Quite a few on one side seem to want to "help others" so they can demonstrate publicly how awesome and righteous they are. And we can even falsify this hypothesis a bit... such people would, I speculate, be more interested in the appearance of helping than in the substance of helping. They'll tend to arrange the help in such a way as to garner the most publicity. And, most of all, they'll allocate their efforts such that they're vocal about how they're the good guys doing all the helping more than they're actively helping. Just to make sure everyone notices.

The other side actively goes out of their way to be cruel and is proud about it. All the while trying to stigmatize decency and help.

> Quite a few on one side seem to want to "help others" so they can demonstrate publicly how awesome and righteous they are

Being awesome because you help those in need? How horrible!

> more interested in the appearance of helping than in the substance of helping

This is a common and tired talking point: "virtue signalling". It often comes from people who are less helpful than others, and resent how more helpful people receive accolades. Their own personal judgement about whether something actually helps isn't authoritative, and is usually motivated reasoning anyways.