Chuck Jones, president of United Steelworkers’ local 1999, pointed out a while back that then president-elect Drump had made some rather large factual errors in his crowing over “saving” jobs at a Carrier air conditioner plant in Indiana. Chuck’s reward for fact-checking: a stream of petty vitriol from the future commander-in-chief and an exudation of dark warnings — let’s call them death threats — from anonymous online sources. I’m going to assume that the authors of those taunts are not advocates of universal health care or religious tolerance.

A month later, while the Electoral College was still in session, I read that a Republican elector who had declared his intention not to vote for Drump had been receiving threats against his own life and rape threats aimed at his wife and daughters. From a Black Lives Matter supporter? I don’t think so.

And then, of course, we have the more recent tipping over of Jewish gravestones, the burning of mosques, the murder of that Indian man in Kansas City, and the daily serving of hate and violence against The Other that fills our plate every morning. The right, right?

Come to think of it, when was the last time we heard of a threat of violence coming from the left? (Other than in a report from some nutty right-wing conspiracy source, that is?) I will select “never” as my answer, though I’m sure there are instances of Great Spotted Owl defenders turning murderous.

I guess some might classify anarchists as lefties. I can’t buy that, though. Steve Bannon is a bit of an anarchist, but I’ll wager doesn’t belong to MoveOn.org. Anarchists reside in a dark netherworld where left and right overlap. Cop-killers live there too, and predicting their politics is also a hopeless quest.

I’m not sure where this line of inquiry is leading me, but my aim is to follow my own (admittedly hazy) notions of evil and how it correlates to one’s position on the political spectrum. I have no solid conclusions as yet, but my working hypothesis is that Satan (if he existed) would be a Republican.

Still, we don’t want to paint with too broad of a brush here. I do know some fine, honorable, decent, loving, strong people with exquisitely beautiful auras who vote GOP. So I could be wrong in this, and I don’t want to be accused of getting ahead of the (up to this point) overwhelming evidence. While I’m waiting for absolute certainty on that front, I’m also working on another research project. This time the focus is on mass murderers.

All righties? Just asking, mind you, but the data I’ve seen so far is quite compelling.