No, the moderators aren't doing that, they've mostly adopted a hands-off policy lately.They pick a thread, isolate it, attack it and the posters and try to get a shitstorm going. Then they mass-report it and our Board Jedi have to respond.
I've never been a Mod but I understand that responding to reports is their biggest PITA. So, they will often delete a Thread or send it to the Forum Where Threads Go To Die so they don't have to deal with it anymore.
dimocraps are scum
Some degree of equilibrium is being reached in which one side won't be chased away. That had already started to happen, even though the mods work hard to prevent it.