I wouldn ' t say the majority of liberal protests end in violence . Liberals fucking love to protest , so they do it all the time most of these are peaceful and local , so you never hear about them . That said , my completely unscientific impression of recent events agrees with your assessment that violence is more common at liberal protests than conservative ones . I have no idea why this is , and it pisses me off for exactly the reason you mention it allows otherwise important issues to be dismissed due to violence . I can think of a few possible reasons , of varying levels of likelihood 1 . Liberals often protest in reaction to emotional events , while tea partiers were often holding planned political rallies . Reactionary , emotional , disorganized gatherings seem to me like they ' d be more prone to violence . 2 . Liberals usually protest in cities , unlike tea partiers . There ' s more stuff to loot and vandalize in cities , and less room to avoid people who bump into you or piss you off . 3 . Related to my intro there are more liberal protests than conservative ones , it ' s quite possible that the proportions of violent vs . nonviolent events are similar I don ' t know the numbers either way . Actually , my lack of data or real education on this topic means that any of my points , or even our original thesis , could be totally false and the result of media bias or something similar . 4 . Liberals skew youngerare younger people more violent ? Or more negative in some way ? Possibly , I have no idea . 5 . As a lefty peacenik , I hate this one , but maybe it ' s the tea partiers ' guns ? People may be more careful about escalating to violence if everyone is armed to the teeth . At the very least it seems that tea partiers are much more aware of the perception that they ' re guntoting quickdrawing deathmongers , and thus they may be more careful to maintain a squeaky clean rally environment . 6 . Is there some important cultural difference ? Maybe , but it ' s the most difficult thing here to quantify . Personally I think most Americans on both sides are whiny , hypocritical little bitches about politics . Admittedly I ' m not 100 % immune to being like this myself . But it ' s quite possible in missing something .