polltakers missing the point that historical fiction and rpf aren't two different moral categories they're just two different genres
genres may cover identical subjects but because each have their own separate conventions, tropes, reader communities etc they're put in different categories. another example is literary fiction with speculative elements and fantasy are both their own genres despite a lot of subject overlap
the boundaries between genres are notoriously porous and ambiguous. trying to come up with a sharp dividing line between the two so you can say "this founding fathers story is immoral rpf and this founding fathers story is acceptable historical fiction" is a fool's errand
“if they’re dead it’s historical fiction and not rpf” is by far the most popular response in the tags of that poll as if founding fathers rpf isn’t famously a thing. idk what website you guys have been on for the last decade but i’ve been right here