements describing Jones’s comments as “appalling,” “disgusting,” and “a serious lapse in judgment.” Yet none demanded that Jones step aside. Instead, Virginia House Speaker Don Scott cautioned voters to remain focused, implying that political expediency outweighs moral clarity: “We can’t get distracted, because they want us to get distracted by the text message here or something else.”
What we are witnessing is a dangerous double standard. Those who practice—or at least tolerate—political violence are simultaneously cast as aggrieved victims. Their behavior is excused as a reaction to provocation rather than condemned as a discrete moral and legal failure. Consider the logical implications: if law enforcement agents defending themselves against a vehicular assault are the aggressors, what precedent does that set? If explicit threats against children are a private conversation and not cause for consequence, what moral boundaries remain?
One key factor enabling this permissive environment is the attitude of influential elites toward political violence. For years, far-left activist groups have been treated with a kind of benign indulgence, as if their zeal were merely an alternative form of civic engagement. During protests against the Democratic National Committee in previous election cycles, agitators attempted to storm party headquarters and tore down fencing, and yet they were described in mainstream coverage as “passionate” or “frustrated” rather than lawless. The message sent by such framing is clear: violence, when wielded by the “right” side, can be harnessed, directed, and excused.
This same approach is evident in the media coverage and political commentary following the Chicago incident. Reports emphasize the chaos, the fear, and the so-called provocation—never the organized and deliberate attempt to harm law enforcement. The attackers, some of whom had prior criminal histories or histories of threats against officers, are treated as humanized actors reacting to conditions, rather than as perpetrators accountable for their choices. In this framing, accountability is always deferred.
Contrast this with how conservatives and law enforcement themselves are portrayed. A defensive response, the mere act of protecting one’s life or that of fellow officers, is painted as aggression, a trigger for broader moral debate rather than the justified enforcement of the law. The message to the public is unmistakable: if you defend yourself or uphold the law in the face of left-wing violence, you are automatically culpable, while the instigators receive the benefit of interpretation and contextualization.
It is not merely a question of media framing; it is a question of governance. Governor Pritzker’s statements are emblematic of a broader political calculus: law enforcement can be attacked, and even partially killed or wounded, without meaningful consequence as long as the perpetrators can be painted as victims of systemic provocation. That calculus has a real-world cost. Border Patrol agents and other federal officers are more likely to face organized hostility if they cannot rely on consistent support from state and local authorities. Citizens, too, are at risk when criminals and political extremists sense that certain forms of violence are excusable, even strategic.
The failure—or refusal—of Democratic leaders to consistently call out violence is not an abstract moral lapse. It is a political strategy with dangerous implications. When politicians justify or excuse attacks on law enforcement or rationalize threats against opponents’ families, they are telling Americans that lawlessness is tolerable if it aligns with a particular ideology. They are training a generation to expect indulgence and moral latitude for politically motivated acts of aggression.
To be clear, conservatives and principled observers are not advocating violence in any form. The point is accountability and honesty. If political violence is universally wrong, it must be universally condemned. If it is selectively excused, the public must understand the consequences of this selective morality. There is no neutral ground here, and pretending otherwise only emboldens those who would commit harm under the cover of righteousness or ideology.
We are at a dangerous inflection point. Chicago is not an isolated incident. Across the country, law enforcement officers face increasingly brazen attacks, political operatives and candidates threaten violence with little fear of consequence, and the media narrative increasingly seeks to rationalize or contextualize these actions rather than confront them. It is a pattern of permissiveness, a culture of excusing lawlessness when politically convenient, and a failure of moral clarity at the highest levels.
The conservative response must be unambiguous. Political violence—no matter who commits it—is unacceptable. Law enforcement deserves our support and protection, not skepticism or moral equivocation. Candidates and public figures who threaten others, explicitly or implicitly, must face consequences, not partisan shielding. Citizens must recognize that the permissive attitude toward politically motivated aggression will not protect them when the next wave of chaos arrives.
What Democrats cannot—or will not—do is call their own to account. They cannot consistently condemn political violence within their ranks without jeopardizing electoral prospects. They cannot afford to enforce moral or legal norms when it conflicts with strategy. They cannot—or choose not to—uphold the principles of justice and accountability on which our society depends.
Meanwhile, the rest of America bears the cost. Citizens see attacks on federal agents excused. Children are threatened without consequence. Political violence escalates in tempo and severity because there is no universal standard applied. The message is clear: If you are left-leaning, your violent impulses can be justified. If you are right-leaning, your defensive measures will be scrutinized and criticized.
This is not hyperbole. It is the real-world consequence of a political elite prioritizing expediency over principle. It is the outcome of a worldview that treats some forms of violence as instruments to be wielded and others as crimes to be punished. It is the embodiment of the double standard that erodes both public trust and social cohesion.
Americans deserve better. Law enforcement deserves better. Children, families, and everyday citizens deserve better. And our political institutions must recognize that excusing or contextualizing violence is not leadership; it is abdication.
We are seeing the results of this abdication play out in Chicago, in Virginia, and across the country. We are witnessing a failure of principle that emboldens lawlessness, undermines public safety, and erodes confidence in governance. When political violence is excused or minimized, when threats are rationalized, and when accountability is selectively applied, the rule of law itself is at risk.
Democrats can frame themselves as victims. They can rationalize or explain away their party’s fringe elements. They can claim provocation and moral equivalence. But at the end of the day, the American people know the truth: they cannot—or will not—do what is necessary to uphold order, accountability, and justice. Until that changes, the nation will continue to pay the price.
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