It's hard to be sympathetic to Bitcoin, since they are the ruthless masters at applying such disinformation techniques when any worthy competitor evolves. As you point out, the Ethereum fork was a huge victory for Bitcoin saboteurs using this Playbook.

BitcoinTalk is structured to discredit any Alt. The Bitcoin Forum is civilized and moderated, but the Alt Forum rolls out the red carpet for every scammer and allows a handful of nut cases to take over.

Western governments haven't even started subverting Bitcoin. They have bigger fish to fry with small business and the Middle Class in the crosshairs.