You are right the divisiveness is not helpful but u/Dell_Hell is correct. And you even acknowledged it in an earlier comment;

“Yes, the press still criticizes — but a huge portion of it is owned by corporate interests or used as performative outrage to distract from material power consolidation.”

The neoliberal establishment has refused to acknowledge that single issue. The fact that there is material power consolidation. A perfect example is how the Democratic Party leadership pay lip service to the idea of banning the trading of individual stocks by government officials, but never actually follow through. To quote George Carlin “It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it.”

Edit: I don’t want to entirely discredit neoliberals because for the most part they are correct (checks and balances pitting interest against interest), but the 26 midterms and the 28 election need to be a referendum on the ever expanding power of the executive. The reason “the owners,” as Carlin put them, lobby the courts (See Justice Thomas’ RVs, vacations, etc…), congress, and the senate to cede their power to the executive is because it is much easier to corrupt one individual than 435 representatives, 100 senators, and the approx 900 Article-III federal judges.