I am probably overreacting to this because I have encountered it in the workplace before. Politics constantly being brought up inappropriately & the only safe move was to go out of your way to signal to the right people that you were on their “team”. The occasional political witch hunt over nothing would happen. A good portion of the company spent most of the day talking politics instead of working but I assume nothing was done out of fear of retaliation. A lot of really bizarre things, but hopefully not the norm.