BTW, I have to point out that terms like 'the left' or 'the right' are just meaningless. "The Left" could mean anything from someone who wants a communist government to someone who thinks that business needs more regulation. And "The Right" could mean anything from someone who argues for less business regulation to someone who wants to ship all black people back to Africa.

So they are just useless categories ultimately, that serve only as straw men to be attacked. You can make them mean almost anything you want them to. If you don't like business, then 'business' means the most corrupt, massive, inhumane companies possible, not the many times over more small, personally responsible and responsive businesses that make up the bulk of that category. If you are against social safety nets, then everyone who makes use of that safety net is someone who just wants to sit at home and take heroin on your tab, not someone who is really trying hard and has hit a bad patch (and who may, if kept above water, make a real contribution later on.)

In the end, you either have a large middle which never really moves that much despite the perceived political swings back and forth. If, as seems to be the goal these days, you manage to polarize more of them to either side, you still get no real movement. Each side portrays even a small change away from their world view as a massive one, but it really seldom is in any fundamental way. You just get more and more hatred in return for a continued lack of real change.