That explains it. The reason you think Mozilla is shifting from technology into politics is that you've been reading ESR's lunatic ravings.
It seems very reasonable to interpret that whole situation as Mozilla acknowledging the importance of politics over technical leadership--fair or not, when you broadcast your realpolitik that hard, you're gonna lose people.
Hacker culture may not necessarily be aligned with Eich's personal views / situations. But crucial underlying concept is ignoring nebulous things like that. So taking action / reforms based off the premise feels like a Chesteron's fence [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton%27s_fence