French: There are monsters in your midst, too

"If, say, you're a highly partisan Republican, you will often look at corruption and acts of violence by your partisan opponents and say, That's just what the left does or That's what leftism leads to. Corruption and violence reveals the left's true nature. If a right-leaning extremist commits an act of violence or if a Republican is brazenly corrupt then the response is different."

"Every orchard has a few bad apples or How dare you compare me to that terrible person? or Normal Republicans are nothing like that. As a result, no matter the facts of the moment, you end up mad at the opposition. If a left-leaning assassin kills a Republican, then you're angry because the left is violent. If a right-leaning assassin kills a Democrat, then you're angry because the left blames the right for what is obviously an evil individual act."

"Online algorithms magnify the problem. They recognize that you are hungry for content that amplifies every bad act by your political enemies and that you hate to read or see any form of attack on your friends, so you live in a carefully curated false reality. As a result, no matter the direction of the tragedy, the end result is the same the right grows angrier at the left, and the left grows angrier at the right."

Partisan blindness leads observers to view opponents' wrongdoing as emblematic of their side and allies' wrongdoing as exceptional. Partisans attribute corruption and violence by opponents to their ideology while excusing similar behavior by allies as anomalies or isolated bad actors. That asymmetry produces reciprocal anger: each side interprets tragedies to confirm preexisting narratives. Online algorithms intensify selective exposure by amplifying content that highlights enemies' faults and downplays attacks on allies, creating a curated false reality. The combined effect deepens polarization, ensuring that incidents produce mirrored outrage and entrenched mutual hostility across the political spectrum.

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