But how do you know the motivations of the people making those decisions today?

You can just look at the writing.

Sometimes on shows and movies they have fan service references to things from the franchise's past. You can spot that, right? They show you the thing, make sure it's center frame to be sure that the audience knows you have that thing they know in the show. But there's no point to it in terms of the plot, it's solely there to say to the audience "look we have this thing you like in the show!"

Many shows do the same thing but with political issues. They mention it, but they don't bother to have a plotline about it, or have it integrated into the story line. It's just there so they get credit for mentioning an issue exists. They don't want to actually discuss an issue too deeply, that would be too controversial.

Actual social commentary is very rare in TV shows and movies now. What we have now is social fan-service. Just references to issues, not actually taking a risk and doing anything meaningful with it.