You're confusing "is" and "should". Politics violates the HN guidelines - the fact that lots of people are violating them doesn't mean that it's now acceptable.

You're confusing "is" and "should". Politics violates the HN guidelines - the fact that lots of people are violating them doesn't mean that it's now acceptable. Also, if you go back say, 10 years, you'll see that most HN threads have very little politics in them, so yes, that has been the norm before.