The threat is pretty clear? "If Rust people don't get this, we will have to part ways." This is an ultimatum? It's crazy girlfriend/boyfriend material? It's ridiculous after one contributor tries something that Linus thinks won't work in the kernel. Ridiculous. Just say no.
The slander as well? "Rust’s community, in aggregate, have developed a reputation." And you know what? The C/C++/Zig/Nim/Haskell/Clojure communities have developed a reputation too, but, gosh, I don't talk about it because I know labeling groups isn't helpful/is completely non-technical.