> I think it's just based on how much of a threat a group is.
I don't think this is the reason. The offending group could be arbitrarily big or small. Today's true problems (from the perspective of likelihood of affecting the civilization or the planet) and today's problems that dominant ideologies care about and feel threatened by, are two completely different things, sometimes laughably so.
I think it's entirely about signaling, and that applies to all sides. When a person or movement or another social entity claims they care about X, the real information the entity is conveying is "caring about X is now the color of our flag, raise a flag of the same color if you're one of us". The actual issue of X is largely irrelevant and can even revert if necessary (i.e. if the signal becomes too unreliable to detect potential members). At least this is what I've noticed across cultures, ideologies, languages, continents..
Edit: Incidentally, that's also why you hear complaints about double standards all the time (how come Europeans don't criticize it when... how come Feminists are silent when... how come Conservatives are nowhere to be found when...). Logical consistency is rarely a useful signal as people are not well-tuned for detecting it and have great capacity for bypassing it: by applying self-deception, compartmentalization, a host of biases, and by building narratives and simple models in their heads while ignoring all evidence to the contrary. It's difficult to think of even one group that enforces logical consistency as its signal (maybe logicians? who knows?)
I don't think this is the reason. The offending group could be arbitrarily big or small. Today's true problems (from the perspective of likelihood of affecting the civilization or the planet) and today's problems that dominant ideologies care about and feel threatened by, are two completely different things, sometimes laughably so.
I think it's entirely about signaling, and that applies to all sides. When a person or movement or another social entity claims they care about X, the real information the entity is conveying is "caring about X is now the color of our flag, raise a flag of the same color if you're one of us". The actual issue of X is largely irrelevant and can even revert if necessary (i.e. if the signal becomes too unreliable to detect potential members). At least this is what I've noticed across cultures, ideologies, languages, continents..
Edit: Incidentally, that's also why you hear complaints about double standards all the time (how come Europeans don't criticize it when... how come Feminists are silent when... how come Conservatives are nowhere to be found when...). Logical consistency is rarely a useful signal as people are not well-tuned for detecting it and have great capacity for bypassing it: by applying self-deception, compartmentalization, a host of biases, and by building narratives and simple models in their heads while ignoring all evidence to the contrary. It's difficult to think of even one group that enforces logical consistency as its signal (maybe logicians? who knows?)