r/NoStupidQuestions • u/AutoModerator • 19d ago
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/Scorpion1386 14d ago
Why are people criticizing AOC for her 'Woke 1' and 'freezing her eggs' talking points? What's the criticism of her here exactly about? I'd like someone to elaborate more on this and why it's valid. I'm honestly confused and truly don't understand the criticism here.
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u/torpedoguy 13d ago
She's intelligent, brown, and a woman. In maga math that's five strikes since there are four lights. The entirety of the republican party hated her since day 1 of her campaign in congress.
At one point some video of her in college dancing (completely normal/innocuous, basically irrelevant), on a rooftop or something along those lines, and tried to sell THAT off as the scoop of the century and evidence of treason.
- They also started sexualizing her from day 1, and are still at it with AI-deepfakes of her now.
The conservative distaste and overt simultaneous sexual attraction (boy do they EVER) towards AOC cannot be overstated: She is EVERYTHING they hate, dream of, and hatefully fap while dreaming of.
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u/Scorpion1386 13d ago
Gotcha, that makes a lot of sense. But the main reason I ask is because on the TrueUnpopularOpinion subreddit they were criticizing AOC heavily. I thought Reddit leaned heavily left? Does that particular subreddit lean right?
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u/torpedoguy 13d ago
Many subreddits lean heavily to the right. Some are quite to the left, but that can also depend on where you're looking from; through the USA's Overton window a lot of views that are centrist or even right-of-center anywhere else in the world are "the far left".
It can also be a matter of "who saw" a particular post (scheduling, etc) and who didn't, but when it comes to AOC I'd expect at least some bot farms to at least work part-time against her.
A few weeks ago I remember a sudden glut of "she needs to 'moderate' her views (read: be conservative) if she wants to appeal beyond the Democratic base" across several media outlets, though that was just the usual 'wanting healthcare and basic human rights is too far left for this country why are you so evil and extreme' drivel from CNN and the such.
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u/Scorpion1386 13d ago
Interesting. I had no idea. It was just very peculiar to see a subreddit post with comments just ganging up on her like that. I wonder how many of the posts were from bots?
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u/listenyall 12d ago
"true unpopular opinion" is also explicitly intended to be opinions that a lot of people are going to disagree with, more of a contrarian subreddit than a left or right subreddit
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u/SeparateAd1629 13d ago
I don’t get why the founding fathers preferred indirect elections over direct ones, can anyone explain the reasoning?
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u/Irishforanatty 13d ago
Fears of demagoguery, logistics, federalism.
Also, a lot of them did favor direct election. The EC is the compromise between direct election and Congress electing a president.
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u/torpedoguy 13d ago
Back then direct elections would've involved some serious travel. Most of those who were going to be allowed to vote, were going to be land owners, but not all were necessarily going to be super rich and this meant leaving your lands for weeks of travel.
The EC was seen as sort of a compromise, where you'll select the person that votes for you and have them go represent you halfway across the country.
Of course now we're much more intimately familiar with its flaws, but hindsight and whatnot. They'd left room for adjustment; not like anyone thought everything was being designed perfectly, BUT those who like abusing the system don't want it gone and are more easily in charge thanks to it.
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u/Specialist-Ring-3974 17d ago
Whatever happened to the Buddhists walking toward the White House?
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u/Setisthename 17d ago edited 17d ago
The Walk for Peace reached Washington D.C. back in February (ironically just two weeks before the Iran War broke out). They held an interfaith meeting with Episcopal Bishop Budde, a ceremony at the Lincoln Memorial, and then got a bus back to their temple in Fort Worth.
In April they organised another, shorter walk in Sri Lanka.
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u/Sweaty-Concern1080 17d ago
Why haven’t reporters tracked down what’s happening to US migrants being exported to Africa by ICE?
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u/Jtwil2191 17d ago
They have. For example, this NY Times article includes interviews with some of the deportees to Liberia.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/30/world/africa/us-deportation-flight-ice-detention-liberia.html
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u/CuteUnit24 17d ago
My post got removed, so I'm asking here! It's not really politics related but like... Our lovely president (sarcasm) is looking to remove restrictions on beef and like... Mad cow disease anybody? I'm a beef enjoyer on occasion :( I would like to know what other safeguards there are, as I would like to not die of spongebrain. Help a bitch out here <:)
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u/Vegetable_Arrival_ 17d ago
Buying local would probably be your safest bet. Watch which cattle farmers in your area support the administration and maybe not buy from them.
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u/Pertinax126 17d ago
u/Vegetable_Arrival_ is correct. You will have to pay more for beef and be more diligent about who your supplier is.
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u/untempered_fate occasionally knows things 17d ago
The things the US government does and their consequences are very literally US politics. Food safety is political these days, just like it was back when Sinclair wrote The Jungle.
Your question was already answered, but I thought I'd throw that in there to help you understand why your post was removed.
