This is happening so often these days and I've struggled to confront it. I'm taken aback when people equate conservatism with violence or hate; it's an instant conversation-ender for me and it's irrational enough that I'm almost never interested in picking the argument apart.

It's not just a feature of social media comments. This line of thinking is heavily promoted by once-respectable newspapers like the Washington Post in their opinion sections. I raised my eyebrows the first time I ever heard Trump refer to WaPo as "fake news" but two years of daily reading later, I tend to agree with him.