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Err.. She's positing a counterfactual, that's not "making this up", anymore than if I say that if I went and punched you, you might punch me back.
She's positing the counterfacual of "if a rightist made an attempt on Biden's life". but she's making things up when she then decides how conservatives would behave in response. The behavior of conservatives isn't a premise of the counterfactual, it's an assumption about what conservatives are like in the real world.
You cannot have a counterfactual without assumptions. I happen to think, given observed behavior on both sides of the political spectrum, that there would an absolutely non-negligible number of people on the Right doing the things she spoke about.
You're welcome to disagree, but it's impossible to talk about things that didn't happen without said assumptions. Criticize those, as you're doing now.
The required assumption of such a counterfactual is "if a rightist made an attempt on Biden's life". Also assuming the conservative reaction to it isn't making a point by using a counterfactual, it's just exhibiting your own assumptions.
No, the counterfactual and associated, unavoidable assumption is:
You cannot divorce one from the other. You might well disagree with @2rafa or me about how reality works, and given that it's pitting one set of observations about how massive numbers of internet partisans behave against another, there's not much room to resolve it conclusively beyond what a given person finds plausible.
That's a useless counterfactual; it doesn't convince anyone of anything. A useful counterfactual would require that the consequences of the counterfactual be agreed upon.
If Trump had died, I think [Blank] would happen.
A few possible responses.
A. Trump didn't die. (breakfast anyone?)
B. [Blank] didn't happen.
C. I don't think [Blank] would happen.
D. I think that [Something else] would happen instead.
E. I agree.
If [Blank] is, [reasonable possible consequence] or [totally unreasonable consequence], does either option make B a good response?
The first two results for Counterfactual in google,
If kangaroos had no tails, they would topple over. The counterfactual is kangaroos without tails, the assumption, is that a kangaroos tails is necessary for balance and without them, kangaroos would fall over.
If Peter believed in ghosts, he would be afraid to be here. The counterfactual is Peter believing in ghosts, the assumption is that the location would be scary for a person who believes in ghosts.
In as much as a counterfactual is used in a conversation, it is to display your model of reality, for instance, your assumptions about the balance of kangaroos, or the mental states of people who believe in ghosts. The discussion that follows would either be to agree with the persons model and the extrapolations that they postulate in the counterfactual, or disagree with it, and argue for something else. Kangaroos actually only use their tails for balance when moving at speed, and so kangaroos without tails but at rest, would not topple. Peter is actually stupidly brave, so even if he believed in ghosts in this spooky location, he would not fear them. Peter's belief in ghosts does not include a belief that ghosts can harm him, so he would be interested instead of afraid.
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You can use hypotheticals to excuse any crime by claiming the other party would react the same. Especially if you don't care about whether your right wing outgroup might have valid complaints about political persecution, and your left wing ingroup might be promoting dishonest narratives.
For example, an apologist for communist crimes could claim that the right wing dissidents murdered by communists would them selves kill communists and then not consider the perspective of how much worse the communists really were comparatively to right wing dissidents.
The effect of not condemning assassination attempts tied with very extreme rhetoric by pervasive amount of people, including in media (just recently a comedian said that if Trump was elected his family was going to be put in a concentration camp on Jimmy Kimmel), and attacking those condemning that rhetoric and the right, is to excuse it.
There is a time and a place for different rhetoric. Is this the proper time and place for you and cimarafa to blame right wingers based on hypotheticals? And what effect does this have?
In the current circumstances, it is a fair interpretation that attacking condemnation of leftists excusing the attacks, helps excuse it. Since if everyone does it, then it isn't a problem. Cimarafa even outright says the inflamabory claim that it is boo outgroup to condemn leftists excusing violence, because there are right wingers who would do the same.
Boo outgroup becomes the excuse for censoring opposition to far left extremsim.
The cultural phenomenon of understating and not caring when events such as this happen and is done by right towards left, or worse, attacking those who do, helps make them more common.
Conversely, condemning liberal extremism and suppressing it and a culture were the media, and politicians like Biden, isn't treating legitimate opposition, as enemies of democracy, well that would make it much less likely. Especially since an important part of the conflict between Biden vs Trump has been when their agenda has been the one that shits all over constitutional duties, which include not only not persecuting political opposition, but also failing to protect your borders and in fact doing the opposite. That is a massive legitimate grievance, where Trump the tyrannical fascist is not a legitimate grievance. Same with Biden the cultural far leftist vs Trump the identitarian extremist on the right. The first is a legitimate grievance, the later isn't.
But in any case, there has been an attempted assassination attempt against Trump, and not Biden. People in the crowd have died. Following rhetoric in media and in echochambers like reddit that has been unhinged against Trump and his supporters. It is in fact the time and the place to condemn it and those excusing it. Holding people who do that accountable is a good thing, while promoting a reaction that allows them to get away with excusing it, and attacks those who have a problem with it is a very wrongheaded approach. It is actually a good thing for pressure to exist against people of differing political groups behaving badly, focusing on the worst of them when they behave in the worst manner. And sure, it is important to not lose perspective, and neither exaggerate, nor downplay. This is a big deal, and there isn't an equivalence.
It is exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time to be doing to be promoting hypotheticals of bad right wingers to excuse and downplay any of this.
I claim no such thing, and I invite you to quote me to show otherwise.
I don't particularly care, I'm just pointing out that it's impossible to consider counterfactuals without having implicit assumptions about the underlying dynamics of the world, which is an utterly prosaic statement.
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