The Democrat who fantasized about killing a Republican

When it was revealed that Jay Jones, Virginia’s Democratic nominee for attorney general, joked in text messages about shooting a Republican lawmaker, Democrats didn’t rush to condemn him. They scolded the comments, sure. But they didn’t demand he drop out. That hesitation tells you everything about the new Democratic mindset: they don’t see this as hypocrisy. They see it as adaptation.

For years, Democrats have insisted that Donald Trump changed American politics – that he shattered the old civility and made rage fashionable. Now they’re quietly admitting that rage works. They’re not abandoning their moral high ground; they’re repaving it with something harder and sharper. In their eyes, the game changed – and if the only way to win is to play by Trump’s rules, so be it.

Trump has said and done outrageous things, no honest conservative would deny it. But here’s the uncomfortable truth: Democrats have grown addicted to the very aggression they once claimed to despise. They just market it differently. Republicans call it “fighting back.” Democrats call it “meeting the moment.” Either way, the temperature keeps rising – and both sides pretend they’re only reacting.

Jones’s texts weren’t vague or flippant. He name-dropped a Republican House speaker, fantasized about shooting him, and even joked about desecrating Republican graves. Then came the apology tour: “I’m embarrassed, ashamed and sorry.” But the Democratic Party’s response has been careful – too careful. Condemnation without consequence.

That’s not cowardice. It’s calculation. Democrats know the old etiquette of politics – the days of “when they go low, we go high” – died sometime around 2016. They believe their voters want fighters, not philosophers. So, as one strategist put it off the record, “you don’t disarm yourself while the other side is armed to the teeth.” In other words, the rhetoric might be ugly, but so is the world Trump built – and Democrats think they’re just learning to survive in it.

It’s a seductive logic: that moral restraint is weakness, that power justifies posture. But it’s also the same logic that Democrats once accused Republicans of using. The Jones story doesn’t just expose one man’s lapse; it exposes a cultural conversion. The party of “norms and decency” has decided those luxuries can wait until after the next election.

The most revealing part of this scandal isn’t what Jones said – it’s what Democrats didn’t say afterward. No leading Democrat has publicly called for him to step down. No one wants to be the first to demand accountability in an election season. Instead, they offer the usual script: “We reject violence in all forms.” Then they pivot to whataboutism – Trump’s language, MAGA threats, January 6 – as if pointing to the other side’s sins somehow cleanses their own.

But moral credibility doesn’t work that way. You can’t condemn the fire while holding a lighter behind your back. The Jones controversy shows how both parties have lost the ability to be embarrassed by themselves. It’s not that Democrats no longer see rhetoric as dangerous – it’s that they’ve convinced themselves it’s necessary. In this new order, politics isn’t about persuasion anymore. It’s about dominance.

Here’s where conservatives have to be careful. It’s tempting to gloat – to treat every Democratic scandal as proof of hypocrisy. But that’s not enough. The goal shouldn’t be to meet Democratic aggression with equal fury. The goal should be to model the discipline they’ve abandoned.

If Democrats are determined to sound like the revolution, conservatives must sound like civilization. Strength isn’t shouting louder; it’s refusing to let outrage define your argument. Conservatives win not by matching the moral chaos, but by outlasting it – by showing voters that reason and restraint are still forms of power.

We’re told this is just politics as usual, but it’s really a culture war over tone – over how far a person can go to prove they “care.” The louder and angrier the rhetoric, the more “authentic” it sounds to the base. But that kind of politics is self-consuming. It rewards fury, not vision. It mistakes destruction for passion.

Jay Jones may survive his scandal. But Democrats won’t survive the culture that excuses it. Once you start believing you must become what you hate to beat what you hate, you’ve already lost something more important than an election – you’ve lost the moral language that made your cause worth fighting for.

So let’s be clear: the danger isn’t that Trump made Democrats meaner. The danger is that Democrats now think meanness is a virtue. And if that’s the new rulebook of American politics, we should all be terrified at who’s keeping score.