> The opposite happened. “Nobody became more moderate,” said Bail. “Republicans in particular became much more conservative when they followed the Democratic bot, and Democrats became a little bit more liberal.”

This is accurate of right wingers, but it skimps on an observation I've noticed. As polarization increases, liberals become more tolerant of their own extremists. Most Democrats I've known throughout my life owned guns, valued the principle of free speech, would never get caught putting down an entire class of people, etc yet all of these are common views to, in some way, argue against as a Democrat these days.

One could argue it's the popularity of progressivism and how it's cultural values are now eroding the average Democrats, but I'm not quite sold on that idea. My pet theory has been that "own the libs" builds tolerance for extreme views because they further agitate the right, so it was interesting to see them highlight the rights agitation with the left. For now, I'll stick to calling myself an independent until all of this blows over and we can go back to having beers instead of talking about politics and our "values" for entertainment.