Most content from .ml users likely isn't even political, so people certainly overstate how prevalent radicalism is. Lemmy is part of the fediverse and isn't a reserved political space any more than any other part of it. But you are much more likely to see controversial positions from the "tankie triad" compared to other instances and other social media. It is one of the few big instances where you can find popular support for Russia over Ukraine or denying the Uyghur genocide for example.

People should run their lemmy instance as they want.

The non stop feudposting about what people do in their own instance is ridiculous. Block the instance and move on with your life if you need to. Block me to while youre at it! Who cares?

It seems there is some other agenda at play with those who are on this dumb ass crusade against .ml

I think people generally think of themselves as progressive when they come here, and it might be their first run-in with revolutionary socialists. They get caught between their progressive beliefs, largely around the Bernie/AOC area, and this suddenly new group (to them) of people that despise reformism and the Democrats almost as much as the Republicans. It creates a lot of friction, IMO. And yea, Lemmy was and is made by MLs, which means we have a permanent foothold here.

Have you tried browsing hexbear.net and Lemmygrad.ml? Lemmy.ml has its own vibe because we don't really defederate from anyone, but Lemmygrad.ml and Hexbear.net are pretty good examples of what "tankies" are like when we aren't getting into constant squabbles with liberals. You'll see tons of queer people, a lot of passionate people, and a lot of normalcy, to be honest.