But that's the problem. It's easy to find people who will abuse their mod position. It's harder to find people who will use their mod powers fairly. If the mods in a subreddit - who use their powers fairly to help foster the community - are replaced by power seeking mods who just want to force their views on everyone, then the community will suffer. People will leave and the subreddit will slowly degrade.

So Reddit could definitely replace all the protesting mods with power seeking folks. Reddit will even see a short term gain with the subreddits opened again. However, it will just reinforce people's negative views of mods and will hasten Reddit's decline.