Even if I concede that "I'm strawmanning one side only a little more than the other" accurately describes what's going on here, which I'm not sure I do, I'm still not sure I endorse it.

Admittedly, if representing the two sides is worth doing in the first place, and representing them without strawmanning them is not worth the effort, and representing them by strawmanning them equally is not worth the effort, then the above is probably the next best choice. But I'm not sure any of that is true.

Not that this thread is unique in this respect. Lots of threads on LW do this sort of thing. I assume that if it weren't for the anti-politics site norm there would be more of them; I expect that as this norm gets relaxed (as has been happening for the last year or so, and will likely keep happening) there will be more of them. Which is unfortunate, from my perspective.

ideologies make conflicting empirical claims as well as conflicting normative claims, and so empirical claims can reveal as much information about one's ideology as normative claims can.

Absolutely true.