You can't downvote articles, just comments (at least with my karma). IIRC articles move down if they fail to receive up votes and collect comments.
You can't ever downvote articles, although they will drop faster in ranking if they're flagged by (many) users. Also, there's a "flamewar detector" which has something to do with vote to comment ratio.
And trust me, the down votes tend to be pro-marxist. So that this is getting so much attention speaks volumes about just HOW bad he presented this tale.
How do you tell where the downvotes are coming from?