While I can't say that I agree with everything here, it does provide good examples of the "good" side flaming the fans.

I have noticed that the rhetoric from the political left on Mastodon has risen in the past month. Even Mr. Biden has been turning up the amp lately. He has been calling Mr. Trump all sorts of adjectives, which are already being used.

In "How Democracies Die" Livitsky and Ziblatt advise the Democratic Party to keep to the high road. Up until recently, I think they have been following that advise.

If the Democrats are amped at "3" and the Republicans are at "8," the Democrats are not exactly saints.

In greyscale logic, political opponents need to amp up this kind of discourse-----------to win elections. A bland election tends to have fewer people coming to the polls. In other words, the amping up is baked into western democracy. Mr. Trump has been keeping his base amped up since 2016.

Of course, we know there are psychological effects. Some people are more affected than other others. A few are more prone to do some silly things as the rhetoric increases .

We need a new system. A system that does not get citizens amped up, which eventually amps up the leaders.