I don't know. I recall listening to conservative thinkers discuss the left. I'm not talking about alt-right or hard-right bozos, I'm talking about Thomas Sowell and Bill Bennett. They consistently used words like "opponent" or "opposition" when describing fellow Americans with differing worldviews. Then they dive into the ideas.
While I don't recall, for example, President Obama or President Clinton saying things like "enemy" or "evil" when describing fellow citizens, we do have candidates and mainstream press using much harsher and more negative terms. I started watching a video from the self-avowed "left" discussing what the left ought to know about the right (pushed by the algorithm). The expert being interviewed was a professor of some sort, and in his very first answer he used the phrase "fight the enemy" and "understand the enemy" when describing how to deal with half the population of fellow citizens who disagreed with his ideology.
Hillary Clinton's memorable "basket of deplorables" is another. Don't get me wrong. Ten years ago, you wouldn't hear that kind of rhetoric from conservatives. But conservatism has been swallowed by alt-right Trump-style populism. I try to tune out the rants coming from the far right, so I imagine there are plenty of examples coming from awful sources. But this "enemy" rhetoric should never come out of the mouth of anyone respectable when speaking of their own countrymen or countrywomen.
I think I agree with you in that it is "not just a left problem" but there seems to have been a predominance of this "kill the enemy" rhetoric coming more from the left for many decades, than from the right. Part of the reason for this is that so many of the leftist playbooks like Rules for Radicals or Marxist strategy papers from Engels include "destroying the enemy" (encompassing eliminating morality, eliminating traditional family units, and fomenting violent revolt). Playbooks on the right, traditionally, have included understanding the rhetoric of the left, analyzing its ideas in terms of economics and personal freedom, and using debating tactics to "win" arguments.
I have to conclude that this is not just a "both sides" problem, but that one side spends a lot more of its energy on pushing toward the extremes.
While I don't recall, for example, President Obama or President Clinton saying things like "enemy" or "evil" when describing fellow citizens, we do have candidates and mainstream press using much harsher and more negative terms. I started watching a video from the self-avowed "left" discussing what the left ought to know about the right (pushed by the algorithm). The expert being interviewed was a professor of some sort, and in his very first answer he used the phrase "fight the enemy" and "understand the enemy" when describing how to deal with half the population of fellow citizens who disagreed with his ideology.
Hillary Clinton's memorable "basket of deplorables" is another. Don't get me wrong. Ten years ago, you wouldn't hear that kind of rhetoric from conservatives. But conservatism has been swallowed by alt-right Trump-style populism. I try to tune out the rants coming from the far right, so I imagine there are plenty of examples coming from awful sources. But this "enemy" rhetoric should never come out of the mouth of anyone respectable when speaking of their own countrymen or countrywomen.
I think I agree with you in that it is "not just a left problem" but there seems to have been a predominance of this "kill the enemy" rhetoric coming more from the left for many decades, than from the right. Part of the reason for this is that so many of the leftist playbooks like Rules for Radicals or Marxist strategy papers from Engels include "destroying the enemy" (encompassing eliminating morality, eliminating traditional family units, and fomenting violent revolt). Playbooks on the right, traditionally, have included understanding the rhetoric of the left, analyzing its ideas in terms of economics and personal freedom, and using debating tactics to "win" arguments.
I have to conclude that this is not just a "both sides" problem, but that one side spends a lot more of its energy on pushing toward the extremes.