Each side gets the smooth brains they crave because for ~50% of the population it's become a team sport / religion situation. A majority of people have not thought through 1/10th of the policy positions they automatically support/reject based on the team hat color.

There's a quote I will mangle and I forget the source of that's something like "If you agree with all the positions of your chosen political party, either you have thought through every option and came to the same conclusions on dozens of topics, or you haven't thought through anything".

Not a true democracy, then /s