“Better a Rockefeller or Bush than a Brezhnev, Chavez or Castro.”
Just different velocities on leftist trajectories.
Velocity = penetration. The lower the velocity projectile, the less it takes to stop penetration, even on the same trajectory. A high velocity projectile can create unrecoverable damage with no chance of recovery. A low velocity projectile can be stopped or mitigated by the low level of resistance and mitigate if not stop serious damage.
Politics is a lot like ballistics. It is the nature of politics to be a projectile against the individual, it is just a matter of the individual making sure the political projectile is of a low enough velocity and the individuals armor is strong enough that it causes no harm.