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I think in your made-up example, the relevant detail is that it was Nazism, an openly fascistic ideology, that the California Democrat was espousing, rather than that this was a case of excommunicating a heretic. But also, I wouldn't really describe that as "vigilance," though trivially it is, I suppose. When I think about some group of people being "vigilant" in watching out for the rise of fascism, I'm thinking of behavior that's beyond just noticing someone saying "I'm a fascist" and telling them, "Okay, bye."
I don't think there's a "general case" of excommunication of heretics, but I'd say that, very very imprecisely speaking, it seems unlikely to be aiding in vigilance against one's own ideology turning towards fascism, because detecting heretics tends to involve checking if someone is sufficiently submitting to whatever ideology our team likes and then expelling them if they fall short, which is the type of behavior more in-line with fascists than against them. But the specific details matter way too much to say more than that.
In terms of the IRL example, I do agree that what we saw in 2016 was evidence of some sort of ideological vigilance within the Democratic party (dunno if it was "healthy" given that we lost - but without it, perhaps Trump would've won in a landslide instead of merely edging by?). I do think the left in general and the Democratic party in particular has its share of such forms of vigilance, and I'd even guess that it does it better than the right and the Republican party, though my judgment is too biased to be meaningful in that regard.
But when it comes to being vigilant against fascism, I don't think something like "this big tent ideology that I and almost half the electorate follow have lots of sub-ideologies that are in healthy competition with each other" really counts as such vigilance, since that's largely a consequence of the mostly free society and culture in which we live, rather than a specific way to manage the ideology or party. Rather, it's about watching for the ideas that you specifically like and you specifically believe will bring forth a better future; because, for you, it's that ideology that is your metaphorical "American flag" that will wrap up the fascism that you will inadvertently push and bring forth.
If a Bernie Bro (which I was in 2016) said, "By pushing for Bernie to defeat Hillary in the primaries, I am being vigilant about fascism taking over the USA, because this is part of the healthy ideological diversity within our Democratic party by having multiple competing factions attacking one another," I would consider that deluded. That's not vigilance, that's just plain old picking a side, which is perfectly cromulent but not much more*. If he said, "I'm pushing for Bernie, but I'm concerned that if he does gain power, all the great ideas that I want him to implement will lead us towards fascism in ways that I and all his supporters didn't anticipate, and so when Hillary or Trump call him out, I'll listen and investigate," I would consider that at least a significant meaningful gesture towards maintaining vigilance against fascism.
* I think there's a version of this which is vigilance against fascism; if someone with control over the DNC pushed to make it so Bernie and the other underdogs of the world had a better shot, so as to increase the viciousness of within-party competition of ideologies, that seems to be a form of vigilance against fascism. Perhaps even in the case that it's just a DNC voter who is ambivalent about the choice but errs towards Bernie because they figure that bringing up an underdog will help to prevent ossification of ideas within the party. This would have to be balanced against the possibility of allowing an uber-charismatic
TrumpHitler-like figure coming in and stealing the party from under us, which is the kind of thing you would expect to lead more towards fascism, but the opposite could be the case, of course, and the specific details likely matter a great deal here.More options
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