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Notes -
In most cases, using defensive violence is not hypocrisy, because there is a clear moral difference between violence of aggression and violence of self-defense (though things can get murky in practice, sometimes). For example, Ukraine is not hypocritical by both complaining about getting invaded by Russia while also invading parts of Russia in retaliation.
I think that there are some actions where tit-for-tat is fine, and some where it would still be horribly wrong.
For example, "their military is trying to incapacitate our military personnel, mostly by killing them" is something which can be answered in kind. By contrast, "their military is rounding up and shooting our kids" is very much not a reason to respond in kind. (Which category "they are nuking our cities" belongs to is difficult.)
In politics, things are even murkier, partly because there is no single entity making all the strategic decisions. Ideally, political competition should be about genuine differences in terminal values. If you are willing to sacrifice any values you hold on the altar of victory, the race to the bottom will result in a meaningless competition of almost identical parties.
One terminal value I feel strongly about is genuinely trying to make world models more accurate. Unlike slander, Sarin, doxxing, rhetoric, assassination, cancellation, which work equally well for any side, this is intrinsically an asymmetric weapon:
Cancellations are incompatible with truth-seeking. (So are assassinations, but the median supporter on either side does not support them. Small mercies.) I think that a lot of the differences between the blue and the grey tribe from the SSC era come down to that.
And as far as truth-seeking is concerned, MAGA is not an improvement over the wokes. While wokes have long twisted the truth hard to their ends and engaged in groupthink, Trump is completely detached from simulacrum level one. He will make whatever sounds he thinks will help him best to secure his power, if they happen to sound like a statement about the world that is completely incidental.
When I look at woke, I see an evil monster which had started out with some virtues but long been turned evil by its lack of other essential virtues. At some distant point in the past that creature had some minor redeeming qualities. When I look at MAGA, it seems like someone had taken all the vices of the woke monster, doubled down on some of them, then inverted its surface level beliefs. But fighting a particular evil by being just as evil is still evil.
Good luck. Putting Truth, Logical Debate, or some moral Good ahead of winning seems like a good way to get plowed under. I hope you find a way to highlight how these Good things can be leveraged for winning more successfully than the Evil things that are currently being done instead.
In a contest between societies, I can very well imagine the one that sticks to virtue coming out the stronger. But in a Culture War within one society, I doubt it somewhat. If the past decades are any indication, then being manipulative, vindictive and combative are the qualities that let one dominate, whereas sticking to more benign qualities just lets your enemies dictate the order of the day.
I hope to be wrong.
Edit: @IGI-111 explains this much better than I.
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