Much of fringe politics is a social club/hobby. You can really see this in action when fringe groups stumble upon an opportunity to grow support among the mainstream, but then they choose to squander it on counter-signaling to drive away people who aren’t perfectly aligned.

The “Just Stop Oil” people are a great example of this. There’s a lot of headwind behind green energy and moving away from oil, but the activists suck all that air out of the room with destructive stunts and focus the story on themselves.