That's because it's an extremely big deal and affects many things discussed here.

Maybe the political climate is impacting a higher number of topical points that are being discussed on HN. When governments are changing, interfering, and impacting technology you're going to see it crop up more.

It's not a "rough start for HN", it's the current climate of the world through the lens of the US.

It’s almost as if politics impacts many things in the world around us.

> The political commentary is infecting every thread.

Unfortunately politics has infected areas of our lives we took for granted. The stopping of reporting coming out of the CDC/NIH/HHS makes discussing health science articles more challenging. And this is a direct result of the new administration. While this article may not be vaccine related, the new administration wants a known anti-vaxxer to lead the HHS.

I would argue that being rabidly apolitical while a dangerous threat to western democracy has been growing in America for years is the rough part.

I'm an old person. I have a leftist bent. I used to get along with many conservatives, I just had different policy viewpoints than they did. What we are seeing now is a completely different political landscape where one of the parties is actively setting up a dynastic plutocracy in the open.

FWIW I have a ton of criticism for the "other" party too as an ineffective mess sucking the corporate teet almost as hard, just without the actual proto fascism.

Yes. Becsuse this is an issue that will be slower to respond to because of political actions. Do we really want to skirt around the issue?

It's hard to do technology when your staff and customers have TB.