> We don't get to use technology for technologies sake, and pretend it doesn't have social and political consequences or connections.

Nobody is """pretending""" that in this thread.

The reality that is being asserted is that (1) politics doesn't have to be on-topic for every forum, (2) it's very explicitly not the focus of HN, and (3) even if it were on-topic the guidelines are very clear about ways to engage in a civil fashion and a very large number of comments on Musk-related posts are extremely clearly not doing this and breaking the guidelines.

Hence, downvoting and flagging are the correct things to do.