Expecting that your ideological opponents to completely back down in order to de-escalate is not de-escalation. De-escalation is incremental and generally done

Expecting that your ideological opponents to completely back down in order to de-escalate is not de-escalation. De-escalation is incremental and generally done in small lock-steps, with all parties relaxing their postures, not by asserting polarizing and simplistic absolutes and expecting to "win". What you wrote above is part of the dynamic that prevents de-escalation.