Many on the left saw their secret wish, and in some cases spoken or written aloud dreams come true when Republican blood was spilled on a baseball field in suburban Northern Virginia. And the hours since a gunman opened fire on politicians partaking in that quintessentially American pastime of baseball have been spent dancing around what led to such a heinous act. Hateful “rhetoric” is, of course, the go-to answer. Both sides are to blame for escalating political tensions.

Wrong.

Let’s be clear: The left did it.

They don’t “own” this in the literal sense that they’re all going to be put on trial and convicted in a court of law. They own this in the sense that they fervently believe they are good people with good intentions who can justify any and all actions, no matter how despicable, because they mean well.

The agitated left has been stoking the flames of violence for a long time now, and we’ve let them get away with it. I was introduced to how deeply liberals believe the means justify the ends when I visited my Democrat congressman back in 2009 to ask how he’d be voting on Obamacare. His communications director deliberately jostled me and knocked my camera out of my hand. It’s not even a small taste of the horror that took place today, but it’s very telling of the mindset of all too many liberals.

And things have only gotten worse over the years, with the election of Donald Trump as president seemingly eroding the last vestiges of humanity amongst a large part of the far left. Has a week gone by since November 8th that we haven’t heard a story of rioting, intimidation, violence, and harassment? Newsflash: This is being perpetrated by “progressives,” not conservatives. And, no, we conservatives didn’t do the same thing when Obama was president.

All indications are that the madman from Belleville hated Donald Trump and hated Republicans and, presumably, thought he was justified in going on a killing spree because he was exacting revenge. The Republicans deserved it, right? They think differently, their politics are different, so they must be eliminated.

And why wouldn’t he think that? Kathy Griffin says it’s okay to do that when she hoists, in effigy, the decapitated head of the president of the United States. Hollywood says it’s okay to do that when they come to her defense. CNN says it’s okay to do that when they take their everlivin’ time firing her and that abominable Reza Aslan despite overwhelming evidence of them being awful people.

Didn’t the people behind the Shakespeare in the Park production of Julius Caesar say it’s okay when they knifed to death a Caesar that looked remarkably like Donald Trump?

What about the rioters on Inauguration Day, who torched a limousine on a DC street because it represented something they found detestable? Didn’t they say it’s okay to act that way when they ruined the livelihood of the car’s owner, a Muslim man who made his living ferrying people around?

And let’s not forget the “resistance” that has taken to harassing politicians at town halls meetings. And worse. Republican congressman Tom Garrett of Virginia has had to bring a heavy layer of armed security with him to town hall meetings after receiving a chilling message that began, “This is how we’re going to kill your wife.” Garrett’s House colleague and fellow Republican, David Kustoff, recently left a town hall meeting by car and was forced off the road by an irate constituent who didn’t like the GOP handling of Obamacare.

Just today, in the aftermath of the shooting, Rep. Claudia Tenney’s office received a threatening email with the subject line, “One down, 216 to go …”

Many liberals are so angry that Donald Trump, not Hillary or Bernie, is president that they seethe, they denigrate, they dehumanize, and, now, they spill blood. Because they’ve been told by their own it was okay to do so.