In my experience, the rhetorical behavior you describe is far more common of the deep swollen center mass of the in group, than those on the peripheral edge. Th

In my experience, the rhetorical behavior you describe is far more common of the deep swollen center mass of the in group, than those on the peripheral edge. Those are the idea-carriers who have every incentive to preserve the ideological hedgemon, and so they do what they are incentivized to do: protect the orthodoxy by any means required.