In theory there could be a the MIT version relicensed to GPL and this version could be carried as a standard if having MIT software as core utilities was considered enough of a threat - right? You just have to retain original license/attribution.

That would be an awfully awkward move in the realm of Linux-related politics but if having an MIT-licensed coreutils was such an existential thread, at least you can fix it with aggressive license moves and not code.