[orf]

> and r/the_donald drives too much traffic to reddit for them to seriously consider it for them

Ehh, it's not that, the sub is not really that active outside of a core group. Their user base isn't that involved either, none of the polls they post get any traction (that's why they stopped posting them) and for the most part frontpage posts get like 60-100 comments (unless it's a 'big' story). So it's not the traffic for sure, no matter how much they want to delude themselves about the 10 million invisible subs or whatever.

It's the press. Because like it or not they would be making a pretty big political statement by banning the sub, the main 'supporters club' for the currently sitting US president. Whatever ban reason will be picked apart and spun by either side of the press and the whole thing will become a big unmanageable mess, which is not something anyone would want to trigger. Better to wait it out until, for whatever reason, he's no longer the president. At that point I'm sure the rules regarding death threats, racism and witch hunting will be enforced a bit less leniently.