[cmrdporcupine]

Nothing would stop them. That's already happened -- that's effectively what Truth Social is, for example.

And it wouldn't matter. Because the majority would be elsewhere. Or not. The point is that there's no centralized authority making this decision. And if I didn't like how the node I was on handled the moderation, and who it chose to federate with, I'd be free to move my account elsewhere.

I personally would just choose to hang out on whatever Mastodon node that had cut itself off the the Musk/Trump-ish node.