Maybe I'm just more cynical & sardonic than I am can truly discern, but having been recently involved in a dispute where the word "cabal" was thrown around rather freely, I feel the need to ask: is there really any difference between "cabal" & "a group of people who all concur in a consensus"?

Or is this one of those cases similar to the POV pair terrorist/freedom fighter? By which, I mean something like the following: if I hold the same opinion as a number of other people, then it is a consensus; if I disagree with the shared opinion of a group of people, then they are a cabal.

Or is this use of "cabal" another example of certain words being misused to enflame emotions until they have lost their precise meanings, much as I've seen the words "war criminal" & "genocide" misused.

Geoff