As someone on neither side of that aisle I can tell you it is the smothering effect of attempting any logical discussion in those topics. The smothering effect comes from one side more often than not.

The best part of it all is that you can post like the above with no clear side chosen and the people whom it applies to will react to it negatively as well.

It is a good point, and I've long been a proponent of this, that everyone needs to flag the excessive elements of "their side" more in the current climate.

Humans are humans. Some humans are dumb and emotion-prone. Some humans who are dumb and emotion-prone think their bad behavior is justified because they're on the side of justice/righteousness.

It's not enough, in our current climate, to look the other way because someone is on a similar team...

Reinvigorating honest, fair discussion requires everyone interact more positively.

In my experience during this last Trump campaign, the most effective way to rile conservatives is not to lie, but rather to tell the truth. Meaning, taking Trump at his word and repeating the words he said, in direct quotes.

I think what's happening is that a lot of his constituents like him due to his personality, but they don't necessarily believe he is honest. So, they're betting on his dishonesty and using that as a justification for their support. Meaning, supporting Trump is really not so bad if you assume Trump isn't going to do half the things he says he is. Then, it's like you're supporting an almost normal candidate.

Well, in that case Trummp has done a fantastic job proving those people wrong. But that still confuses me: who can like this personality when it's on the world platform, and not just a TV stereotype?

Could we at least elect someone likeable like Bill Nye if we're voting based on "personality"?

Most Americans don’t care for someone put together. That’s interpreted as pretentious.

They want someone a bit stupid, who says stupid things. They want someone who’s an asshole because asshole is basically synonymous with badass protagonist.

I never said that, I meant tech leaders and founders, not the user base…

It looks like Twitter is running hate and love bots and using them to support/attack posts according to what presumably is Elon's agenda.

https://bsky.app/profile/willhaycardiff.bsky.social/post/3lk...

Given this, we can reasonably expect hostile bots here, flagging according to agenda.

I think there's also a reasonable proportion of readers who want "political" topics removed from HN, even if the topic intersects with HN-relevant topics.

(I'm not one of them, but I believe many are. I appreciate where they are coming from.)

This would be more easily believed if political posts unrelated to contemporary American politics were also being flagged, but they're not.

I hadn't noticed that, but I believe it. Many Americans I know are in "blinders on" mode because the intensity and frequency of American political angst is overwhelming them.

I flag some stuff like that because I don't want to read the same political flamewars on HN over and over again, not because I like Trump.

I doubt it's even percentages. It may be as low as a dozen users lurking on /new (or automating the process) to flag based on keywords from the title or article.