I don’t think the issue is politics itself really, it’s more of a lack of maturity or compassion when it comes to having the conversation.

If people engaged in the conversation aren’t prepared to take every participant seriously, no matter their politics stance, then it’s a sure-fire way to create a toxic work environment. You can’t go into it with the assumption that everyone needs to be a left-leaning liberal, or that it’s okay to bully a Trump voter (or vice-versa with right-leaning and Obama).

If at that point you can hold a conversation about politics without losing your shit as soon as someone supports something you don’t like, then encouraging it is fine. If you’re still in the mindset of having compassion for only the people on your own side then some growing up needs to happen first. Otherwise all it does is alienate those colleagues with marginal beliefs. Not exactly diverse and inclusive then.

And it doesn’t necessarily follow that you’ll enable far-right nutjobs or neo-Nazis as a result. HR tends to frown on things like racism and such like, it wouldn’t really get very far.