That was 15 years ago. As polarized as the US is today, I have a feeling that many people would ruin an innocent person's life over ideological differences, though few would admit an intent to do so when questioned directly in public. We see many politically motivated firings/forced resignations these days, for example, as a part of "cancel culture" [1]. Depending on the person's financial stability, being fired may well ruin their life.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/31/us/politics/obama-woke-ca...