Maybe those on the right aren't as trigger-happy with the down-votes as the leftists are. Leftists aren't so keen on free speech anyway. Just look at the SJWs and the global warming crowd.
Here's an idea. If a story is clearly political, then just turn off comment moderation except for flagging.
Objectively, HN has a huge problem with leftists and socialists downvoting conservative/libertarian comments.
Dang knows this. I haven't read all the comments, but if he denies that simple fact, then HN has bigger problems.
You can't have legitimate conversations if the other side is openly hostile to the very idea of even displaying contrarian to their beliefs opinions.
There was a big bubble that many on HN lived in until election day, when they must've realized that there's another half of the country that doesn't think like them.
Here's a perfect example of living in the bubble. Look at all the car hatred on HN, where people are almost giddy over ideas to ban them, limit them, etc...
The vast majority of the people in the world don't think that way.