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That's partly a consequence of the people who make up the groups. Board games nowadays are primarily played by younger, indoorsy people. That's generally going to be left-leaning people. If you started a club for gun enthusiasts, I doubt progressives are going to invade the space and push out the people who refuse to use someone's preferred pronouns. And your gun club is probably going to have the occasional comment about Democrats that would start a fight should any Democrat be around to hear it.
But there tends to be a certain creeping nature to it. You're making a wargame forum and someone wants to show off their mechs in pride colors. You either ban it or leave it. Then if you ban it you're a political space but according to the left not a political space if you allow it. If you allow it someone is going to give a negative response that probably leads to an argument. The next time someone shows off their mechs and adds "trans rights are human rights" and we repeat.
To my understanding the Battletech forum rejected pride mechs. And one of the novel authors made some gay characters and that got rejected. Eventually Reddit intervened to replace the mods and the left quite literally took over the space.
No one can without trampling on the First Amendment. And they certainly aren't going to choose to stop being angry that Trump managed to win again.
I think that answer only kicks the can down the road. I agree that we naïvely expect young, bookish people to lean left rather than right - but why is that the case?
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