And just to extend on this a bit, since I already got myself talking:
Politics should be discussed in general, sure, but there are plenty of places of that. The idea is that you can follow anyone you want for political content, but I don't have to see it on my local timeline, which I chose exactly for lack of politics.
Now the next question is... Do we want to use hashtags at all? I think folks here in general are done with the whole "discoverability" thing.