Re: That's certainly a good question

"how it is that otherwise apparently decent and rational people end up following such profoundly perverse lines of thought." Because they didn't have to pull the trigger. It's easy to have a sociopathic view of things from a distance and in the comfort of one's own home or one's own institutions. This is true whether it's a leftist posting a TikTok dance video celebrating Kirk's death or some right-winger fantasizing on social media about gunning down crowds of immigrants gathered at the border. A person can seem rational and decent in their day-to-day lives when they need to interact with other people. But living behind a desk absent any grounding in such interpersonal incentives rationality requires an ideologically motivated self-discipline more akin to religious devotion.