I think already phrasing it like this "the C guys" is inflammatory and not helpful. The C community is huge and there is also a large part interested in more secure programming. Also the idea that tall C code is hopelessly unsafe while all Rust code is perfectly memory safe are both far from the truth. In reality, you can make C code quite good and you make Rust code very unsafe. While Rust certainly has some advantage, this is not as black-and-white as the Rust marketing wants you to believe. But this fuels the "C must die" and "we are on the right side of history and if you can not see this, you are an enemy" lines of thinking some people have.
It also doesn't help that the Rust comes with more than just the safty changes. The expectations for development models, distribution models, backwards compatibility guarantees not to mention the cultural aspects are very different which is the real reason it causes so many clashes.
It get pushed with the argument for better memory safety but then wants to change the entire world as well.
