A confounding aspect of conservative politics is how they view the rule of law. Conservatives tend to see laws as being designed for certain kinds of people. In their mind, a terrorist is already a terrorist and if the same law is used to define one of their tribe as a terrorist it’s the left being fascist.
Liberals tend to see the rule of law justified with morality—the law defines people and is justified through morality. Acts of terrorism are defined by the law. An American can be held to the same standard (domestic terrorism) because terrorism is morally wrong.
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- This is also in-group favoritism, a conservative doing bad things is still part of the tribe because of morality (not legality)