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.

There’s also on OODA loop component to this. If you just do your own thing and make everybody react to you then you have the upper hand. 

The culture war stuff only stayed at the forefront because so many other things stagnated. If you are able to just keep moving forward then the stuff that relies on stasis falls away