Veganism is a lot like religion - there are plenty of truly sincere, devoted believers.

Then there are the ones who do it because they think it is some sort of "moral flexing / get out of being a good person" card. They think it immediately makes them better than others, and that just being a vegan makes them an awesome person so they don't have to worry about how they actually treat people day to day.

I am a long term environmentalist vegetarian who is mindful of sustainable living. My husband's family are fundamentalist climate change deniers who eat meat. But you know what else? They live in a rural farm, almost never travel outside the farm, and buy very little. They mostly grow and raise their own food and trade with neighboring farms. They make everything they can out of salvaged materials. They reuse or compost everything and produce very, very little waste. They just live very simply.

Even as a mindful vegetarian, I can pretty much guarantee my modest urban lifestyle produces more pollution and waste than theirs does, despite the fact that I consider myself an environmentalist and they think environmentalism is a joke.

Just having the "right" ideology isn't the whole picture.