If upvotes don't matter because brigading exists, wouldn't that hold true for a community vote to remove mods as well? They'd be just as open to brigading.

No matter how you slice it--and I'm honestly not sure which side of the argument you're sassing here, so looking at it both ways is valuable--spez is pretending votes are unimportant in one context but the key solution to solving the core issue minutes later. It's incredibly inconsistent; the man is having an entire meltdown.