If one doesn't mind me saying a few words since the OP already threw it out there, I think the issue we're seeing is two-fold.
1.) Gaming culture has always been marked by a measurable hostility to minorities being that it was purposefully cultivated as a safe space for straight, white, cis dudes who felt marginalized from the schoolyard bullying towards the hobby. This meant that the mere presence of minorities was a threat, because the juxtaposition means straight, white, cis dudes can no longer claim marginalization with any sort of clout, hence the rebuking of the "politics" that reminds them of this fact.
2.) Gaming is extremely capitalist in nature, and capitalism is amoral at best and hostile at worst to the needs of minorities. To partake in gaming to any noticeable degree, you gotta be willing to shell out the money for the products. System wars culture during many posters' formative pre-teen and teenage years means people tied actual personal investment into the performance of any given brand's hardware and software, and it's become a hallmark of the culture. To ask gamers then to take a moral stand that gets in the way of participation in the hobby is like asking a fish to not swim.
So what you get when these two observations collide is a permanent undercurrent of hostility that wears down all by the most rabid of gamers who specifically jive with the constant fighting. ERA's goals to instead create a safe space for minorities to be heard, listened to, and welcomed, and for minority sociopolitical issues to be discussed in detail in gaming culture and beyond, literally runs counter to modern gaming culture. You are literally asking a large contingent of the community to just suddenly go against their own cultivated identity, biases, and preconceived notions, and that's going to feel like an attack. Hence all of the white fragility, the attempts to shut down or brigade discussions, the concern trolling and JAQing off, and so on. ERA is sort of at odds with itself, and I've yet to think up a quick solution for the problem.
One thing I do think we need to reckon with that wonderful little space of plausible deniability, where anyone can come in and derail a thread in a seeming attempt to be educated or play Devil's Advocate, and the difference between them and a legitimate asshole is completely obfuscated, and the end result is that you have a bunch of minority members who have been personally hurt by someone from the out-group, yet again, intruding in a space and causing mayhem. Now, I am personally old as far as forums go, and tired as well. I say if the difference between an idiot and a bigot cannot be determined, they're both effectively the same and should be treated as such, thus putting the onus on people to read and prime themselves first instead of spouting whatever problematic idea comes into their head just because they deserve the benefit of the doubt and have a right to be nicely corrected by minorities. Because if that presumptuous shit gets on my nerves, I know it gets on y'alls.
That's just one idea. But in general, I think we all need to reckon with what ERA needs to be for its members and what that might look like going forward. Because for all of the fighting, tension, frustration, and harsh words, I think ERA is important in that it is pretty much the only (relatively) leftist space in gaming, where you can go and actually talk about these things and be relatively certain that staff want to work with you in cultivating that environment, that we don't want this to be like the wider Internet at large. I think that's a little special in its own way, and thus as tired as I can be, I think the heart and idea of this place is worth fighting for.
