[peatmoss]

I agree, but would add that many issues (left and right) here are more extreme. I think two things are a self-reinforcing cycle driving both ends of the political spectrum to extremes. First, hyper-partisanship has emerged where it was formerly held in check by social norms within our political institutions. Second, US politics has become a national pastime, replacing sports and other things in our attention. Everyone is able to be part of the commentator class by virtue of social media (I cite this thread, including my comment, as an example of this).

Normie centrist views tend not to garner much attention either in traditional media or in online forums. Instead, we tend to focus much more on the issues that clearly and quickly establish our membership and bonafides in a particular group.

The same extreme-voices-get-heard feature gets recapitulated through our political system. Especially the rise of getting primaried from the left or right. Break ranks with your side? Get primaried. The result is that, to get heard over the fray, political candidates need to articulate more extreme views and stick to them.

Lots of words have been spilled about how various electoral reforms could get us out of this mess. For me, I believe ranked choice voting and open primaries represent an optimal trade-off between "legal, and plausibly implementable" and "yield biggest improvements to electoral system." A major complaint against ranked choice voting is that it tends to bias for more moderate centrists, which I think would be a not-bad problem to have.