But because clicks and outrage rule supreme we end up with screenshots of a couple of dozen nobodies saying controversial things used to paint the "other side" as unhinged and violent. I wish we could all move beyond it but we seem unable.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45202200
To this one
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44276916
You won't even get the names of the latter on this site if this is how you consume news.
Charlie Kirk gets killed. There's some number of right-wing zealots who go on X or BlueSky or whatever and say "Kill all the Democrats!" Then the left (all the left, not just the zealots) points to that and says "See, they're completely insane!". But it's not all the right, it's some number of unhinged plus some number of trolls.
Same thing happens with the left. AOC says something or Mandami says something, and the right (not just the complete nut jobs) say "look, they're completely insane!"
Both sides use the statements of the extreme of the other side to paint the entirety of the other side as complete wackos.