My SO tried Twitter and despised it yeeeeears ago, long before any of the political controversies alluded to on any of these comments. Long before Trump even dipped a toe into politics. She has strong reasons for like Bluesky.
The key feature of Bluesky is the control of your feed is in your hands, not some central authority.
Want certain topics? Go find specific tagged streams on those topics.
A troll is annoying? Block the troll (and deny the troll access to your posts). And because trolls are so easy to never see again, those childish attention getting antics used by attention whores do not work.
a couple of conservative folk I know were promptly banned for expressing their opinions.
Nobody has to listen to you on Bluesky. Your conservative friends were not "banned" from Bluesky. They were blocked out of reading and posting to certain groomed feeds that were controlled by individuals. It is called freedom. Individuals who control certain feeds may or may not be making good choices here, but they are making the choices, not a company algorithm.
Don't like it? Make your own feed for like-minded people. Take responsibility. Freedom gives you options.
Or let a corporate algorithm whore your attention to its feed, if you are not up to being responsible.
Your choice. Real freedom works that way.