Look at the number of responses on each article to see why that happens. Also, most articles aren't about politics. But the ones with lots of responses and discussion usually are. Network effect sucks sometimes...

I would mind far less if the political comments were only the political posts. I just avoid clicking into those.

It's when I click into an interesting topic, and it's steered into being an offtopic retread of every other thread about US politics. The upvote/downvote system simply no longer works to squelch it as it once did, because there are enough people here who believe "everything is political" and therefore it's always "on-topic".

That is their prerogative, but it has dramatically lessened my enjoyment and engagement on this platform in the last 5 years. And it's gone into overdrive in the last 6 months.