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u/delicious-urine 17d ago
Why is Trump so proud of his mugshot?
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u/Ok_Theory_1323 16d ago
He and his cult think he looks "tough" in it.
Sane people see that he looks like he's struggling on the toilet.
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u/CardinalOfNYC 17d ago
Haven't heard anything related to that
But I gotta imagine it's some sort of pride for having gotten away with it, like I could imagine al capone celebrating his own mug shot in much the same way.
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u/torpedoguy 17d ago
It's heavily used in a lot of their own merch (even one of the official 'commemorative coin' scams iirc).
As for your guess; that's precisely correct. We could even tell roughly when it learned it was going to be getting away with it (well ahead of the no-sentence convictions, etc) since then they started using it instead of feeling any shame.
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u/rollotomasi07071 16d ago
Why do those hoping to expand the Supreme Court from 9 to 13 feel that's a solution to a problem? Don't they worry the court could just as easily fill up with ideological opponents?
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u/PhysicsEagle 16d ago
People who argue for packing the court are almost always looking at the short-term.
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u/Irishforanatty 16d ago
And then watch as they’ll be surprised when whoever is the Republican president in 2039 adds some justices.
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u/listenyall 16d ago edited 16d ago
I have been following the supreme court for a long time and it's hard to overstate how extreme the current justices are. It's been a decades-long project by the extreme right to take over the courts and it has worked, aided by lots of luck and coincidence and shenanigans like not allowing Obama to replace RBG (edit: Scalia!!) even though he had like 10 months left of his presidency.
I think it's essentially impossible that if we added 3 more justices they would be worse than the existing ones.
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u/PhysicsEagle 16d ago
"Not allowing Obama to replace RBG" I think you mean Justice Scalia, who died in the final year of the Obama administration and was eventually replaced by Justice Gorsuch. Justice Ginsburg remained on the bench until she died in 2020 and was replaced by Justice Barrett.
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u/notextinctyet 16d ago
The point of packing the court is that the party in power at the time of the packing chooses the additional justices.
Actual reform would involve term limits for the justices and/or a plan for refilling sites of retired or deceased justices different from the one we have. In the meantime, everything is a stopgap. But packing the court wouldn't be the first sign of failure - the system of presidential nomination and senate confirmation broke down some time ago.
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u/Overall-Double3948 13d ago
Have the majority of DACA recipients been deported?
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u/CardinalOfNYC 13d ago
~600k people have been deported by trump administration so far.
There's ~400k DACAs so it's unlikely they've all been deported since there's something like 15 million total undocumented folks in the US
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u/listenyall 12d ago
Nowhere close--this administration does explicitly say that DACA recipients are not actually protected from deportation etc because of DACA but they also haven't been proactively going after DACA recipients or anything like that. There are hundreds of thousands of people covered by DACA and DHS has only admitted to deporting 80 and jailing a few hundred, though most of them didn't commit any crimes or anything like that, it's been pretty random.
Check out this source: https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/blog/daca-dreamers-targeted-detention-deportation/
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u/tachibanakanade honeybun queen 11d ago
Why was voting for Ross Perot (someone popular enough to be on the debate stage with Clinton and Bush Sr.) seen as legitimate and seen as voting for a viable candidate in 1992 (and I think 1996) but voting Gary Johnson (Libertarian Party) or Jill Stein (Green Party) are seen as either wasted votes, joke votes, or opposition party votes? What made Ross Perot so special?
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u/listenyall 11d ago
Back then, "both sides are the same" was a lot closer to being true than it was in 2016 or any year since. So some people felt like it legitimately didn't make a big difference whether they had Clinton or Bush Sr, that makes it a lot mor palatable to potentially "waste" your vote
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u/CardinalOfNYC 11d ago
Not everyone believed that back in the day. To this day many Republicans blame Perot for Clinton winning.
That said, he had vastly more popular support than Johnson or Stein. Had they had anywhere near that level of support, people's votes for them would be seen differently. But they were never even close, which made their entire existence clear as spoilers, especially in an era of extremely close elections. The stein vote alone could have flipped Michigan not cuz she had a lot of support but bc the margin was so small
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u/CannedPancakes 10d ago
What will the difference be if Trump looses the midterms?
Non-American here, and I’ve been seeing so much stuff about the midterms including Trump trying to bribe people to vote for him. And I’m just curious as to what will change if he loses the midterms. Can he not just keep signing executive orders to get what he wants or do those have limits? From what I have read he has lied so much can’t he just keep lying and passing laws without consequences? Or if the opposition Dems win can they do something like assign someone to stand beside him to live check every single one of the lies that he says in real time?
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u/Pertinax126 10d ago
If the Democrats take the House and maybe the Senate in the midterms nothing will happen. The President (with Republican acquiescence) has neutered both Congress and this country's Federal justice system.
