I kept a fairly close eye on /r/The_Donald, specifically looking for signs of that behavior. Personally, I didn't see any. They pretty much kept to themselves, at least for the last year or so. That doesn't mean there wasn't any, but they had a far higher bar to clear than other subs. It also seemed like quite a coincidence that they were banned just before the crucial period leading up to the election.

You say "issuing death threats" like it was mandated by the mods. As far as I could tell, the mods were doing what they could to keep everybody contained within their zone. And the premise of Reddit is that anybody can create their zone; if you don't like it, you don't have to view it.

My point is, the counterargument that they were banned due to bad behavior seems to be slightly misleading. Every sub has bad behavior, and I know for a fact (because I saw it!) that the mods were clamping down hard on anything remotely like what you mention. The community was downvoting such comments too.

along with the left leaning subreddit chapotraphouse which engaged in similar behaviour

Can you be more specific? /r/LateStageCapitalism is still up, and they seem to "issue death threats" just as frequently. For example, they frequently reference guillotines while gesturing towards the rich.