no you're not missing out on anything

these servers were some of the first which is why they appear to have a lot of communities

all the communities have moved on or been replaced on other servers so these servers are now a tiny fraction (faction? hoho) of the fediverse, exactly for the reason you experienced

Much of the “left” communities here veer towards the auth right with a light “left rebranding”

In my own experience, it's less that they spew out politics and more that they are just so defensive and argumentative. A lot of good lemmy communities are based on discussion and sharing cool stuff, while the denizens of those instances and the like are more online to debate, nitpick, and criticize. Like there could be a post of a dog picture and their comment would be critisizing the owner or introducing some political argument that is distantly related. Like bro, just enjoy the dog picture

They are fake leftists working for fascists, and they will troll you if you argue with them, following you around on alt accounts with non tankie instances.

Supposedly a lot of the first people on lemmy were leftists and or tankies. My thing is though is that advocating for defederation weakens Lemmy, less communities to interact with, less content or posts to engage with, less people to interact with which cause echo chambers and hugboxes. Nor would I agree with defederating people just because they have views that I don't like or vehemently disagree with. As bad as some tankies are, they sometimes do make a few good points here and there.

Hypocrisy largely. Heavy micro management and over moderation by admins broadly. Thankfully most are self aware enough outside hexbear to not leave their echo chamber. There are a few sub's documenting it.

Should discussion touch on certain trigger topics, and should your view deviate from dogma. You will often find yourself banned, either temporarily or permanently, without much discussion. Do you think imperialism and invasion of another country is wrong? Such as the United States current invasion of Iran or past invasions of Afghanistan? Well, if you happen to feel the same way about the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan or modern day Russia's invasion of Ukraine. You would be classified as a mush-brained, imperialist turbo-lib.

Do you think genocide and cultural erasure such as what the United States and Canada did to First Nations people is wrong? Don't make a mistake of applying that unbiased to the plight of cultural minorities in China. Tibet, Hong Kong, and the Uhygers, all of course are glad to sacrifice their cultural and ethnic heritage. Under the penalty of imprisonment or death for glorious left unity with the party and President Xi. Any discussion of these groups dissatisfaction with it is CIA propaganda. And not well tolerated.

If you skirt around in only the most niche of communities with hyper-focused specific topics. Who have almost no capability ever touching or involving current events. You might avoid it. Otherwise you will run afoul of it at some point as many have.

They are tankie instances, where they think and then push narratives such as China is the greatest country in the world and does no wrong and that Ukraine is full of Nazis and Russia is the good guy They love their authoritarianism, but only as long as it's "communist" or generally antagonistic towards anything "western."

Anything that contradicts their narrow worldview is met with hostility, comment removals, bans, etc.