The mods only have themselves to blame. They create insanely broad rules allowing them to ban anything and then limit mod positions to concentrate their power.
The role of mods is to delete off topic submissions and remove illegal content. Nothing more.
The role of mods is to establish and maintain the community they wish to have in the space. That takes a lot more than deleting off-topic submissions and removing illegal content.
And deleting off topic submissions and removing illegal content is what they do the most. Just because you read that some seemingly related post got removed, does not mean everything the remove are those.
I admit, I don't understand the tendency of people like this to insist that their hyper-libertarian ruleset must be so. That for a community to have its own set of rules that they enforce is inherently wrong somehow.
The role of mods is to delete off topic submissions and remove illegal content. Nothing more.