Here's an example from the other day: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25389506. I could give you a hundred more. Both sides feel like the site is dominated by the other side, to a degree in proportion to the intensity of their own views. In fact this phenomenon is so reliable that one can use it to predict not only a person's politics but how strongly they feel about it.
Other bits on this if anyone cares:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23308098
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
Not even kidding. I'd participate, and I'd be fascinated to see the results.
For many, this would be the main place they ever come across those people, which would make it seem unusually conservative.
To counter balance the above blatant and unfair stereotyping above, I'll add some devil's advocate too: "change the world" type leaders might also be more idealistic and would vote progressive anyway, even if it's not good business sense.
That doesn't make sense. If someone feels unduly burdened by the status quo, why would they vote to preserve it?
Regulations tend to take a lot of money to comply with, making it difficult for small businesses to compete with larger ones.
So it is in small business owners' interests to support candidates that claim to be in favor of removing regulatory restrictions.
Which tends to be a Republican talking point (whether or not they actually do anything to advance the cause once elected)
Often it's a libertarian flavor, particularly here in the startup community where the cliche of the self-made-person looms large. Libertarians have some overlap with liberal positions in some areas (personal freedoms in general, drugs specifically) but disagreements in others (government regulation and spending, etc).
In practice though most libertarians today can generally be characterized as conservatives who want freedom in the areas that affect them personally. They want to smoke weed, or get gay married, so those things are good, but they're conservative in most other areas.
I've been reading HN since the late 2000s and only noticed this post-election. It always seemed as if HN was incredibly liberal. Now there are conservative-leaning voices and opinions cropping up everywhere that are being upvoted as top comments.
I'm seeing a markedly conservative shift in tone.
I'm not saying this is good or bad, but it feels new.
Particularly in the tech scene, you can get the feeling that everyone is very liberal, and so you better just be quiet and keep to yourself.
Personally, I saw so many people completely overplay their hands when it came to things Trump said or did, that it made me more comfortable having them downvote me through the floor and tell me nasty things because honestly who cares? Someone on the internet disagrees with me. Neat. I can disagree back.
Part of that is maybe just me being four years older though and really has nothing to do with the garbage fire that has been the news and media environment since 2016.
I think its more likely that some HN users have gone so far to the left that any comment they don't support can only be from the right.