I think it's always been that way. We need narrative to understand the world, and stories have Black Hats and White Hats. So obviously no atrocity is too absurd for the BH's to have committed, those people are scarcely even human! It's almost impossible to viscerally hate someone because they're on the Blue Team instead of the Red, and yet acknowledge that they have good and bad sides.
I loathe feminism (as the phrase is generally used) and think her work on sexuality has helped a movement that's done incredible damage to our society, but I truly admire Camille Paglia's intellectual honesty and critique of academia and the war on masculinity.
Russ Feingold is a vile and loathesome creature who worked ceaselessly to undermine many important aspects of liberty and our Constitution, but he was also the only Senator with the balls to vote no on the Patriot Act in 2001 because it infringed on civil liberties.