Straight and tough talk about Democrat political violence is good, but Trump needs to avoid comments that will help the Dems sell their "looting and murder will only stop when Trump leaves office" threat. He has to understand there's real danger of people buying it.

I'm out here making the contrary argument every day - that violence will only continue if Dems are rewarded for it, that the only way to shut down violent extremism is to crush the "moderate political wing" of the extremist groups, so the pols view the extremists as a liability.

Trump would do better to push that argument than adopting a pugnacious attitude that makes a large number of weary, frightened, demoralized swing voters think they really are in for endless street warfare if they don't submit to Democrat demands.

The thing about political violence is that it tends to work. If it wasn't effective, it wouldn't be so popular. Terrorists always think they're one concession away from obtaining the political legitimacy they need to win the whole ball game. They believe they have superior will.

Willpower and morale are the key elements in all conflict. Extremists always think they have superior reserves of willpower, even if they're vastly outnumbered. They think they can wear the public down and force it to recognize the legitimacy and moral superiority of their cause.

The key concession, the one that enables all others - the crack in the door that lets all the other horrors of oppression flow through - is the moment when the victims accept some degree of responsibility for the violence. That's what Dems are pushing HARD for right now.

Once the victims admit the extremists have legit grievances that make the use of violence understandable, as soon as the victims concede some of the unpleasantness is their fault for resisting, the next concession will be that only the victims can halt the violence by submission.

That, of course, becomes a cycle that never ends. You admitted our cause is just and resistance is immoral. You gave us THIS much because you conceded it was wrong to refuse us. Why won't you give us THAT much more? If you don't, the resumption of violence is your fault!

The problem is that frightened and exhausted people who desperately want to return to normality, after months of left-wing violence and the pandemic, may indeed lack the will to resist further. They won't see it as abject submission to domestic terrorists, of course.

That's what the political wing of the extremist attackers - the Democrat Party, in this case - is for. Their job is to make submission seem honorable and relatively painless, while continued resistance is pointless intransigence. Their function is to broker power for peace.

The Democrats are not necessarily wrong to think they have a shot at doing that with a winning percentage of voters in swing states. The riots were well-timed after the pandemic. The hunger to return to normal is overwhelming. Trump has to look like he can deliver that return.

And of course the Dems can count on their loyal media to cover their links to extremism. That's the ultimate position of strength for any extremist or terrorist group - their "moderate political wing" is completely firewalled from the violence and thuggery.

The danger for Trump is that such tactics can be very effective. You can see Dems and their media running the playbook with gusto right now. Biden was pretty much reading from the playbook out loud with his "do I look like an extremist to you?" crack.

Biden was also reading from the playbook out loud with his crude mob-style "the violence won't stop if Trump gets re-elected" threat. He's a clumsy buffoon, but the book he's reading from provides an effective recipe for legitimizing and profiting from political violence.

People with a lot to lose, with a long way to fall, are most likely to take the "power for peace" deal, especially when submission is packaged to look like a respectable political choice... and continued resistance is convincingly portrayed as endless warfare.

Everyone who ever chose surrender or appeasement thought it was a logical choice. They thought continued resistance was illogical. Nobody wants to get stuck in a quagmire. Trump gets that about foreign policy and overseas wars. He needs to know it applies to civil wars, too. /end