I started this thread and I'm happy to address this: My concern is exactly what I stated in the OP. I don't have a hidden agenda.
I don't come to BF for politics. I come here for knife discussion and, secondarily, off-topic chatting with fellow knife knuts that doesn't include politics. I use the "New Posts" feature as my main window into the forums, since I like that it surfaces threads I otherwise might have missed, and there are days when just scrolling past some of the political thread titles sours my mood.
As noted in my first response to Spark in this thread, it's not a big deal and I can continue avoiding it, just like I do multiple times a day. But if there's a simple technical solution, like a way to opt out of seeing specific subforums, I'd love for that to be an option. It would benefit folks like me and have zero impact on anyone else.