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Funny, I was just listening The Young Turks, as left-wing as it gets, fire a former contributor for doing this to their CEO.. Cenk Uygur is in no way an outsider.
Yes, a lot of the uncharitable and unprofessional things she said were about Cenk and told to allied leftists. But it doesn't change that she basically lost an ally by talking crazy about them with other leftists because he only wanted trans athletes to compete up to the high school level or thought Democrats should go on Charlie Kirk.
It only strengthens in-group bonds if a) your asks are reasonable enough that most in-group members see no need to defect and b) you're perceived as a winner.
In reality, TYT is one of the older and larger progressive media channels. Losing them (this isn't the first time an employee has declared them rightists and detached) doesn't strengthen the tribe at all. I think some people's faces are just stuck like this now. They're used to talking like this about their enemies and they simply can't help but slip into it when they see traitors pulling away as their influence recedes after a loss.
With maybe bad incentives due to social media. A smaller figure thinks they gain from punching up at an insufficiently doctrinaire one, and never consider the downsides.
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