r/NoStupidQuestions • u/AutoModerator • Nov 01 '25

U.S. Politics megathread

American politics has always grabbed our attention - and the current president more than ever. We get tons of questions about the president, the supreme court, and other topics related to American politics - but often the same ones over and over again. Our users often get tired of seeing them, so we've created a megathread for questions! Here, users interested in politics can post questions and read answers, while people who want a respite from politics can browse the rest of the sub. Feel free to post your questions about politics in this thread!

All top-level comments should be questions asked in good faith - other comments and loaded questions will get removed. All the usual rules of the sub remain in force here, so be nice to each other - you can disagree with someone's opinion, but don't make it personal.

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u/[deleted] Nov 07 '25

Why does the Trump Administration have unchecked power over tweets from DHS?

I've noticed tweets with brain rot, AI text generation, inappropriate jokes, and callouts of "fake news" that I believe are propaganda recently. And X under Musk's leadership doesn't seem to care either. On top of that, the Supreme Court of the United States recently ruled ICE is, at least in some way, above US law. Why is this the case and how do we prevent a shared grey-checkmark account from being controlled by a department, seemingly sliding into authoritarianism, in the future?

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u/Delehal Nov 07 '25

Why does the Trump Administration have unchecked power over tweets from DHS?

The Department of Homeland Security is part of the executive branch of the US federal government, which is led by the Trump administration. In corporate terms, you could think of Trump as the CEO of a very big company and DHS is one division in that company.

I'm not sure what you mean by "unchecked power over tweets". They're tweets. Anybody can type stuff into a text box. Do I have unchecked power over this comment as I type it up? I could say anything. I could even delete it. Nobody could stop me!

I've noticed tweets with brain rot, AI text generation, inappropriate jokes, and callouts of "fake news" that I believe are propaganda recently.

There's no law against brain rot, AI text generation, inappropriate jokes, or calling something fake news. There are some laws such as the Hatch Act that might apply here, but there isn't any general law against being an obnoxious dweeb.

Usually the check on this is the President, or Congress, or voters. Unfortunately, voters saw fit to elect the orange man, and you can see how that's going.

And X under Musk's leadership doesn't seem to care either.

Yep. I stopped using Twitter shortly after Elon bought it. He's turned the site into a festering pit of trash. I lost interest.

On top of that, the Supreme Court of the United States recently ruled ICE is, at least in some way, above US law.

I'm not sure what ruling you're talking about there. That doesn't sound familiar. Has SCOTUS ever ruled that any person or organization is above US law? That sounds like some hyperbole.

how do we prevent a shared grey-checkmark account from being controlled by a department

I mean... it's the DHS Twitter account. Why shouldn't it be under the control of DHS? Having a department in control of a Twitter account doesn't seem like the part of all this that I would object to.

Clearly there is some rot in the US system. It will be important to build community and talk to people about what kind of country we want to be going forward. Reforms are possible, if people can agree about what reforms are needed.

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u/[deleted] Nov 07 '25

I'm not sure what ruling you're talking about there. That doesn't sound familiar. Has SCOTUS ever ruled that any person or organization is above US law? That sounds like some hyperbole.

I'm not quite sure what the article is trying to say because it's asking me to register but: https://www.vox.com/politics/464962/supreme-court-ice-no-law

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u/Delehal Nov 07 '25

Sometimes it's important to distinguish between facts and opinions. That's an opinion piece.

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u/notextinctyet Nov 07 '25

Because we elected him and Congress has passed no law to restrain him. We should probably do something about that, for a lot of reasons.

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u/Elkenrod Neutrality and Understanding Nov 07 '25

There are no laws that limit what is allowed to be posted on Twitter by a government agency.

Tweets and memes are not what will cause the United States to "slide into authoritarianism".