Yep, that's a problem and an additional problem is that this mechanism is often exploited by agitprop and, generally, dark arts at the social scale.

Nerds usually lack the social skills to follow this strategy

I don't think it has anything to do with nerds or social skills. If I had to come up with an expression for what prevents people from applying their abstract beliefs in practice, it would be the trite "common sense" (which, yes, I know, isn't exactly common).

Essentially it's the matter of being able to recognize consequences when they appear in front of your eyes. Most people, thankfully, require a large amount of pushing and shoving to make the transition from "Ethnicity X is bad" to "We will go and set fire to our neighbour's house and throw stones at his children". It's not that avoiding that transition is a social skill, it's more that watching a house burn and children cry has direct emotional impact that you need very high levels of ideological belief to override.