Your attitude of tolerance is admirable. If you queried a hundred random people who knew this same Russian and were similarly opposed to his politics, do you b

Your attitude of tolerance is admirable. If you queried a hundred random people who knew this same Russian and were similarly opposed to his politics, do you believe that one hundred of them would share your perspective? Or would a handful give that guy dirty looks at the bar because they were not in the exact same headspace you are in? I struggle with comparisons because I'm trying to illustrate for you what those people are seeing when they spontaneously start acting that way that is different from what you're seeing. It's difficult to find any comparable situation as lopsided as Israel's relationship with Palestine, and the almost inscrutable international response to that relationship. Liberal tolerance ethics takes deliberate effort (generalization is a natural cognitive bias), and all of the people who would typically provide guidance on normative ideals suddenly took on the unprecedented position that we should exterminate a couple million people in what is effectively a concentration camp because of a violent outburst against the people who put them there, that this was Good and Righteous Justice, that anybody who didn't want to exterminate them were dangerous fringe actors. People who rejected this propaganda storm found themselves ideologically adrift, latching on to whatever floats.