No. of Recommendations: 3
I suspect it's because, contrary to opinions otherwise, the Democrats are -on average- centrist, so the Republicans are way out on the right wing. When you get that far (in either direction) you start getting into authoritarianism. Authoritarians have little difficulty in rationalizing killing opponents to get their way.
Dope is correct that the extreme left also tends towards authoritarianism (both extremes do), but there are very few people in the USA that are extreme left. Even Bernie isn't that far left that he's falling into authoritarianism. There are a LOT of people, especially Xians, on the far right. I suspect, but have no data, that they may be reacting in the extreme because xianity is dying in this country, and it's a last gasp for them. Religion in general is declining, of course, but we were a predominantly xian country, so I can single them out. Last I knew about 25% were "nones", and about 35% under 30 were "nones". Twenty years ago it was maybe 10%.
IMO, that's why the push to get the bible in schools. While they still can, before we can become a majority "nones" nation like Sweden or Denmark (among others). Roughly 35 years ago the POTUS (Bush I) said that atheists weren't "real" Americans, and a few people were seriously floating the idea of locking us up in concentration camps (don't recall now who proposed that). They have only seen their numbers dwindle, and they're reacting with power grabs.
