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I think its a social defense mechanism, I met an old bastard who saw it in full swing after Catalonia when he was a teen. When a bunch of unions where he lived purged out authoritarian elements especially if they sympathized with the Soviets. Basically use debate to figure out who is stupid, lying, or compromised so that you can deal with them. Such things are helped along by it being a semi-constant force.
Also the Whiskey rebellion and Union/county wars, but nobody remembers them because they were relatively small. Also a lot of Rednecks especially Boomers and Gen X ended up being fucken bootlickers, sure there are some of us within Gen Z who are trying to revers the damage but well culture rarely moves fast.