It didn't use to be this way, to be sure. The darkest "shade" thrown even thirty years ago was child's play compared to today's vitriolic rhetoric. I think it

It didn't use to be this way, to be sure. The darkest "shade" thrown even thirty years ago was child's play compared to today's vitriolic rhetoric. I think it has to do with the polarisation (radicalisation?) that has come about because people have been grouping into their own echo-chambers. "The other guy" has moved from being a compatriot who they disagreed with to being an adversary to be conquered. See any political or news sub in /r/ as a principle example of this.