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Notes -
I think this is a major part of it. There has been plenty written about how the purity-spiraling progressive left, i.e. the woke/idpol/crt/dei/sjw crowd, are following a religion that fills a vacuum left by the rejection of traditional religions, so I won't reiterate it here. The thing about religions is that you don't need to win in any way that makes sense in the real world to win according to the tenets of your religion. In the case of this religion, being more pure than thou is one way of winning.
And likely there's a major self-validation component to it as well, in that this group of people tend to be far more individualistic than most people, valuing freedom and self-expression far greater than most people. This is evident in many things, including their hair/tattoo/piercing/fashion choices and their support for transing children. Thus it would make sense that they put greater value in the individual feeling of righteousness they get from putting down someone less pure than them than in their movement winning more supporters and becoming more capable of affecting change in this world.
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