Please don't add politics to a thread unnecessarily. HN is not the place for that.
The way we discuss politics likely needs an adjustment in order to move away from win-lose thinking and debate to win-win thinking and collaboration.
Edit: I do agree that it is makes HN less enjoyable when off-topic discussion overwhelms article-focused discussion, so generally favor on-topic posts. Often, the policy and governance issues relevant to posts are both value-added and on-topic.
The way we discuss politics likely needs an adjustment in order to move away from win-lose thinking and debate to win-win thinking and collaboration.
This is the crux of it, I think. I've been thinking about this topic a lot, and watching how discourse develops here at HN (nothing scientific, mind you). I've seen plenty of others make similar comments.
Something I've amused myself with is how often I come across a comment that I agree with, and then find it's made by someone who I disagree strongly with on some other issue. Which isn't all that surprising really, given how evenly split the election was. Humans aren't binary: there's got to be a lot of overlap there. A lot of common ground to build on.
Anyway, this is far off-topic now. I appreciate your thoughtful comment!
Help be part of the solution. Flag politically charged articles. Call out in a civil, non-partisan way comments that are injecting politics needlessly into the conversation. Submit and upvote tech articles you find interesting.
I can't flag yet, but I'll do all the rest.
From the guidelines:
Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon
Please avoid introducing classic flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say about them.
I think flagging politically charged submissions—particularly those that have shown themselves to lead to largely repetitive non-constructive flame wars—is consistent with the guidelines. That second quote is from the comment guidelines, but I think it's fair to apply the same standard to submissions as well.
Edit to add: Are there recent topics on HN that you think have been unnecessarily flagged? Some that you've found particularly useful?
The Trump phenomena is a new, interesting phenomena, though. People still have no idea how he won, I sure as hell don't.