It just takes one person with an insatiable desire to change things, and (most importantly) someone others want to listen to.“They” unite against things. We spend as much time defending ourselves from each other as we do fighting together. Probably way more if HT, Rockslide etc is any indication.
Take a look at the Montana thread right now: an enormous amount of mental energy is being spent over what, like less than 100 tags?
We tend to pick stupid hills to die on, myself included.