Hi @sean-king - your reflections resonate, we are going through a very fraught period, a lot of great minds are seriously concerned.
Despite what Francis Fukuyama was writing 26 years ago, we haven't reached "the end of history". The western political systems, most notably their anglo-saxon flavors, need serious reform.
There is this system scientist called Stafford Beer who back in the '50-ies (if I'm not mistaken) has developed the VSM or Viable System Model on the back of work on autopoesis by Maturana and Varella and of the "Law of requisite Variety" of Sir Ashby.
The political systems have gradually evolved into "viable systems" that have put in place mechanism to ensure their viability and self-reproduction. Once a political system becomes "autopoietic" (reproduces itself) it becomes extremely resilient and hard to change.
This is what makes the situation concerning. We could, in a "free world", avoid labels and engage the substance of other's arguments, civilly and rationally. But there's nothing in it for us. We wouldn't gain anything (short term) from doing so.
On the contrary, the system encourages and incentivizes us to label and dehumanize our opponents and exacerbate the differences. We, individually, stand most to gain by being uncivil and irrational and not seeking common ground.
So in order to act as you say we need some strong values and principles, we need to refrain from pursuing a short term self interest at the expense of the long term common interest.
And that is extremely, extremely hard ...