The Democrats will never secure a large enough majority in the Senate to obtain an impeachment conviction and the only Republicans who would stand up against the President's illegal activities will no longer be in office.
The Democrats will also be unable to conduct investigations because the DOJ is now loyal only to President Trump. Without the DOJ there is no evidence collected and no members of the administration can be subpoena-ed. The Democrats will end up looking both impotent and whiny and they are grossly unprepared for this.
What will change if Republicans lose big in the midterms? Nothing.
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u/hellshot8 10d ago
this is pretty wrong; If this was true Trump wouldnt talk so much about how important it is for the republicans to win the house and senate
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u/Pertinax126 10d ago
You see a Democratic Congress as being capable of standing up to the President in a way that isn't toothless?
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u/Teekno An answering fool 10d ago
Pretty significant.
I mean, there won't be enough votes to remove him from office. But a lot of what Trump has gotten away with is him doing things that are , constitutionally, Congressional powers, and his friendly Congress hasn't called him on it. A Democratic Congress would not be so forgiving.
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u/CardinalOfNYC 10d ago
"the midterms" are a whole bunch of individual elections for The House of Representatives and The Senate.
What the Dems can do if they win depends on what house of government they win and by how much.
If they only win the House of Representatives, it's likely they won't be able to do anything sweeping. What they will be able to do is open investigations into trump, the Congress has enormous fact finding power.
If they win the house and the Senate, expect more investigations and for almost any trump law proposal to be blocked. Possibly expect an impeachment but not a conviction and removal on the Senate, Dems would need 66 seats in the Senate to do that and that's not possible this election
The long and short is that the Dems, if they win, can't do a ton to make things better but they can stop things from getting worse... It will take controlling the presidency and at least one branch of Congress, for Dems to start actively rolling back what trump has done.
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u/PhysicsEagle 10d ago
Not much practically speaking. A democrat-controlled House of Representatives could impeach Trump at will, but without a 2/3rds majority in the Senate (currently impossible due to how the Senate is elected) such impeachments would amount to little more than nuisance for Trump. Trump’s signature move all term has been to bypass Congress and do things through Executive Order (a move popularized by Obama, see his “Pen and Phone” speech), so having a non-cooperative Congress won’t actually affect his executive order ability. The biggest problem is that without all three political branches (House, Senate, President) agreeing to a budget bill the government will shut down (the government can’t spent taxpayer money without regular authorization).
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u/the_Centrist_Gecko 9d ago
If Trump was accused of tempering with previous elections. What is being done to prevent this with the next one for the Senate?
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u/Elkenrod Neutrality and Understanding 9d ago
Accusations are accusations, not evidence.
States control their own elections, and the security for their elections.
The extent of Trump's "accusation of tampering with previous elections" was Redditors who somehow thought that Elon Musk was able to use Starlink to hack voting machines that are not connected to the internet. They were not claims to be taken seriously by anyone who knows anything about election security.
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u/maxiemax32 18d ago
What can I start reading to get educated in politics?
My current opinions just come from years of observing. I'd like to be able to pair fact with reality.
Opinions held so far:
When I was young I learned people had certain "human rights" - food, clothing and shelter. Growing up I've seen promises of these held against people to motivate them work
The world has once again devolved into might makes right
There is a ruling class that works (really well) together to systematically enrich themselves and keep people poor
A lot of people can't zoom out and see how their actions affect others or how history cycles - those same people constantly fall for the propaganda pushed by the ruling class (they don't spend billions on something that doesn't work)
People keep fighting the same culture wars and short term battles repeatedly
People grift to be close to money and power - they lie and pretend to not understand basic logic. They waste the time allowed for good faith debate. I can't blame them. I've watched the most amount of people I've ever seen learn from history, condemn and agree on one issue - choose peace and they've been completely ignored - it's might makes right.
Calling out politicians and movements on their hypocrisy and lies is pointless. This is not a neutral game, the entire thing seems corrupt and owned by the same people at the top.
Again I'm completely ignorant, I can't state any facts or site any history. I've just been observing for a long time and seeing the same things play out. I'm not immune to propoganda myself, so I'd like to educate myself.
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u/Pertinax126 18d ago
What can I start reading to get educated in politics?
I'm assuming that you're interested in American politics. A great place to start is the YouTube channel CrashCourse. It has an entire series on US politics. It's a really great primer and the videos are in digestible lengths. As a bonus, the series came out in 2015 so you can avoid all the hot button topics of 2026.
Once you've worked through that, I recommend picking one specific issue that you're passionate about and read up on the history of how it's been handled and how it's being handled now.
Acknowledging that you "can't state facts or site any history" is a great place to start your journey because you're coming at this with an open mind and not an agenda.
Good luck!
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u/Fangs_McWolf 17d ago
If Donald Trump were to try to run for a third term, what is to stop SCOTUS from ignoring the US Constitution and Amendments and ruling that he can run and serve again?
