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I could express a sort of faux-bafflement at the blatant lack of self-awareness and/or hypocrisy in this paragraph, highlighted by the parts I bolded, but that would be dishonest at this point. I just find it depressing.
Because what's clear to me is happening here is that many posters have, in good faith, honestly concluded that the Democratic party and the larger culture that it's a part of are bad things, and that they were hoping that Scott's experience of being burned by this would lead him to correcting his own earlier delusions that they're not all that bad. When people laugh at supporters of the leopards-eating-people's-faces party for getting their faces eaten by leopards, the point being made isn't that these supporters should tribally go against the party that hurt them, it's that they should have recognized that leopards eating people's faces is just a bad thing that they shouldn't have supported in the first place. Sometimes, the person comes to this recognition once the consequences of such support become personally unavoidable; other times, the person looks at his daughter's torn-off face and offers up his other daughter face-first to the same leopard while other people praise him for proving that he's principled by taking a costly action.
Of course, it is tribal thinking to, in honest good faith, believe that leopards eating people's faces is wrong in a world in which a significant team exists that supports the leopards-eating-people's-faces party. A less tribal conclusion to this person's continued support would be that, "Perhaps I ought to rethink my judgment that this whole cancel culture thing is all that bad, if someone who ostensibly got burned by it is still supportive of the exact same forces that led to him getting burned."
This is isomorphic to the honest good faith belief that Trump is just that bad of a person, bad of a leader, bad of a ward of democracy, etc. that he's a bad choice for POTUS. In the presence of such a major team with skin in the game that disagrees with this, a less tribal conclusion would be that, "Perhaps I ought to rethink my judgment that Trump is such an obviously or extremely bad choice for POTUS, or that my preferred choice for POTUS is any better."
Now, we can actually analyze these things non-tribally and try to conclude if the kinds of principles that led to the smearing of Scott is actually bad in comparison to how bad of a leader Trump is, as well as how much influences these things will have in the US depending on who's elected. I, for instance, think it's reasonable to conclude based on the fundamentals that Trump has demonstrated a lack of seriousness in how he governs through his first term, which works out mostly okay but which creates significant risk in emergencies, and this is worse than the emboldening effect that a Harris presidency would have on the people who brought forth the culture that led, among other things, to Scott getting smeared. But complaining about others being tribe-brained while also declaring that Trump is just so horrible is just trying to eat your cake and have it too. Either accept that other people can be just as tribal as you and come to the honest, good faith conclusion that [thing the other side likes] is actually horrible just like you have, or actually rise above the tribalism.
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