> tl;dr - The shift you are seeing isn't specific to HN.

I'd argue that the problem isn't necessarily an occasional political discussion, but that all political discussion here feels like somebody copy and pasted a few longer-ish social media comments into an HN comment tree. It's as if the moment politics is mentioned, people magically forget where they're discussing it, and before long you end up with a flood of childish insults, flaming and nonsensical accusations of conspiracy.