Would you even call HN a liberal forum? It is full to the brim with profiteers who have no ethical framework except making money for US-based VCs.
The past years have shown that many have no problem to change affiliation with the zeitgeist. I feel many Americans are secretly pro-Trump as long as they make money. If there would be more liberals in US tech we would see much more leaks coming from companies such as Apple, Facebook, Reddit, Google, about how the senior leadership is supporting the government policies.
For example with Facebook it needed a woman to get sexually harrassed out of her job and write a book called "careless people" so that it is reported that Facebook engineers were actively embedded with the Trump campaign while at the same time democrat voters (black people) were shown literal fake news ads to keep them away from voting.
I have not seen one Facebook senior engineer being ostracized on HN for working on the trump campaign. Everbody made their millions and joined the next big thing, with us worshipping their amazing FAANG credentials.
If the people who worked on DOGE do a "SHOW HN:" nobody would call it out.
I just look at the patterns of things that are downvoted to death. Comments that would come out of Peter Thiel or Elon Musk's mouth any day of the week are regularly downvoted to hell here.
It's not a matter of 'liberal' vs whatever anymore, it's a matter of expertise and basic ethics versus corruption riding upon anti-intellectualism, cloaked in naked bigotry. Say what you will about the prevailing value system among HN commenters, this place isn't that bad.
My observation over the last 10-15 years here has been this is partially true. But what's more true is the Overton window has shifted. To use your example, the things that would come out of their mouths, especially Elon, has taken a decidedly right wing turn over time. So keep in mind you're also seeing people who have largely stayed the same discussing a culture that largely has not.
The past years have shown that many have no problem to change affiliation with the zeitgeist. I feel many Americans are secretly pro-Trump as long as they make money. If there would be more liberals in US tech we would see much more leaks coming from companies such as Apple, Facebook, Reddit, Google, about how the senior leadership is supporting the government policies.
For example with Facebook it needed a woman to get sexually harrassed out of her job and write a book called "careless people" so that it is reported that Facebook engineers were actively embedded with the Trump campaign while at the same time democrat voters (black people) were shown literal fake news ads to keep them away from voting.
I have not seen one Facebook senior engineer being ostracized on HN for working on the trump campaign. Everbody made their millions and joined the next big thing, with us worshipping their amazing FAANG credentials.
If the people who worked on DOGE do a "SHOW HN:" nobody would call it out.