I think this is the more accurate reflection. The loudest rabble-rousers on either side are the only ones you hear because everyone else is just getting on with

I think this is the more accurate reflection. The loudest rabble-rousers on either side are the only ones you hear because everyone else is just getting on with their normal lives. As it so happens, it's profitable to rabble-rouse if you're in the business of selling clicks, so media increasingly functions only to enrage and divide instead of to inform. Obviously this isn't true for all media but it's becoming more prevalent in our common discourse.