Fortunately, tankies aren’t leftists, since authoritarianism and hierarchy is necessarily a right-wing viewpoint.

Right-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable.

Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy as a whole.

Since the two instances run by the developers are generally pro-genocide and pro-authoritarianism, those are some huge sticking points for Lemmy going forward. Federation doesn’t help because they control the biggest instances and the development of the software itself. I wouldn’t be surprised if the developers invited more people into the core group and stepped down from a leadership position to avoid being a lightning rod for all of the ecosystem.