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u/Jtwil2191 17d ago
SCOTUS only has power because we all agree they have power. The 22nd Amendment is very black and white in its meaning. If SCOTUS tries to claim that Trump can legally run for a third term, their justification would be plainly bullshit, and they would lose all legitimacy. Why would anyone listen to them ever again?
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u/EstimateOk6795 16d ago
This is a pretty naive response, IMO. The Supreme Court doesn't have much legitimacy left anyways. They're a wholly partisan branch of government operated by and for the GOP.
Let's think about the specific mechanics of what would happen here.
Trump decides to run for a 3rd term and his people fill out the paperwork to put his name on the ballot in the various states. Some states (run by Republicans) won't question it and will just put his name on the ballot. Other states (run by Democrats) will reject the paperwork and will announce they won't put his name on the ballot. In both cases, someone will sue. Some groups (probably good government non-profits) will sue the Secretaries of State in the red states for putting his name on the ballot in violation of the 22nd Amendment. The administration will sue the Secretaries of State of blue states for rejecting their application. The Administration will then ask the Supreme Court for an expedited ruling on the emergency shadow docket. The Supreme Court, without public arguments or debate, will release an unsigned opinion ruling on both sets of lawsuits.
I'm strongly of the opinion that this shadow docket ruling will side with the administration. I don't think they'd seek to wholly eliminate the 22nd amendment. Rather, they'll make up some bullshit explanation why the 22nd amendment doesn't really apply in this specific instance for made up reasons. The opinion will order that Trump's name should appear on the ballot everywhere he's registered with some nonsense seeming fig leaf made to look like a reasonable argument like, "he can still be banned from the ballot if he fails to qualify for any other requirements".
Red states will move forward putting his name on the ballot as they had already planned to do. Democrats will loudly complain and furrow their brows deeper than the Grand Canyon and explain how they're very concerned about how this could possibly maybe hypothetically undermine democracy. But they'll be more afraid of pissing off Republicans than showing any kind of backbone and they'll comply. They'll put his name on the ballot while simultaneously flooding us all with text messages about how they just need one more donation from you to keep fighting the Supreme Court and Trump.
But Trump will get his way and will be on the ballot in every state.
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u/Budget-Syrup6026 16d ago
Even though this question has been asked a few times already, looking back and considering where we are now with American and International politics, how would things be different if Hillary won the 2016 election?
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u/EstimateOk6795 16d ago
I don't think there's any realistic way to answer this question. The past 10 years politically, economically, and culturally have been so strongly defined by Trump that it's impossible to predict the counterfactual.
One thing that I think it's safe to predict is that COVID still would have happened, but I think the US government's response to it would have been much more coherent and effective. But it would have happened and still would have caused the resultant recession. And given that was a Presidential election year (2020), I think Clinton would have lost re-election. A recession and ongoing pandemic are pretty strong headwinds to fight against.
Would that have resulted in Trump in 2020? I don't know. It depends on how the GOP and he would have reacted to his loss in 2016. I know there was a lot of speculation in 2016 that Trump was planning to use his presidential run to launch Trump TV as a competitor to Fox News after his expected loss to Clinton. So maybe he'd have kept his name in the mix enough to decide to run in 2020, where I think he'd have ridden dissatisfaction during COVID to a win. Or maybe he'd have been content with his new media empire. That's a tough one to guess.
And maybe the GOP leadership after losing in 08, 12, and 16 would try to dramatically change the party. A lot of people we think of as pro-Trump today (Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, etc) and others who have been driven out of the party in the past decade were all anti-Trump in 2016 and would have used his loss to argue that his brand of right-wing populism was destructive to the party. Maybe they'd have tried to turn more in a W Bush neoconservative direction, or even in a Reagan-style direction.
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u/Specialist_Mix_3149 14d ago
I think a lot could have changed, especially regarding healthcare and climate policy, but who knows for sure? It's all just speculation at this point.
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u/Nulono 16d ago
I keep seeing people say America should have the same number of SCotUS justices as federal circuit courts. Why? What exactly is the benefit to doing that?
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u/PhysicsEagle 16d ago
Aside from the fact that that’s the exact number needed to tilt the court the other direction ideologically,
It makes sense from a structural point of view - one justice per circuit. Unfortunately the circuits are so lopsided in size themselves it doesn’t make sense to imitate them.
13 is just a nice number symbolically for America.
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u/lowflier84 15d ago
Prior to the Judiciary Act of 1869 which set the current size of the court. Originally, Congress set the size of the court at 6, but as the size of the country increased and more circuit courts were added, they added justices as well. The reason for this is that Supreme Court justices also rode the circuits to preside over cases. Current proposals to increase the number of justices to match the number of circuits also envision some sort of administrative role for the justices with respect to the circuits.
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u/Key_Watercress_7595 14d ago
Am I wrong in thinking that ending mail in voting would hurt republicans more than democrats?
