Well, the entire point of the FSF is to be an advocacy organization, which means that "making a show of things" is part of their job. They need to explain to pe

Well, the entire point of the FSF is to be an advocacy organization, which means that "making a show of things" is part of their job. They need to explain to people why Free Software is a thing people should value. Related to this is the need to defend why they themselves are worthwhile figureheads to continue the fight (as opposed to other organizations with similar stated goals, such as the EFF, Mozilla Foundation, or hell even the OSI). This isn't "just a show", I specifically stated that you also have to actually follow through with changing your character to match. If Linus had merely said "I'm too toxic, it's blocking work, I need to change" and then a week later put someone on blast and insulted them for PRing something that broke userspace, that would be the extremely superficial and infantile thing you're railing against. But if he had also just said nothing and quietly stopped being toxic, people would still be mad about his prior behavior. You need both messaging and action, and the FSF has been lax on both with the RMS reinstatement.