They’re not insane, they’re just victims of tribal thinking like the rest of us. Very narrow worldview reinforced by the others around them, bashing outsiders, thinking “they” are smarter than everyone else. Mostly, they see themselves as good and everyone else as bad, which isn’t very unique among humans either.

Absolutely yes. I should have clarified that I agree with your first several points:-). I only disagreed (somewhat strongly) with the last one. Definitely the "is everyone insane (except me ofc 🙃)?" is hyperbolic, and mostly venting, and I even treated it as being a silly / unserious wording, but also halfway serious in terms of seeking information and reassurance that the Fediverse is worth visiting, if someone is more careful where they tread.

Therefore, the OP is not doing the identical thing in reverse, imho, b/c OP is responding to the way that they were treated, which is necessarily not thought-out fully but rather a knee-jerk reaction. OP came to us for help in emotionally processing what(ever) happened to them, whereas people on hexbear.net continually act that way for years and years, plus actively resist any efforts to change (which OP hasn't even had the opportunity to do yet, this post being mere hours old), which seems to me more than enough time for them to have settled and made a conscientious, intentional decision as to how they want to live their lives. So again, yes OP may have done something of a similar nature, at least similar in kind, but the fact that the degree differs makes all the difference in the world. Maybe?

As for creating division and causing hostility, definitely users of Chapotraphouse have been known to do similarly... but if you want to respond that we should hold ourselves to a higher standard, then I will preemptively agree.:-) Except that the Fediverse has in the past allowed no distinction between communities - TheDonald (if one existed here) would be presented to a (especially new) user in exactly the same manner as e.g. No Stupid Questions (technically I believe that 0.19.5 introduced the allowance for labelling a community by an instance owner, though I am aware of zero communities so far that have used this feature, and many instances have not even upgraded to it yet - at least mine has not yet, though I see that yours has and more are catching up as time passes, maybe even most of the major ones at this point? so maybe there are such labels all around and I am simply not seeing them, though reports such as OP's and lack of discussion about such makes me strongly doubt that). Except the former would be much more likely to ban you outright for asking a "stupid" question (in their eyes), since as we agree, they feel themselves to be the sole arbiters and conveyors of truth, and moreover, unlike you and I who are discussing this topic so politely (and even pleasantly?) here, are not open to any dissenting POVs (+ are much more likely to enact a full-on ban rather than mere post removal).

Fwiw, I liken it to porn. If someone wants that... then they should be allowed to have it - why should I try to block someone's access to a contentious conversation, or impinge upon freedom of speech in any way? On the other hand, when someone else's freedom to speak impinges upon MY freedom to not have to listen to such crap, especially when it blows up my inbox (for WEEKS and WEEKS and WEEKS after I stopped responding!!!), that's where I draw the line. That's literally not what "freedom" means - except in their eyes, where they feel that they should be free to ban outsiders, but not for outsiders to block them in return. Put another way: we control ourselves rather than spew our thoughts uncontrollably onto someone, but so many people on certain instances do the opposite, since their culture has taken root to actively applaud that behavior. And yet, except on instances that have already banned hexbear.net (& lemmygrad.ml, and imho lemmy.ml as well, except no major instances do the latter afaik), new users are constantly exposed to that ~~porn~~ style of "contentious content", which goes against Western standards of normal behavior, without any such warning messages. Thereby leading to posts such as OP's, who was shocked to see it. As so many have been before, and so many will continue to be, unless something is done about it.

So what I am getting at is that in large measure, what causes division and hostility is coming across such a thing unawares. If it were labelled, it would be different - e.g. if you clicked upon a post with an interesting title and a warning popped up "Warning: this community have chosen to voluntarily label itself as containing ~~NSFW/NSFL~~ "potentially contentious content", please read this [external statement] before replying to anyone in it." (and then had an option to not show again, when the user feels that they understand and don't need the warning anymore)

But when you are just scrolling your All feed, as a day- or week-1 Fedizen, and suddenly come upon such graphic/contentious content... it can be more than a little jarring. So it's not merely their particular style that is the problem, but rather (like porn) it is the infringement of that style upon the unaware users on the rest of the worldwide Fediverse.

I hope this further explanation was of interest to you:-).