I agree hugely with your first paragraph. Debates like this are fraught with toxicity anyway, but once factionalism ("the left claims that.." and so on) gets mi

I agree hugely with your first paragraph. Debates like this are fraught with toxicity anyway, but once factionalism ("the left claims that.." and so on) gets mixed in any hope of constructive debate goes out the window. The argument ceases to be about ideas, and becomes a my-team-vs-your-team conflict. (Worse, this then attracts the worst kind of attention from the internet as culture warriors join the fray, regardless of whether they're interested in what the debate was ostensibly about.) Whether this takes the screed into firing territory I have no opinion on, but I definitely think that the guy's left/right posturing served to preclude any productive debate that he might have inspired.