The party of collective hysteria?

Is that a thing?

We are all susceptible to groupthink. And I have always especially tried to keep an eye out for groupthink in my own thinking and in the thinking of sociopolitical movements with which I am more aligned.

And, generally, I presumed that the Left and Right were equally prone to groupthink, although at any given time one side might well be more in its grip than the other.

However, I wonder…

Could it be that groupthink could come to dominate one side?

That one sociopolitical movement is more prone to collective irrationality than the other? That, by having fallen deep into collective hysteria or groupthink on one topic, it makes them even more likely to do so on other unrelated topics?

And, on the flip side, could it be that a sociopolitical movement that coalesces in reaction to groupthink in the opposition is consequently steeped in more rigorous analytical tools and evidence-based thinking, and those rigorous approaches get carried with their narrative for some time, better insulating them from groupthink?

What would this look like?

Well, the side with a greater tendency to fall into collective irrationality would not simply be more irrational. No. Such groupthinks tend to express themselves as moral panics. They come to believe not only the irrational things, but that those things justify the coerced implementation of their righteous ingenious schemes on everyone.

The result would be that one side is filled to the brim with virtue signals and authoritarian edicts any good person should follow, and the other side which is largely bound together in their agreement that they’re not going to follow those “righteous” edicts, and generally just want to be left alone.

Let me know if this comes close to fitting anything in the real world.