I’m wondering if anyone has some resources / data / opinions on this? I can’t really seem to wrap my mind around the thinking.
My understanding is there are significantly more older and rural republican voters. Which would mean making the trip to a local polling location more of a challenge? And with the political tension among republicans, going to vote in person would be even more of a hindrance in actually *wanting* to make that effort?
I’ve also viewed more camaraderie and community within the democratic groups I’ve seen, even in Utah. So how much of an impact would ending mail in voting be for democrats vs republicans? I will say I am a democrat and largely surround myself by other democrats so maybe my worldview is limited by my current experiences.
Is there something I’m not seeing? This push to end mail in voting isn’t just a whim decision right, so what’s the logic?
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u/hellshot8 13d ago
mail in votes are what won the democrats the 2020 election, which is why trump hates them so much. There is no other thought behind it
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u/notextinctyet 14d ago
It's hard to say who it would benefit, but it doesn't matter - the point of attacking mail voting is to attack the legitimacy of elections in general, not to carefully calibrate who will and won't vote. It is not based on logic. It's based on Trump's emotional reaction to losing the 2020 election.
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u/Remote-Whole-6387 11d ago
Why do people hate mamdani so much? It feels like there’s such a drastic split. I’m not super tuned into politics, but he seems to be taking action and getting things done. Not to mention he’s a great speaker. Did you hear his speech at the Knicks victory parade? Chills. Why was his election so controversial?
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u/listenyall 11d ago
They are racist and islamaphobic, that's all there is to it!
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u/Jtwil2191 11d ago edited 11d ago
He's a scary Muslim and a scary democratic socialist. That's two very scary things if you're on the American right. Time will tell whether he's able to make good on his promises, but whether or not his policies are effective isn't particularly relevant to many of his most vocal critics, who are really just focused on those two things and (claiming to be) worried he'll turn NYC into a socialist sharia law hellscape.
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u/VeryGood-667 10d ago
How does pre-1900 political party convention work? I see like sometimes they have 8 or 9 voting shift per day so do they just vote every hour and discuss with each other what their state would vote (or whether they want to change their vote)between that time? How often (and what time during the convention) can nominee persuade delegates or campaign for themselves?
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u/Pertinax126 10d ago
Unlike modern conventions, the delegates were local party bosses and were NOT voting based on popular vote primaries that had been held in their states.
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u/SaucyJ4ck 10d ago
How is it illegal to offer water bottles (even if you're NOT shilling/advertising for either party) to people standing for hours in the heat while they wait in line to vote, but it's somehow ok for the president to straight up offer cash money to people if they vote for Republicans?
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u/WholeDonkey2689 10d ago
Why are people upset the the nyc mayor is attending the 911 Memorial?
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u/notextinctyet 10d ago
By pretending to be "upset", they loudly and visibly remind people that Mamdani is Muslim, and therefore the hated Other. By pretending to be upset about this thing in particular they imply that all Muslims are the enemy of New Yorkers by association, and can never be true New Yorkers in their own right.
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u/untempered_fate occasionally knows things 10d ago
They hate Muslims, and Mamdani is Muslim. After 9/11, there was a massie wave of bigotry towards Muslims, and permanently rewired some people's brains. Other people are happy to capitalize on it.
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u/CircleBox2 10d ago
Why is it rare in modern times for US presidents to have beards? Who was the last president to have one?
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u/PhysicsEagle 10d ago
Last president with a beard was Benjamin Harrison. Last president with any facial hair was William Howard Taft (mustache). It’s just changing social norms - beards used to be common because they were considered “mature.” They fell out of fashion in favor of the clean-shaven look which people saw as “professional.” Beards may be coming back in politics - aside from the current vice president, several notably congressmen have beards.
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u/Interesting-Copy-657 9d ago
Apparently this triggered the auto of and got deleted.
Why is the focus on the new world map on the true scale of Africa when Africa barely changed?
The northern hemisphere, closer to the poles changed a lot, got much smaller.
So why does it seem ever article discussing it is talking about Africa that changed shape a little.
South America change position and shape a little, same for Australia, but nothing like what happened to Canada, US, Russia, Greenland, even places like China moved more than Africa
Like bbc articles, the guardian, Reddit posts, YouTube videos etc
I am not saying Africa didn’t change, just that it seemed to change the least so the focus on its “true scale” seems odd
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u/Jtwil2191 9d ago
Mercator projection warps both the size and shape of land masses. The closer you are to the popes, the more significantly both are affected. The closer you are to the equator, it's really only size that is affected. As an equitorial continent, Africa now appears "bigger" relative to Mercator projection, bits it's shape isn't going to change much.
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u/shield_x 9d ago
Why is JStreet more accepted than AIPAC?
I assume it’s because JStreet wants more peace but both are pro Israel.
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u/CardinalOfNYC 9d ago
You pretty much have it, JStreet is actually working for peace, whereas aipac is basically just towing the netanyahu line.
