But it tends to leads to othering of other sections of the spectrum, so i feel like it's still polarizing. In fact, it might be turning the spectrum multi-polar, instead of how people typically look at it as bi-polar.

All of this is obviously just a personal perspective, i don't have data to back any of this up, unlike the authors. It just seems to me like the distinction between polarization and entrenchment might be valid, but all the bad stuff we can pin on polarization, would likely stick to entrenchment, too.