This is a fantastic article, very well put and extremely balanced. 👍 💯
Regarding your friends who celebrated violence against Spenser, violence is too often used as the middle ground between factions. You see people wishing death on their enemies one minute, and then condemning violence against their allies in another. Condemning violence will always hold currency, so it's very safe to do it, and a gift really if someone on your side is attacked.
You are right to call for a practice-what-you-preach approach, otherwise there will always be a lot of people who support violence.
But I guess that is the issue, which you've correctly identified as a problem of humanization. For some people, maybe many or most people, it is a war and that's a symptom of the increasing polarisation of politics. But for some it's always been a war, I think it's just widening.
For example in Germany, Neo-Nazis and Anti-Fascists have been clashing with premeditated, directed violence for decades. That is a real war because you have two opposing sides which actively engage in the others complete destruction with no compromise possible.
We don't need more of that but that's what is happening. Expect more moral backflips and grandstanding this year 😭