> Why would you think I'm optimizing for quality of discussion?

You should because the guidelines for HN politely request it, its users expect it, and its moderators firmly enforce it (and thank heavens for that).

The leaders? You're quite right, but maybe not the way you think. Trump said plenty of truly outrageous things, but he wasn't the one who generalized 50% of the population as "the basket of deplorables". Maybe Bernie is not overly bigoted, I'll give you that.