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What makes it self-limiting? There's always an opponent, someone completing for resources or whatever, that you can use this method to outgroup and purge. That's just one of many mechanisms driving it.

What are the specific counter-reactions you see that limit this as an ongoing/regularly exercised pattern?

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Once the enemy is weak enough, the reaction dies down. What indicates a strong enemy? According to the article, among other things, its media presence. In the past, if academia and mainstream media didn't give a platform to a view, it was effectively silenced. Today, such views can reach the wider public via the Internet.

(This isn't really my opinion, I don't have good enough evidence for or against; it's just my understanding of the claims of the article.)

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