At least if you don’t go out of your way to be combative you stand a chance at finding common ground. Ideally, you would even convince the person to believe what you believe if that’s what you consider winning an argument.

By contrast, shutting down and calling everybody assholes leaves zero (more like negative) chance of anything positive coming out of an encounter or discussion with someone who has an opposing viewpoint

If your goal is catharsis through vitriol and venom towards your fellow countrymen, however despicable the current situation, then by all means. But at least consider the above, because we don’t stand a chance unless a lot more people start doing so