You're stepping into a distinct issue where you specify politicians or the political classes. Thus far I took the discussion to be about individuals engaging in informal political discussions. The poll itself wasn't limited to politicians.

There are well known malign incentives for politicians and the political classes. Generally speaking these involve the expansion of the purview of the state and the time preferences dictated by electoral cycles. These are realist views around the incentives political actors find themselves subjected to. The extent of how much these incentives are perceived to dictate outcomes might correlate with the observer's cynicism. However, presuming that these incentives would only apply to one political party would be naive at best. At worst it would be divisive partisan tilting. The suggestion that it is specific to Republicans and the devolution of this thread is illustrative of the polling data.

Yes. The politically engaged have become extremely polarized and out forth terrible policies that the normal people then have to make binary decisions on. Both Harris and Trump were symptoms of this. Both were kinda nuts. And the fact that normal people had to choose is ... Wild.