Of course it’s public figures worrying about reputational damage, chilling effects etc. Simplicitus doesn’t have to worry about it, why would he? He expressed his opinion upthread and nothing happened.
The fact that healthcare denial is a broader attack and involves actual policy makes it a better place to draw the line, not a worse one. At the slightest hint that Warren might be a fraud on M4A, the socialist left was all over it like a pack of bloodhounds. Joe Biden patently does not know anything about trans issues or give a shit about them and nobody cares. Why? Because there are no real policy demands attached to the issue. It doesn’t matter if he’s bullshitting, since the demand is only that he say the right things.
It can’t work doing this. If you declare the opinions of the rightmost 5% of people in your coalition anathema, and keep doing that iteratively, your movement will eventually be five tankies meeting in a squat in Portland. It’s a mathematical certainty. Building a coalition necessarily means including people with whom you disagree.
It’s very obvious that the way the culture war has been used on the right has prevented a lot of working-class people from being in a political coalition which meets their needs. You can’t draw a line in the sand on one issue without relaxing it on other issues (or just losing elections). There’s no free lunch on this.