Well a half-truth is half true, but then of course it's also half false. I've been thinking politics is increasingly just people lying about each other. Someon

Well a half-truth is half true, but then of course it's also half false. I've been thinking politics is increasingly just people lying about each other. Someone's behavior can be over-simplified and then pattern-matched to be a tiny bit like that of a literal socialist/racist/whatever. So you "round up" and throw the worst possible charge at them which can fit your evidence, intentionally creating what is almost certainly a false positive due to a terrible classification process. The lie (i.e. the degree to which their statement was rounded up beyond the evidence they have) is the part that damages the target. So people make it as big as possible. The worst possible names are always immediately diluted by overuse. Same thing going on here. Not helping is partially like helping the other side, so stop thinking there and start rounding off information to make a lie that can hart them.