"He" could be Christopher Hitchens. You don't know!

Politics used to be something people engaged in. Now politics is the core to a lot of people's identities, which means disagreement or debate is perceived as a personal attack and people will embrace a tremendous amount of cognitive dissonance to avoid being wrong.

Lemmunists!

undefined> But if someone left a turd, send that stank to the bottom!

This is the crux of it though, where is the distinction between opposing viewpoint and absurdist argument? How would you combat people trolling, i.e. intentionally posting inflammatory things to cause disruption/argument?

Am I trolling you right now? Or am I arguing in good faith? :-)

"YOU" are not your argument. Disagreement is not an attack on you as an individual and should not be taken as such.