Titles like this irk me. It clearly isn’t It should be something more like: “how has general discourse become so polluted and toxified in its perceptions for it to appear that the following statement yields any factuality” … I guess that doesn’t quite have the same ring to it though.
It’s a ‘group purity’/‘rank discipline’ thing humans do when they feel threatened.
You’ll see plenty of folks now going after anyone claiming they are ‘apolitical’ or moderate/not on a side.
It results in folks having to pick sides publicly, but often the folks who agree with the opposition being silenced and often just voting the way they feel in quieter ways, while pretending to go along. de-facto boycotts (with no explanations), voting certain ways (Trump, whatever) without telling anyone they did it, etc.
the only people willing to stand up and espouse it publicly are those that feel they can profit off those unwilling to say it themselves or for whom due to mental defect or wealth or whatever they feel invulnerable to backlash.
I’ve personally seen groups in person do the same, but it takes somewhat extreme circumstances or toxic cultures.
I think it’s a reflex that comes out of the us vs them and ideological splintering inherent from a culture war. Which is what is happening in the US.
Broadly, it’s rural vs urban values colliding, and rural communities feeling the effects of severe brain drain and decreasing populations and wealth.
With the large shift of folks from the cities to more remote areas from Covid + Remote work, I expect it won’t go as well longer term either as a lot of the echo chamber online seems to think. There will be mixing, but people tend to get more conservative after awhile in those areas too.
Just like the 70’s with free love and hippies transitioned into the 80’s being about money money and more conservative politics, times are a changing.