I don't see any reason to think that mikeytown2's comment is being weaponized by politicians or that mikeytown2 is a weaponizing politician.
My purview is limited to HN and I try never to extrapolate beyond that, but as far as HN goes, we've always favored the principle that readers are smart enough to make up their own minds. I've been saying that for 7 years (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...) and I don't think that the crises and tectonic shifts of the past few years have given any reason to change that. (It has been a lot of work trying to shore up a culture of thoughtful commenting, with mixed results, but that's a separate issue.) IMO you guys should worry less about restricting what other people might see or think and worry more about finding the best information and the best arguments to persuade each other with.
To repeat, lest anyone misunderstand: my remarks are limited to HN, which is the space I've observed enough to speak about. I'm not saying HN is an exception, and I'm not saying it isn't an exception; I don't know.
Edit: two more points. First, I think there's a perspective bias here. We all assume that we're the smart one capable of making judgments about what the dumber ones might think, but literally everyone sees themselves that way. That shows not only that we can't all be right about that, but—more interestingly—that this entire line of thinking is invalid. It's a hard-wired unreliable narrator.
Second and last, if HN readers aren't smart enough to make up their own minds, then this place is fucked, so we might as well make a Pascal's wager.