Holding yourself just outside a large, powerful, controversial social alignment is a pretty uncomfortable thing to do; people in the ingroup aren’t going to think of you as an ally, they’re going to think of you as a heretic. And thanks to outgroup homogenity, you’re going to find it very hard to distinguish yourself from X from the perspective of people outside it. (Insert your own examples here; I’d add some, but all the ones I can think of are politically sensitive.)
If you’re loud enough and can get enough people on board early, you might be able to establish yourself as a sustainable group mutually distinguished from X. But I don’t think it’s possible to reliably keep the groups straight as far as people outside them are concerned: once you’ve defined your ideology you can’t pick and choose the criteria people will be using to make those judgments, so they’ll correctly note the similarities more often than not.
people in the ingroup aren’t going to think of you as an ally, they’re going to think of you as a heretic
The examples that come to mind for me suggest that they’re only going to think of you as a heretic if you identify as a member of the ingroup. If you have exactly the same beliefs but place yourself outside of the group, they’ll likely ignore you altogether—you’re similar enough to not be worth attacking, and small enough to not affect the group’s reputation or inner workings.
Holding yourself just outside a large, powerful, controversial social alignment is a pretty uncomfortable thing to do; people in the ingroup aren’t going to think of you as an ally, they’re going to think of you as a heretic. And thanks to outgroup homogenity, you’re going to find it very hard to distinguish yourself from X from the perspective of people outside it. (Insert your own examples here; I’d add some, but all the ones I can think of are politically sensitive.)
If you’re loud enough and can get enough people on board early, you might be able to establish yourself as a sustainable group mutually distinguished from X. But I don’t think it’s possible to reliably keep the groups straight as far as people outside them are concerned: once you’ve defined your ideology you can’t pick and choose the criteria people will be using to make those judgments, so they’ll correctly note the similarities more often than not.
The examples that come to mind for me suggest that they’re only going to think of you as a heretic if you identify as a member of the ingroup. If you have exactly the same beliefs but place yourself outside of the group, they’ll likely ignore you altogether—you’re similar enough to not be worth attacking, and small enough to not affect the group’s reputation or inner workings.