I don't believe that to be true - I think each side believes there is a free pass for the other and the extremes of each side are radicalising themselves and dehumanising the other - pulling in more and more moderates as they do so. The progressive left will lose credibility the longer it sticks with this - let us remember, I am also on the political left (although I don't appear to be most of the time). I am appalled by any backhanded endorsement of rape and murder of civilians... there can be no justification for what has happened and there must be careful and cool heads prevailing about what happens next. That is much easier to say here in secular Britain by an atheist Penguin - but that doesn't make it less true.