It’s an interesting comparison because it seems to me dueling comes from times and places where personal reputation was much more important to life destiny than now due to a lack of protective legal and other institutional infrastructure that dampens the risks in living and working with strangers.
So maybe any rising sensitivity in the present is due to the feeling that this infrastructure is weakened.
The two parties are not going to figure this out. I think we are in the middle of one of those major shifts in the landscape. Probably still end up with only two, and one of them might keep its name, but it seems to me this country’s leadership has simply outlived its ability to sense the world around it. They’ve patched over all sensory organs with some kind of insider-curated feed.