My opinion:
Bailey: "r/themotte is a right-wing sub"
Motte: "Of the issues that are a) divisive on the left, and b) the subjects of current ongoing real-world debate, r/themotte leans toward the right, or at least away from the Mainstream Progressive position. This makes perfect sense given the fracturing of the 80s-00s alliance that the grey tribe had with Mainstream Progressivism against the then-powerful force of conservative Christianity: people who have been banished from that alliance will side against the banishers."
The debate does go on forever, and I think it's because people are (non-maliciously) conflating those two concepts.
Whenever Scott or someone from the Scottsphere cites his liberal cred, it's always like "I'm an atheist vegan who supports gay marriage and green energy, etc." And I'm not discounting that entirely. This forum is full of people like that, and I would 100% agree (i.e. I would not take that bet) without even checking that this forum is closer to the 'modal' American Democrat for that reason. There are still plenty of unreconstructed/old-school Republicans out there who reject those things on the object-level, plenty of places where they aren't "settled" But those are not where the battle lines are being drawn by people with agenda-setting power. It's like proving your anti-Hitler cred by talking about how much you hate Kaiser Wilhelm. The issues that are causing the left to cleave, the conflicts that would lead a leftist to a place like this are things like anti-white racialism, the value of open inquiry and free speech, and COVID-inspired civil liberty restrictions. My personal bon mot is that all political ideologies are acceptable here...except for mainstream progressivism, which is instinctively derided and sniped at by both our resident liberals who feel betrayed by it, and our resident conservatives who hated it all along. Those two groups forming an alliance can lead to a very strong norm against promoting progressive ideology on issues that are still "hot".
Edit: And none of this is to even comment on whether such a state of affairs is desirable, which is an entirely different discussion. I happen to think it is, given the circumstances of the wider world of discourse.