Not really sure that Erick is the problem (may be but not by my earlier readings) but his Moderators are much less Conservative and tend to slap down those kind of thoughts, ie, RINO type thoughts, even to the point of banning them.
Not sure when you got banned, but there were at least two big purges that I was aware of, and all were orchestrated by Erickson. Were mainly used to eliminate diary writers and commentators that didn’t follow the party line. Lost a lot of good people in the last one.
Also, the redo of the format was the last straw for me. Losing the diary format, and going to discus for comments were both insanely stupid, in terms of keeping up the level of commentary. Every site I have been on that switched to discus soon sucked. And the main reason I went there was to read the diaries. Lots of good writers back then. Not so much anymore...