HN's reason for existing is to discuss "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity", and "anything that good hackers would find interesting", and things that involve "evidence of some interesting new phenomenon". It's right there at the start of the guidelines and it's always what we use to judge what content is on topic or off topic. That's been constant from the beginning. It excludes "daily political rage bait" for the important reason that most of the rest of the internet is dominated by that stuff and we think it's important that there's one corner of the internet that isn't quite so dominated by it.
We routinely host huge discussions about major political developments, some of which spend all day on the front page then continue to smoulder on for days. We're not avoiding discussion of important topics. We're preserving this place as somewhere that can be a better place to discuss important topics when they emerge. But that means being consistent in our criteria for what qualifies and what doesn't.
