Comment by owisd

I think it's more of a problem that the dividing lines in politics have shifted from left vs right within a liberal democratic framework, to liberal democracy vs populism. 15 years ago everyone was arguing within a democratic framework, partly by social norm and partly because before the internet became so ubiquitous there were many more gatekeepers to the spread of information making circulating disingenuous arguments harder. So if hardly anyone was breaking the rules you didn't need to debate who was breaking the rules of democracy or even what the rules were. E.g. JS Mill said 175 years ago that you couldn't have freedom of speech if you allowed harassment or bad faith arguments, but plenty of populists these days would define freedom of speech precisely in the terms of allowing harassment and by extension whatever the consequences of allowing harassment were are just what freedom looks like, and would then gaslight John Stuart Mill into believing he's the real authoritarian for not agreeing with them.