I'm reading that "simple" word on the GP as something that doesn't impose a workflow on you. (What's ironically best described by "versatile", but somebody not used to the tool can not use most of the functions.)

By any other meaning, emacs and vim wouldn't qualify.

Vanilla emacs without config and plugins, started as a terminal application is a simple editor, just the same as vim. Yes.

But that is entirely besides the point. The parent was outraged how developers are unlikely to use only simple text editors. And the phrase he was taking an issues with didn't say that emacs is a simple editor either. So you're either willingly misinterpreting everything or just unable to read and understand simple sentences.