Unlike Reddit, I am not able to kick out moderators and keep only those that pledge loyalty to me.

You know what? I think you’ve made all my points for me, repeatedly. Like, if anything I owe you for making my argument better than I could. So I’ll just loop back to

It isn’t about “growing” lemmy. It is about “growing” internet points and communities. People see an opportunity to become the mods they hate (fucking pricks, how dare they ban someone for screaming forty slurs in every single post for six months straight!) while establishing themselves as power users. Because if it worked on reddit, it works on here.

Just block communities and, where possible, instances.