> Maybe it pops up here because people have at least a modicum of hope that there will be a productive conversation even amongst the various downvote brigades?
Due to rightwingers often feeling unwelcome elsewhere a lot go to those places, meaning both communities think they need more leftists to balance things out.
Frankly, their election fraud thread - which has hundreds of comments demonstrating both extreme misunderstanding of statistics and the voting process, coupled with a willingness to make or support incredible claims without any substantive evidence or knowledge of the subject matter - says a lot about that community, in my view.
There are a few other places you can do this, like the slate star codex culture war comment spinoffs: r/theMotte and https://www.datasecretslox.com/index.php
Due to rightwingers often feeling unwelcome elsewhere a lot go to those places, meaning both communities think they need more leftists to balance things out.