It’s due to people having higher standards than before and being bifurcated on every issue. There is deep polarization and tribalism within American culture.
Everyone consumes different content and there’s very little homogeneity within our culture. Like… Americans are more diverse than ever in terms of their thoughts and behaviors. They genuinely have little in common compared to many other cultures.
Part of the increased diversity is unavoidable due to technological changes eroding previous touchpoints. E.g. limited broadcast TV becoming cable becoming streaming.
But there does seem to be an increasing dearth of the logical tonic: discussion-facilitating diverse spaces. Places where people of different opinions can mingle, there are strong social norms around mutually productive conversation (and enforcement to discourage / weed out poison apples?), and that are open to new people.