Douglas' character always came off to me as a pathetic reactionary as well, and to me it was always intuitively clear that it was his material conditions and false consciousness that drove him over the edge (even back when i was just a kid and wouldn't have been able to name or fully explain these concepts), but there's people who empathize with the marines from Starship Troopers unironically or think that Rohrschach was the good guy, so it doesn't surprise me that this character gets idolized like that.

It's also worth noting that i haven't seen the film in literal decades. It wouldn't surprise me at all if it was full of fishy takes and problematic assumptions in the subtext which would be glaringly obvious now, but just flew over my head in the early 90s (like, i dimly remember some 10 year old black kid being able to explain to Douglas' character how a recoilless rifle works, which at least implies some nasty, ridiculous "super predator" shit if you ask me).