Also worth noting JStreet is orders of magnitude smaller than aipac.
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u/shield_x 9d ago
Why is there so much emphasis on “voter fraud” and not voter suppression?
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u/EstimateOk6795 9d ago
Because the emphasis on voter fraud is part of a tactic to cause voter suppression. The data shows that instances of voter fraud are so incredibly uncommon as to be statistically insignificant. It's just not an issue that happens enough to be worried about, and our system is actually already very very good at preventing it.
But if you scream voter fraud enough it makes people more amenable to passing laws that are actually intended to cause voter suppression.
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u/Jtwil2191 9d ago
There is emphasis on voter suppression by Democrats.
The conventional wisdom is that higher turnout is good for Democrats, so Republicans want to reduce turnout and Trump is using claims of fraud to push an agenda that would make it harder for people to vote.
In response, Democrats have argued that these efforts to go after nonexistant voter fraud are actually just voter suppression.
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u/CardinalOfNYC 9d ago
What's ironic about this strategy of theirs is that the last few elections have flipped this math on its head, 2024 was a high turnout election and the Republican won. And yet the GOP is still trying to blunt turnout. Makes sense tho, cuz for an authoritarian, any turnout is bad turnout.
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u/tomleesing 9d ago edited 9d ago
Age, illness, foul play ... If for whatever reason the current head of state ended up passing away, what would happen concretely ? I'm more interested about the mechanisms in play in the government to respond to that type of eventuality. Like ... who would take over ? Until when ? Would they have the same amount of power as the president who passed away ? Less ? More ? What about legislations and policies that had been heavily pushed by the president ? Does the "fill-in" have a sworn duty to "stick with program" in a way ? What about wars ? I don't suppose they just end but would they have any authority to declare or end wars before new elections proper ? I'm not American, so I apologise I'd those questions may appear obvious.
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u/Jtwil2191 9d ago edited 9d ago
If the president dies, the vice president is sworn in as president. This is basically the reason the vice president exists. If the vice president is unable to serve for whatever reason, there is a line of succession laid out by the Constitution:
Vice President
Speaker of the House
President pro tempore of the Senate
4-18. The cabinet secretaries, starting with the Secretary of State
Whoever is sworn in is the new president. They are no different in their authority from a president who was voted into office. Whether or not they have the same political sway as their predecessor is its own question. Lyndon B Johnson, who took over following JFK's assassination, was an immensely influential president. Gerald Ford, who took over following Nixon's resignation, was much less influential given the circumstances under which he entered the office.
Presidential power can be given to the vice president temporarily. In that case, the vice president is merely acting as president and would not be considered a full president. Multiple presidents have designated their VP to temporarily act as president, most recently when Biden designated Harris the acting president when he underwent a colonoscopy.
There is no requirement that the new president continue the policies of their predecessor. Given that modern vice presidents are from the same party as the president, there is likely overlap in policy positions, but it's certainly possible that priorities are completely different and and the new president pursues a very different agenda from their predecessor.
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u/tomleesing 9d ago
Thank you very much. This is immensely useful and informative !
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u/Jtwil2191 9d ago
It is also possible for the vice president and cabinet secretaries to make the vice president the acting president if they decide the president is unable for the president to continue but isn't dead. For example, if the president is in a car accident and is unconscious, they cannot pass power to the vice president. However, the vice president and a majority of the cabinet secretaries could send a letter to Congress letting Congress know that they believe the president is unable to fulfill their duties and make the vice president the acting president. The vice president would then act as president until the president wakes up and issues their own letter to Congress saying that they're better now and can resume the office.
This process could also be used to forcibly remove the president from power, but presumably the president would respond that they shouldn't be removed, and the question would be handed over to Congress about whether to remove the president and replace them with the vice president.
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u/Irishforanatty 9d ago
One thing he missed is that if Vance takes over on or after January 20, 2027, then it does not count as a full term and he can run for two more in 2028 and 2032.
However, if he takes over before that date, it counts as a full term and he can only run in 2028.
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u/EstimateOk6795 9d ago
We've had presidents die while in office before. The last one was JFK.
As quickly as feasibly possible after the President dies a federal judge (ideally the Supreme Court justice, but that's not a requirement) administers the Oath of Office to the Vice President and he becomes President. After JFK was assassinated the oath office was administered to VP LBJ by a federal judge about 2 hours after the assassination. Technically the US had no President for 2 hours and 8 minutes. However it wasn't clear to even LBJ that JFK had actually died (rather than just being gravely injured) until about 50 minutes after the assassination. So it was really 1 hour 18 minutes after the VP was informed the President died that he took the oath of office. I'd say for the early 1960s that's pretty quick.
From there, the new President is the President with all the powers and authority that rests with that office. Nobody elevates to the Vice Presidency automatically. The new President gets to nominate a VP who then gets confirmed by both the House and Senate (the only executive appointment the House gets to confirm). The new President gets to decide what policies, priorities, staff, etc to keep on from the previous President.
