But .. you are correct, it does go along with paranoia - and therefore - the person they attack is to them “the enemy”.
I’ve more often than not seen it as a direct attack verbally upon another person .. while if they had been just thinking about it or feeling bad .. they would not have necessarily voiced that opinion.
I don’t agree that we “all” do it to some extent. The reason I believe that is because not “all” people have a psychological disorder of that magnitude.
As for the liberals .. they appear to be wired that way.
However, projection is not necessarily pathological. It can be. Paranoia is an extreme and pathological example of it.
It can also be healthy. It's commonplace, and we all do it.
Projection is what children do when they see love in a stuffed animal. They're projecting their own feelings onto an inanimate object.
Projection can be healthy. It is partly responsible for the positive feelings that we have for other people, including children, and for animals.
Projection is the psychological mechanism behind pareidolia, i.e. seeing animals, faces, maps, etc. in clouds et al.
IN FACT--the maya, i.e. the world that we see, hear, feel, smell, and taste, is an illusion, an example of pareidolia, projected onto an energy field, and we are part of it.