That's because it's an extremely big deal and affects many things discussed here.

As the federal government expands the stakes get ever higher. What could be overlooked before now becomes fierce debate.

It's because people now treat parties like they used to treat football teams.

If you mean avoiding the Party so you don't get beat up for being different, then the analogy checks out.

I don't care if Jesus himself froze the CDC. It was an o srly hasty action at best and it will unnecessarily cost some lives.

This goes way past teams bud. If you don't realize the kind of existential threat trump is posing to millions of people, you haven't paid attention to a single thing he's done since taking office.

Maybe the political climate is impacting a higher number of topical points that are being discussed on HN. When governments are changing, interfering, and impacting technology you're going to see it crop up more.

It's not a "rough start for HN", it's the current climate of the world through the lens of the US.

It’s almost as if politics impacts many things in the world around us.

I would argue that being rabidly apolitical while a dangerous threat to western democracy has been growing in America for years is the rough part.

I'm an old person. I have a leftist bent. I used to get along with many conservatives, I just had different policy viewpoints than they did. What we are seeing now is a completely different political landscape where one of the parties is actively setting up a dynastic plutocracy in the open.

FWIW I have a ton of criticism for the "other" party too as an ineffective mess sucking the corporate teet almost as hard, just without the actual proto fascism.

> I would argue that being rabidly apolitical while a dangerous threat to western democracy has been growing in America for years is the rough part.

Some of us are just here as technology professionals looking to learn and keep current on the latest trends. There's nothing wrong with that.

Some yes, but maybe not you? Because you used the following language yesterday:

"Only a few short months ago, I was under constant attack from various public members of the Democratic party for being a white male with center-right views. The vitriol was quite unhinged, really." when asked for specifics you went to '...on CNN for example'.

Do I engage in politics on HN occasionally? Yes. Is it my primary motivation? No. I don't open up HN with the intention of having rigorous political discussions, even though I sometimes fall into them.

My comment history, which it seems you only partially perused, demonstrates this to be true. Especially if you go back a year ago before things became politically charged around here.

I also don't see what relevance my example has to this conversation. It sounds like you're trying to corner me into a specific label (Republican, maybe?). I guess thanks for proving my point about discussions around here?

I haven't used party labels on HN. You seem to be the one forcing an identity on me? I would respond but my post was out of bounds so I shouldn't elaborate/reference further.

FYI if you read my post history you will see I am a libertarian leaning (Santa Cruz hippie libertarian not Rand Paul 'my dad got me the job but I believe in everyone earning their way' libertarian) refugee from the Bay Area to a small town in a very red state. I don't have the agenda you think other than calling out hypocrisy and a desire for a functioning health system.

Digging up people's comments from unrelated threads starts to cross into personal attack. Please don't do that here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

TBH this idea that each comment should stand individually on its (including HN's downplaying of the usernym with grey) seems like it contributes to some of the problems with modern discourse. When someone I know says something challenging, I know the context they're coming from, what I do agree with them on, what skills of theirs I respect, etc. Whereas message board comments are just tiny slivers of information with which you can agree or disagree.

Oh for sure. There's nothing wrong with people getting to know each other, and their views, by reading through past comments.

It's just not in the intended spirit of HN to track down contradictions and use them as gotchas in arguments. That's a narrower point. I've added an edit to the GP comment to clarify that.

Certainly. So what interested you on this story that is more about medicine on HN?

It's hard to do technology when your staff and customers have TB.

Yes. Becsuse this is an issue that will be slower to respond to because of political actions. Do we really want to skirt around the issue?

> The political commentary is infecting every thread.

Unfortunately politics has infected areas of our lives we took for granted. The stopping of reporting coming out of the CDC/NIH/HHS makes discussing health science articles more challenging. And this is a direct result of the new administration. While this article may not be vaccine related, the new administration wants a known anti-vaxxer to lead the HHS.