Oh, there's definitely something going on, but I'm not sure that the factions can be split so easily into left-wing and right-wing, even if the political orient

Oh, there's definitely something going on, but I'm not sure that the factions can be split so easily into left-wing and right-wing, even if the political orientation correlates. Instead I would say that there's some hot button topics like immigration, racism, climate change, discrimination of all kinds, etc and there's a faction which is for more immigration, aggressively and militantly fighting racism and climate change, etc and several factions which don't agree with the above to different extents. The positions of the pro faction have become the default in mass media, to the point that the media is educating and shaping opinions more than reporting facts. Members of the against factions are typically portrayed as wicked and associated with negative labels such as nazi, right-wing (has become a slur), racist, sexist, etc and silenced or forced to grovel in order to not lose their jobs/reputation/standing, etc. This is by the way not localized to the US, instead it's visible in several (if not all) Western European countries.