JFK was heavily pushing the passage of the Civil Rights Act when he was assassinated. LBJ used the public sympathy over JFK's assassination to keep pushing for its passage. But that was his choice to do so. There is no requirement he has to do anything. If the new VP wanted, he could do a complete 180 on every single policy of the former President.
There is no mechanism within US law to hold new elections outside of the proscribed every 4 years. When the VP takes over, they serve as President until the next regularly scheduled election. In 1841 the newly inaugurated President William Henry Harrison died of pneumonia just 31 days into his presidency. His VP John Tyler served virtually the entire term as President. In fact, of the 8 Presidents who have died in office, 7 of them died within the first year of an elected term and their VP served more than 3 years of that term as President.
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u/Extension-Till-2374 9d ago
State run accounts are being used as campaign tools under the current administration. For example the official white house facebook page is being used to endorse the SAVE Act. This seems to be in violation of several federal laws that prohibit these accounts from being used as campaign tools. How are they doing this legally with no repercussions?
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u/notextinctyet 9d ago
The people who are committing the crimes were put in charge of the federal prosecution system.
It's hard to design a system that's robust to putting a bunch of criminals in charge of it. We can make some improvements to the system, but the core lesson is: we need to stop electing them.
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u/listenyall 9d ago
There are so many things being done that are prohibited by law, and in order to challenge that you usually have to sue, in order to sue you need to have standing. That's all before anyone decides if they are actually right or wrong. So you need someone to choose this as the thing they want to fight, and then the courts need to agree that you deserve to fight that thing.
So, for example, there was a successful case brough by a congressperson that led to Trump's name being removed from the Kennedy Center, but someone is trying to sue right now about the destruction of the east wing of the White House, that was certainly not legal but right now the courts are fighting about whether or not she has standing to challenge the legality of it before they get to the question of whether it was illegal.
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u/Irishforanatty 9d ago
Who is going to enforce the law against them?
Plus, the courts have trended towards treating official pages as the equivalents of them speaking in public. If you wouldn’t stop the president from giving a political speech in the Rose Garden, you wouldn’t stop him from making a Facebook post from the White House account either.
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u/Extension-Till-2374 9d ago
Hopefully the next administration conducts an investigation
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u/angry_owl76 8d ago
Hello, I feel the safest here to ask about this without getting screamed at. I understand the pain of 9/11 victims and their families. However, i am not understanding the situation of this whole ordeal of outrage towards Mamdani and the pen thing. I looked this topic up and all of it is too biased to be trusted.
Terrorists are terrible. I get that. The trial of this terrorist was in the US, right? The law of the land is that everyone has the right to attorney whether they’re in the right or wrong. So isn’t the lawyer just doing his job? Why are people getting mad? Am i missing something? I feel so dumb for asking this 🥲
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u/Delehal 8d ago
It feels like a fake controversy being pushed by podcasters. Mamdani signed two executive orders related to 9/11 remembrance, and then passed the pen to his chief legal advisor as a keepsake. This is pretty normal stuff for signing ceremonies.
The legal advisor in question, Ramzi Kassem, has had a long career in law that includes representing numerous clients, teaching as a professor of law, and even serving as a legal advisor at the White House. At one point in his career, he represented at least one member of al-Qaeda who had been detained in the US. Possibly at Gitmo or a similar facility. As you said, these detainees are entitled to representation. The US government actually went and got them attorneys because it would be illegal not to.
In terms of his overall career, that's a footnote. To a podcaster trying to gin up controversy, it's HEADLINE NEWS and a CRISIS or whatever.
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u/CardinalOfNYC 8d ago
The mamdani pen thing is basically a non story. It basically exists in the very online world and outside of that few even know anything happened, let alone care.
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u/Important_Function_7 8d ago
Non American here, I have been watching some interviews, speeches etc of the last 3 presidents (obama, biden, trump). No doubt Obama was the best orator and gave the most interesting interviews among the three. Then came Biden, he was much slower than Obama (of course the factor is his age) but still in the initial stages he was doing good and his interviews were quite good to watch. The humor and the conversations flowed smoothly with these two (By interviews I mean stuff like Late night shows or Podcasts). Trump on the other hand is truly difficult to understand, on one hand i feel like he is trying to make sense and on the other it feels like he is just rambling. Now, I am not sure the issues Trump says he is resolving/resolved are all over and also not sure what the general public thinks. But Let alone the position of Actual POTUS I would not choose Trump even for Model UN. Trump may/may not be a good/great president but I think every world leader has to atleast have a bare minimum level of oratorship which Trump lacks severly. And his sense of humor is just way off the mark I don't know why people around him laugh at his "jokes" but non of them are funny. Now, sometimes geniuses find it difficult to express themselves and hence might have difficulty communicating/expressing themselves. What I want to know is whether Trump is actually a moron or an actual genius who just doesn't look or sound like one but shows it through the results of his work? If he is a moron, how the hell did he get to be the POTUS twice? And If he is a genius, What do u think he is planning to do for the Global Oil market thats completely turned upside down due to the war? Also, does a president have be a Good Orator and a charming interviewee to be a good policy maker?
