Revolution and reaction, as two sides of the "I can't take it any more!" coin, happen when people begin to feel that things are intolerable.

One reason things can feel intolerable is that they're bad and getting worse. But things can also feel intolerable due to fears stoked by ideological propaganda or groupthink.

Reactionaries respond to the "we're leaving something we had that was good, now it's bad" side of it; revolutionaries to the "it was always bad, it's still bad, I can't take it anymore" side.

And the revolutionaries and reactionaries feed off of each other: each provides the best proof of the need for the other.

I agree that the average shift has been towards a more reactionary perspective. (But most of the movement has mostly been towards greater polarization.) But I think that at least in the U.S., that's the reality-responsiveness overlaid on top of the fundamentally ideologically/groupthink-driven polarization.

The reality is that things are comparatively pretty good now for most groups for which things were bad in the past; and mostly it's been moving in the better direction even if it's been slow. This really undercuts the revolutionary drive. But there is a substantial group that used to be doing kinda okay and now is doing rather less okay economically and whose culture is being eroded, which provides a stronger reactionary drive.

That said, my read is that it was the revolutionaries who started it in the U.S. (prompted mostly by an increased siloization from social media), and it was that extra spark of an adversary to rail against that solidified the reactionary tendency from vague discomfiture to committed action.