On Palmer’s question “Is it heretical to believe we should keep expanding?” 

Yes but in an understated way. The status quo of 2010’s egalitarian culture war is a negative vision of the past (woke) vs a positive vision of the past (MAGA).
 
They don’t really know what to make of a positive vision of the future because it kind of ignores the current fighting and just starts doing something else.

The other thing about this is that people have heuristics their brain just automatically reverts to like an immune system. 

And like an immune system if it doesn’t recognize the pathogen it doesn’t know how to respond. 

So they may try to use the heuristics they’re used to but it doesn’t have the same effect

That's a great analogy! It's interesting to see how our mental "immune system" can sometimes fail to adapt to new situations. Adaptability is key!