Everyone knows Republicans are racist homophobic xenophobic bigoted nazis. Why would they want to admit that to some random over the phone? The rhetoric that we are using to describe the other party is not necessarily helping our cause in the long run. First it is pushing folks with legitimate disagreement away from public discourse. Second it is creating a good-guy/bad-guy scenario that is the equivalent of tribalis…
It's not spending its energy discussing Laffer curves and energy policy, and whether or not someone can be fired from their job for being gay, or if we should invade another Middle Eastern country anymore. It's spending its energy seriously talking about QAnon, and how the COVID pandemic is over, and and how there's a vast liberal conspiracy that destroyed the integrity of this country's elections, and how their president will think about whether or not he will step down if he were to lose the election.
These aren't weird views held by a bunch of powerless cranks on the party's fringe. This is the sort of stuff that the party bet the farm on this year, and has largely paid off with the voters.
In any sane world, an impartial observer would look at that, and conclude that it is all absolutely crazy. But we no longer live in a sane world, so there's now no shortage of people apologizing for, cheerleading, or just ignoring that kind of behaviour in their elected officials.