It means nothing, it's feelings, like all of this other culture war bullshit.
However, that doesn't mean he won't try, like what we've seen with Disney, FL schools, etc. If you consider people who vote/voted for Democrats (a center-right party in the grand-scheme of things), who have won the popular vote in 5/6 most recent presidential elections, as leftists then you are considering the majority of Americans as enemies that need to be 'destroyed'.
As you said, what the fuck does he actually intend by that? Does any pro-Desantis chucklefuck think that America could even stand, much less maintain their standard of living by "destroying" over half of the population?

If you go by Spez (Hoffman) literally saying recently "We're 18 years old. It's time we grow up" and "It's time we grow up and behave like an adult company", it can give you insight into how he thinks of Reddit (and age, as he was a former /r/jailbait mod). The idea of 'age' in a company is such a man-childish way to think about it. The idea that after 18 years you, as a co-founder of a company, apparently have just such little thought into this is mind boggling and shows he's basically just coasted the entire time. He apparently hasn't:

• Determined the vision of the company (therefore the guidelines, rules, etc)
• Have a roadmap about where this is going (short of the sudden push for IPO)
• Figured out how to turn a profit without alienating the user/mod base

This should evoke no confidence from any current or potential investor and while I initially hoped for this guy to be forced out, so I could come back. I don't think it will get rid of the issues of platform and community stagnation, toxicity, bots, or the push to make a profit. At this point with this whole Kbin/Lemmy/Threadiverse-era on the horizon, I'm actually excited. This is a great time to reflect on what worked, what didn't, and where we want to collectively go with these platforms and how make it work for us. I'm looking forward to the future and to shake off the malaise that clicking on Reddit basically everyday for the past 18 years has done to us.

More of a history of doubling-down in front of everyone while trying to find loopholes to get out of it behind the scenes, finally being forced to do it kicking and screaming THEN embarrassing himself.

That situation was 100% out of the Glass Cliff playbook, just cowardly.