BTW, years ago I was on a board like this, but it was centered on religion, not politics. You can imagine what a cluster it was.
For some reason the Christians ended up mostly being the conservatives, and the athiests, agnostics were always the dems.
Anyway, it was 24/7 fighting all day every day. But to everyone's credit, we were all honest about who we were and our beliefs. There were no liars around. A lot of ignorance, yes. But no one intentionally misrepresenting who they were or what they believed.
There was one girl who occasionally posted there, she admitted she was an atheist, but she was pretty level-headed in her posts. She'd just say 'here's what I believe about that', and then go away. Often, Christians would get upset because its religion and emotions are involved. I pretty much left her alone cause she wasn't starting shit and I can respect someone who has different opinions as long as they present them calmly and respectfully. She did.
So one night when the board is having it's typical knock-down drag out, she DMs me. She says she wants to try an experiment. She said she wanted me to tell her why she should become a Christian, then she was going to tell me why I should be an atheist.
It was one of the best conversations I've ever had. Both of us calmly and carefully explained why we believed the way we did. If I remember correctly, she said she had grown up a Christian, but later a family member died in an accident and she didn't understand why God would let that happen. So she decided to become an atheist. At the end, neither of us changed each other's mind, but we both completely understood the other's point of view.
Funny thing is, we both kinda checked out of the nonstop fights over religion on the board. After that it was kinda easy to see what a complete waste of time it was.
So many people have so much emotional attachment to their opinions being 'right' that they refuse to listen to anyone who thinks differently. That's how you learn, and usually you learn more about yourself than anything or anyone else.