This is still more DnC shit. Its to make people who would join them, look at them with pity and sympathy rather than listen to the things they're actually saying. To feel sad for them and the situation they've gotten into, but not to personally relate to it in any way. To feel SYMPATHY FOR THEM but not EMPATHY WITH THEM.
Take the first few paragraphs highlights
and
Those things dont make people empathize with you, putting those lines early on make them look at the subject of the article with disgust and/or confusion
Followed by this sort of thing
And so on, each segment is filled with painting the figure as a sob story to feel bad for. The man with a form of autism, the one who couldnt find work and was living in poverty, the one who toured parts of the country and was a witness to the suffering of others who have been forgotten… and so on
Each of the stories does not paint the subjects as someone to empathize with, but rather to feel sympathy for, by making their stories each contain a level that most people cant relate to but can feel sorry for others for going through them.
Its just another DnC tactic. Its not a "tone change" its just a "switch tactics" moment. They're worried the right is gaining to much traction, that the violent radical leftists are going to far and making people feel connection with the right to much and risks drawing more people to that side. So, they have to make them look like people to pity not to join with, first by making the things they do now seem disgusting, and then by making them look like sadsacks for how they got there rather than making it look like the informed intelligent rational position to take after so much time. Make them look lost, confused, and misguided, rather than level/clear headed and thinking properly about it all.
Thus you may calm some of the anger from the left, but more importantly you make the right more divided by making it look like people who join them are all either ebul waycissts or sad sacks so down on their luck and warped by bad experiences that they fell into a bad crowd, no different from some kid who ends up hooked on meth because of a shitty home life.
Make sure you understand this, "wapo" is doing us NO favors here