"Being told no" included one-strike instance bans for upvoting the wrong comment. No shit people don't keep their accounts. Lemmy as a whole is a place where you accumulate permanent impairment and have zero recognition for long-term positive behavior.
Calling that "might makes right" is fucking rich when we're talking about someone curating an entire instance's personal experiences. Inviting people in, to discuss whatever, and then slapping them left and right for speaking frankly about contentious subjects, is abusive behavior. It's not a knitting forum - politics are relevant, and politics are fucked. If you want to blame his innate demeanor then he was never the right kind of person to run an instance. As I said: borrowed time.