Must depend on the company/office. My team (200+ people) has a "offtopic/socialize" chat channel set up for this kind of rando chit chat, and it has never, not once in many years, even had a hint of divisiveness or politics. Yes, you do need to be working with grownups who can behave and leave that shit at home.

Basecamp is a well-known example. I saw it personally at 3 different companies, including one in Germany. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27032627

Thanks for that link. Wow, what a wild story. I agree with the top commenter: It looks like the company was composed entirely of children or adults with child-like communication skills/habits!

Not in any company I’ve been in, but I don’t live in America

Huh? Thats just not true. We have channels for gamers, pets, golf, home automation, “lounge”, “memes”, etc. I’ve been at this company 4 years and can only thing if 3 times I’ve seen a dispute, and even that was very civil. It’s really not hard to leave politics at home.