It's hard to see how the same article, word for word, would seem like a shoddy smear if it had come out last year: it doesn't explicitly discuss current-day any

It's hard to see how the same article, word for word, would seem like a shoddy smear if it had come out last year: it doesn't explicitly discuss current-day anything. In fact, a reader who is invested in current-day politics could mine it to support an argument either for or against Trump. And a reader who is of two minds about Trump, could read the article to form their own opinion. There are many political articles that don't belong on HN but this particular one isn't polemical or ideological enough, imo, to warrant pissing anyone off.