It became hard to disagree with your friends/party line when compassion was invoked as the driving force behind a unified voice. Emotions were running high, and the Trump presidency being very divisive and alienating didn't leave much air for people to dissent from their own party. When your "group" is attacked, you don't find much headspace to dissent from your group. In addition, the constant drama loop on the mainstream media didn't help escape the narrative.

I think with things being cooler now, people are finding space to think, look back and criticize what their "group" said and worked for. And that's where people now start to be more vocally critical of what the COVID19 interventions looked like, or how "Defund The Police" movements panned out, etc.

At least that's my own reading of my own experience through all this. I'm not perfect and I would like to think I'm a free thinker. But I've been humbled by the last couple years, and found myself feeling stuck in a wave of social anger, unable to speak out and unable to think what seems to be right or wrong, stuck in allegiances. The end result for me right now is that I feel disgusted with mobs and anyone still holding unwavering intransigent views of what's right or wrong. But it's not like I was personally clear eyed enough during the worst of it to stand up to it.