In the aftermath, DHH dug through old chat logs to find a time in the past when one of the people complaining about the list participated in a discussion about same without complaint, and posted it in a way that was visible to everyone saying that their prior participation meant that their current complaint was invalid.
Then they rolled out the no-politics-at-work policy in this post dated April 26 2021 -- I would encourage anyone interested in the specifics to read through the various versions and edits of this post made in the week following, all without noting that it was being actively changed: https://world.hey.com/jason/changes-at-basecamp-7f32afc5
FWIW I captured a timeline of events in this post but a lot of the Twitter links are dead now. https://schneems.com/2021/05/12/the-room-where-it-happens-ho...
On the one hand, I do agree that endless debating over relatively minor ideological differences is pointless, and only going to lead to time-wasting and resentment. I certainly have the same desire for some peace and quiet, and being able to focus solely on my work.
On the other hand, we live in a society where questions like "am I allowed to use the office bathroom" have been made political, and where your coworkers are genuinely worried about whether they'll get arrested and deported from the country for no reason whatsoever during next week's sprint planning. Their issues are real and by definition require the business as an entity to respond to political developments.
You might have the luxury of putting your head in the sand and pretending they don't exist, but that's not going to magically solve your coworkers' problems. Unless the company wants to restrict its hiring to the absolutely minuscule group of people who will never be impacted by politics, it'll have to engage in some level of political discussion.