The polyps are repeating the mistakes of the New Left in the 1960s. Back then the left thought that by running down the street shocking the "squares" (normies in today's language) they could wake up the sleeping masses of workers to join them. That didn't happen, so the more extreme factions turned to violence like the Weather Underground, SLA, Red Brigades, Baader-Meinhof, Japanese Red Army, etc.
It's politics "as expression." If you express yourself enough, people will follow. When they don't follow (because it's a stupid strategy), the radicals express themselves in more extreme ways. "Sometimes people just won't listen, so we have to use persuasion." Violence is a more direct form of expression. This is basically what the alt-right is doing now. They even had their own shock comedian, Sam Hyde, who is a right-wing spitting image of Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin and the Yippies. Hyde's book is pretty much stealing "Steal This Book."
The New Left was a disaster, in my mind, and in any case preceded the right-wing counter-revolution under Reagan and Thatcher.