The pandemic also ruined a lot of subreddits, especially ones for municipalities. Over 3 years of "OMG COVID" and "we ar liek literally in a pandemic" and "I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU DON'T SUPPORT MORE LOCKDOWNS" made me give up on a lot of subreddit communities, especially the Los Angeles one. But yeah, the metastasization of Reddit's broad politics also made things worse.
The municipality boards the world over were all similarly overwhelmed with sanctimony and paranoia. I think this mostly speaks to the demographic of Reddit. Which is to say, the fact that Reddit is home to any edifying discussion at all is in spite of its demographic, not because of it.
/r/iowa has actually improved but that's only because we are no longer first in the primaries. I hope south carolina has a plan to deal with astroturfing the likes of which they have never imagined.
The issue is that the admins only selectively enforce their rules, and are very ideologically driven at that (see the general rule of not allowing bans for other subreddit participation). This sets the tone for the moderation.
The administrators still maintain that racism can only be by an oppressor group to an oppressed group. That is, they ignore reports of racism against white people. Last year I saw a user get a temporary ban for reporting racism against white people. The rot is from the top down.