They are downvoted for the reason I just stated. Why would you upvote someone you believe is opposed to your entire existence based on what political party they associated with?
This just doesn’t resonate with my experience on HN. Ad-hominems are aggressively downvoted, and bad-faith arguments usually are too, even in political threads. There’s clearly something being valued higher than party affiliation by HN’ers else that wouldn’t be the case.
That isn't the issue. The issue is that good-faith arguments are downvoted as well. If you are Republican, there are certain ideas that will instantly get downvoted simply because of your political affiliation. You could say, the most abundant element in the atmosphere is Nitrogen as a Republican and you'd get a bunch of downvotes and people arguing just cause they think all Republicans are anti-vax idiots.
Same with Democrats depending on where you are and what you're commenting on. People are polarized to the point that they no longer care what you have to say. If they think you're with the other political party it is instant downvote.
