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> why is this submission [flagged]?

My guess is that it's purely politics, and there's a large number of users who just don't want to have purely political discussions.

HN sometimes has decent threads about political policy on non hot-button issues, but threads about political personalities are unlikely to go well and are thus not worth the trouble.

HN can be very arbitrary about this.

This submission's topic is one step away from this one at over 1800 points a few years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12907201

And probably as relevant. I think it will have a great effect on the tech scene as well.

I feel this is off-topic to HackerNews, even if it's important to the people the view this site.

Why indeed? I have personally never seen a submission flagged on Hacker News that actually deserved it. And no, "Off Topic" is not a legitimate reason.

Politics

There is only a widespread belief that politics is banned on HN. No actual rule.

The guidelines say politics are generally considered off-topic and, "If a story is spam or off-topic, flag it." I can see why it was flagged, that's all.