Coalitions

That's a nicely terse explanation of how Italy is about to wind up with an openly, flagrantly, fascist leader (here's Ben-Ghiat's profile of the candidate, Giorgia Meloni).

If you refuse to join in coalition against a common enemy due to philosophy/policy differences with potential partners who fail your purity tests, the enemy will win and you will lose.

That sounded rather anodyne. Let me vivid that up for you.

This is how the world goes down in flames: Tunnel-visioned people unwilling to sacrifice any iota of idealogical purity despite the presence of a massive threat.

I'll jazz it up and dumb it down even more: Remember how in Game of Thrones everyone wasted time with pointless infighting while an infinite army of murderous icy zombies advanced toward them? That!