Jefferson was all on board with the French Revolution, and people were trying to warn him it wasn’t all it was cut out to be and that he was making a mistake to support it.
I think America’s sharp political divide and toxic politics started at our founding. Maybe it was wishful thinking that our country would look beyond politics for the sake of the republic.
Unfortunately, I suspect he knew full well what that revolution actually entailed, mostly because he was on-site in France at the time its version of the shot that rang through the world, the Storming of the Bastille, happened. There’s no way he COULDN’T have witnessed the parading of the severed body parts from that riot. It’s also why I don’t nearly have as much respect for him now (had he truly been consistent with his views on liberty, that if anything would have inspired him to be AGAINST the French Revolution, citing John Adams’ handling of the British during the Boston Massacre on WHY he’d be a vocal critic of it, NOT singing praises for it). Only thing I can respect him for is the Louisiana Purchase, the Declaration of Independence, and the United States Navy (and even the Declaration of Independence in particular I’d probably say was a narrowly-dodged bullet ESPECIALLY after his involvement in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen’s drafting). At least the other Founding Fathers had relative ignorance due to delays in communication at that time as an excuse for why they might have initially supported the French Revolution, Jefferson doesn’t.
As far as Thomas Paine, he shouldn’t have sided with the Jacobins, that much I will say. I also heard that he actually advocated for a progressive tax, showing he completely forgot why we even HAD our revolution (King George III had us undergo a progressive tax system, and that was a major part in why we rebelled. He ought to remember, since he wrote about it).