It is quite scary. Unfortunately it's not just Lemmy. The entire country and probably the world is becoming increasingly polarized and reactionary.

I think a lot of this is due to propaganda and astroturfing. Many comments online are faked in some way and then certain views are pushed to the top through vote manipulation.

There are many such active groups on reddit, and I don't doubt they have some influence here. The Politics lemmy is essentially a word-for-word echo of the /r/politics sub.

So rational people who can hold nuanced views sort of get drowned out by the shallow and reactionary views.

This is unfortunately happening on the right as well. Both sides of the establishment are giving up on even pretending to care about the principles they claim to support.

The left is OK with censorship and suppression. The left is OK with supporting war. The right is OK with eliminating personal freedoms. The right is OK with destroying the free market and preventing freedom of movement.

Both sides are slowly becoming the same end-goal. I think the current system is in its death throes. It seems we are going through another period similar to the early 1900s where old ideologies will collapse and new ones will fight for control.

I just hope we can make it out the other side without falling to fascism this time around.