I just found it strange that _all_ of the examples were anti-trump, especially when various conservative pro-trump subreddits were guilty of the exact same thing.
And frankly, I'm A-OK with communities having heavy-handed moderation no matter what side of the aisle you're on. That's great! At least when you join those communities, you know what you're signing up for.
But the trouble comes when you have lightly-moderated spaces that are targeted by authoritarian extremists with the explicit goal of trying to shift people's opinions. That's subterfuge, and lightly-moderated spaces are defenseless against it, since at point you either introduce moderation or throw up your hands and let the extremists win.
Three of the four examples I gave were anti trump because they happened to be at the top of my blocked list, probably because they were the first posts I was annoyed by. I also mentioned r/trumpforpresident.
And in my opinion, your third paragrah applies even stronger to heavily moderated subreddits (/r/the_donald anyone?) because dissenting opinions are just removed. Unless this is super public and regularly discussed, oftentimes I find that it's easy to forget about and fall into the trap of thinking that everyone feels a certain way. Sure at first it is right in the front of your mind but eventually it fades away (at least, in my experience).
Of all the problems that the_donald had, their exclusion of dissenting voices was not one of them. They made it abundantly clear what kind of sub it was, and I think even codified it in the rules.
And I don't quite follow your second concern. Most of the time when I'm socializing I'm not in the mood for pseudo-anonymous debate club, I just want to talk to like-minded people about our shared hobbies. If I want dissenting opinions, I know where to find them.
