How serious is the threat to democracy from liberalism and/or leftist extremism?

Fear of the extremist left, socialist tyranny and more equal distribution of wealth are major drivers of rank and file support for radical right politics and tactics. Democrats, democratic socialists, progressives, political correctness, BLM and Antifa (collectively the 'bad people'[1]) have been vilified for years as threats that are close to or worse than terrorist violence. In the case of democrats and democratic socialists, the vilification has gone on for decades.

Exactly how serious is the threat of tyranny from the bad people? What is the level of threat right now? Does it compare to the threat from the radical right GOP, which mostly supports the 1/6 coup attempt, or rationalizes it into insignificance, and falsely believes the election was stolen?

Some or maybe most conservatives point to Portland and the damage that leftist, BML and Antifa protests have inflicted on that city as evidence of a dire threat to democracy and civil liberties. Is the threat of illegality in street protests a serious threat? Most cities in the US have experiences little or no damage and few street protests. Most of the protestors have been peaceful, but all are tarred as rioters when some thugs join in and start breaking laws. One source asserted that 93% of BLM protests have been peaceful. Not all of the protestors in the non-peaceful 7% were law breakers, but presumably were present at least part of the time that thugs were breaking laws. 

A New York Times article indicates that downtown Portland has suffered significant damage and the city is going to be more aggressive in going after thugs who break laws. The NYT writes:

“Portland was a beautiful city,” said Ms. Carter, who was the first Black woman elected to the Oregon Legislative Assembly and is now retired. “Now you walk around and see all the graffiti, buildings being boarded up. I get sick to my stomach. And I get angry.”

After almost a year of near-continuous protests since the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Portland’s city leaders are signaling that it may be time for a more aggressive crackdown on the most strident street actions.

Mayor Ted Wheeler, himself a target of many of the protests as he oversaw a police department that has repeatedly turned to aggressive tactics, last week put into place a state of emergency that lasted six days and vowed to “unmask” those demonstrators who engaged in repeated acts of vandalism or arson, saying it was time to “hurt them a little bit.”

The crowds the city has seen are often made up of amorphous groups of people who come for different reasons. Chris Davis, the deputy police chief, estimated there were 150 to 200 people among the regular protesters who were prone to engage in property destruction, although the demonstrations often feature smaller numbers.

Some liberal residents of Portland decry an effort to clamp down on the protestors. One complained that protesting activists were focused on saving lives from unwarranted police violence, while city leaders were focused on saving windows. That argument ignores the fact that the city and many Portland residents want the law breaking and window smashing stopped. Public opinion in Portland is not uniform.

The Washington Post writes:

In short, our data suggest that 96.3 percent of events involved no property damage or police injuries, and in 97.7 percent of events, no injuries were reported among participants, bystanders or police. These figures should correct the narrative that the protests were overtaken by rioting and vandalism or violence. Such claims are false.

 
The Black Lives Matter uprisings were remarkably nonviolent. 

When there was violence, very often police or counter protesters were reportedly directing it at the protesters. When the Department of Homeland Security released its Homeland Threat Assessment earlier this month, it emphasized that self-proclaimed white supremacist groups are the most dangerous threat to U.S. security. But the report misleadingly added that there had been “over 100 days of violence and destruction in our cities,” referring to the anti-racism uprisings of this past summer.

Meanwhile, a man in Minneapolis accused of arson to a police station during a protest has been fined $12 million and sentenced to 4 years in prison. How many republicans in congress have been fined and sentenced for their role is supporting the 1/6 coup attempt? At least some possibly leftist law breaking street rioters (blue collar thugs) get caught and whacked for their law breaking in protests. Elite republican traitors (white collar thugs) do not face legal repercussions for their protest-related crimes, but maybe some rank and file conservative traitors and thugs just might face some heat from the law. Maybe. 

Other arguments that leftists are just as dangerous or more dangerous than conservatives include:

1. Bad people control universities and they propagandize and brainwash students to believe in socialism and tyranny

2. Bad people want to take away all guns in private hands

3. Bad people want to get rid of Christmas and ban religion

4. Bad people want to limit the influence of Christianity in government

5. Bad people support same-sex marriage 

Other conservative terrors include allegations that liberals believe in government action to get more equal opportunity for all. That argument usually but falsely asserts that wanting equal opportunity necessarily means that obliterates personal responsibility. 

Another terror is that democrats want universal health care, which conservatives see as evil socialism and the path to poor health care for all. That argument ignores the fact that tens of millions of Americans have no access to health care unless they wind up in an emergency room. And then, many or most of them cannot afford it. The American capitalist, for-profit model of healthcare is complex, more costly than any other system on Earth and far less accessible to millions than those evil socialist universal health care systems that people in most those countries generally like.

Another conservative terror is that liberal policies emphasize a need for government to help solve people's problems, arguing that individuals can and must stand up for themselves. That argument ignores the fact that individuals usually cannot stand up to big companies without at least some law that protects them. Usually, government can do far more than an individual in defense of individual's rights.

Another conservative terror is that regulations amount to tyranny. That argument ignores the fact that nearly all conservative deregulation in recent decades shifted power from government to usually powerful special interests. Not all regulations are unnecessary as conservatives usually seem to imply. Deregulation does not necessarily flow power to individuals from government. In fact, power to sue special interests has been relentlessly attacked by conservatives, e.g., the option for class action suits by consumers have been cut back significantly over the years. 

Another conservative terror hold that most or all taxation is theft. That mindset mostly drives what is now a tax cheating (tax gap) epidemic that (1) amounts to about ~$1 trillion to ~$1.4 trillion/year, and (2) has probably cost the US treasury about ~$8-10 trillion since 2000 and will likely cost another ~$7-10 trillion by 2030.

Can a person reasonably argue that if the threat to democracy, the rule of law and social well-being from liberals and their politics and policy choices is X, the threat from conservatives is ~20-50X? Or, is there rough parity and both are about the same, as some people argue based on liberal adoption of neoliberalism after abandoning real liberalism? Or are liberals ~20-50X more threatening than conservatives and their politics and policy choices?

Does individual liberty expand when power flows from government to special interests? Or, does no deregulation ever shift power from government to special interests and power always flows to individuals from government?

Footnote added after posting the OP: 

1. I intentionally chose the label "bad people" for democrats, liberals and progressives after listening to part of a C-Span broadcast in a series that discusses books. The book author was the radical right Christian Nationalist Ken Starr promoting his book. The broadcast was hosted by a Christian group that desperately fights against what it sees as ferocious, deadly persecution of helpless, innocent Christians in America. The host referred to the "liberal judge" in his dissent in a Supreme Court decision as one of the bad guys. The dissent actually fundamentally sided with the Christians. 

Bad people. That is exactly how probably most elite Christian Nationalists see and think of people who oppose their Christian theocratic agenda. I suspect it is also how most rank and file socially conservative Christians see the same people. That is how toxic American Christianity has become in the last century or so.