There's no particular reason why it should have been front page material -- just the time of day it was submitted and the provocative title helped, I guess. I found it interesting and am a longform journalism fan. I thought others on HN might find it interesting so I submitted it. I have no particular political agenda [1] and don't necessarily agree with all the content of this piece, but it made me think about a challenging subject and seemed like it could launch an interesting discussion.

Sorry it's not your cup of tea, just trying to add some variety to the HN submissions.

[1] The only other longform piece I've submitted -- A Death at Tough Mudder -- is about the circumstances surrounding a participant's death at a spartan race. I don't read longform to pat myself on the back when I find articles I agree with. I read it to take a break from all things tech related and to learn about new things.

I think that a lot of people never bother to checkout the "newest" page to vote on stories that they want to see. If there are a lot of people who agree with you and they put in some effort to promote stories that are interesting, then perhaps you can effect some change.

I myself posted a link about SpaceX delaying their latest launch, that was scheduled to happen in a few hours.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7498494

Not a single upvote! Personally, this suggests to me that no one is actually visiting the "newest" stories as it is something I would have thought would merit at least one upvote!