
Nixon Got Pushed Out by Republicans. Trump Might, Too - lgregg
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-04-26/trump-could-push-republicans-too-far
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dang
Please don't post garden-variety politics to Hacker News. There needs to be an
intellectually interesting angle for such a story to be on topic here.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
lgregg
So, what makes something an "intellectually interesting angle"? I just read
the news guidelines again and we are told not to editorialize and stick with
the original title. There are political posts on HN every day that don't get
flagged. I really do want to understand lens where this article isn't
intellectually interesting.

I posted this because it covers the a potential near future where politics
repeats itself in a big way which means it's potentially turning into a
pattern. That's why I posted this article. Also, to say this situation is
"garden-variety politics" is wrong on so many levels in my opinion. Sure, if
this was an article talking about the purchase order of jet fighter being
delayed, I'd agree with you; This article is talking about a party pushing
their representative out of the white house. How is that garden-variety
politics?

~~~
dang
What makes an intellectually interesting angle is if it gratifies intellectual
curiosity. I know that sounds circular, but it isn't entirely. An article
that's only about ongoing power struggles may be of intense interest, may be
important, may gratify curiosity to be up on the latest developments. But is
it gratifying intellectual curiosity? Is it teaching us something new about
the world? Is there a spirit of play about it, the touch of joy that comes
with having one's horizon expanded? That's the quality we're looking for.

The other big concern is the type of discussion that is likely in
corresponding thread. Are people going to have a conversation of discovery
together? or are they just going to bash each other? Each time they bash each
other, the health points of this community take a hit, so this is an
existential issue for the site. Will HN be a garden of curiosities or a
battlefield? It can't be both, and battlefield wins by default and ends in
scorched earth. Nothing intellectually interesting about that.

Yes, there are political posts on HN every day that don't get flagged, but
that's not because there's carte blanche for politics. It's because some
intellectually curious topics have political overlap. The first is the active
ingredient; the second is secondary. I wrote about this recently here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19720659](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19720659).
I wrote a long comment from the opposite angle, defending political articles
on HN, here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869).

I grant that the article you submitted also has information that isn't just
about current power struggles—it contains historical detail, information about
the relationship between the branches of government. But it is too close to
the bullseye of partisan conflict for it to fall on the good side of the line
for HN.

It's true that all of this is mightily subject to interpretation. But de facto
standards have developed over the 12 years that HN has been around, which are
not as arbitrary as they at first seem. That's for sure why your submission
got flagged. The moderators and the community broadly agree on what those
standards are—not by coincidence; it's because the moderators are mostly
following the community's lead, while occasionally nudging it in new
directions. If you want to see an example of a nudge,
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19754780](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19754780)
is a recent one. Note that while that article had political charge, its
material wasn't primarily political. That's the kind of thing that's more
likely to be on topic here.

p.s. The guidelines say to stick with the original title unless it's
misleading or linkbait—important exceptions!

