I don’t know op or his politics, but the comment is clearly baiting and escalating. Unless the comment goes to the heart of the discussion at hand (which it might, but I don’t know), I think the decision to remove is defensible.
Note that I’m saying defensible, not correct, or great, or just. I’m not a big fan of just nuking comments in general, but moderation is hard work and as far as I’m concerned, this falls squarely within a mod team’s authority.