certain "thought leaders" and media personalities have helped exacerbate this problem, by selectively covering the most cartoonish examples of their political rivals, and making a business out of singling out and humiliating people on a particular end of the political aisle.

yeah, the Pied Piper thing seemed like a great idea to the Hillary campaign and their friends in the highest levels of media but they didn't really understand the lesson of the Pied Piper story, at the end the Pied Piper takes all their children after the town's leaders screw him over, they picked the wrong cartoonish buffoon to push their opponents into unpopular extremist positions this time, thank God.