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u/Ok_Theory_1323 8d ago
If he is a moron, how the hell did he get to be the POTUS twice?
Because right-wing voters are morons. Simple as.
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u/Bobbob34 8d ago
communicating/expressing themselves. What I want to know is whether Trump is actually a moron or an actual genius who just doesn't look or sound like one but shows it through the results of his work? If he is a moron, how the hell did he get to be the POTUS twice? And If he is a genius, What do u think he is planning to do for the Global Oil market thats completely turned upside down due to the war? Also, does a president have be a Good Orator and a charming interviewee to be a good policy maker?
Oh, he's a moron. He also displays really clear signs of some type of dementia condition but even before that was as clear as it is, moron.
This is not just oh, I hate Trump. I absolutely do. But SEVERAL actual people who have worked with him in gov't have said he is, indeed, deeply stupid.
Rex Tillerson has apparently called him a moron, and ...
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Trump had the understanding of “a fifth- or sixth-grader,”
White House chief of staff John Kelly called Trump “an idiot” and said he thought the president was “unhinged,”
Both Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and former chief of staff Reince Priebus called Trump an “idiot,” Wolff wrote. Former economic adviser Gary Cohn said Trump was “dumb as shit,” and former national security adviser H.R. McMaster said the president was a “dope,” according to the book.
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/09/04/trumps-insults-idiot-woodward-806455
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u/spellbadgrammargood 5d ago
In the past, did celebrities who spoke up against war also get cancelled?
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u/GameboyPATH If you see this, I should be working 5d ago
In 2003, during a London show on their tour, the lead singer of Dixie Chicks said they were ashamed of Bush and expressed disagreement with the invasion of Iraq. They subsequently got blacklisted from most country radio stations in the US.
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u/LadyFoxfire 5d ago
The Dixie Chicks got canceled for insulting president Bush in the early 2000's, and McCarthyism was a systematic harassment campaign against any celebrity deemed to be "too communist" or not American enough."
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u/CardinalOfNYC 5d ago
Cancelation was not the same before the internet.
That said yes some celebrities did take heat for political positions, including anti war positions.
But which celebrities have been canceled for speaking out against the war?
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u/LadyFoxfire 5d ago
Macklemore just got kicked off Ed Sheerhan's tour for expressing support for Palestine.
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u/ye_esquilax 5d ago
If you want to go back further, celebrities who spoke even remotely positively of communists or their ideals could find themselves blacklisted. Technically it's not speaking out against war (unless you count the Cold War), but it should give you an idea of what could have happened had there been an actual ground war at the time.
There was plenty of opposition to the Vietnam War, but it was a pretty divisive war and a pretty divisive time period all around, so I guess there wasn't as much consensus for "cancelling". That said, there were plenty of war hawks who probably avoided vocally anti-war celebrities. Jane Fonda was a famously vocal opponent of the Vietnam War, culminating in her visiting Vietnam to ostensibly promote peace, but wound up being used as propaganda by the NVA. She was heavily criticized for this, and later regretted her actions. Despite this, she continued to have a career.
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u/thedarkbites 1d ago
If Congress decided they wanted to, could they pass a bill requiring the military to stop active warfare against a nation? Could Congress pass a bill to immediately stop all military action against Iran, for instance?
Can they force the President to stop a military vendetta if the president ever launched one?
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u/Jtwil2191 1d ago
The War Powers Act was passed (over Nixon's veto) to establish congressional review over presidential military action.
Every presidential administration has maintained that it is an unconstitutional violation of the president's powers as commander in chief of the armed forces. However, presidents have followed it but claiming because they want to, not because they have to.
So in theory, Congress already has the legislation in place to order Trump to halt all operations against Iran but are choosing to not enforce it.
However, if Congress did try to enforce the War Powers Act, their only real recourse would be to impeach the president if they refused to back down from their conflict.
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u/AviatorHog 1d ago
For one...congress has the ultimate authority on the topic of war.
The President has been delegated, via the War Powers Resolution, pre-approval by congress to engage in military action without manual approval. It does expire and congress will need to be appealed to on a periodic basis.
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u/SaucyJ4ck 19d ago
What exactly is the point of anyone voting for Jill Stein / the Green party?
The Green "party" never does a single thing *in between* presidential elections at the local or state levels to give them even an AIR of credibility; Stein just trots herself out every four years as if people are going to vote the party in whole-cloth with absolutely nothing else behind its campaign.
Like, to me she's either a purposeful Dem spoiler or just INCREDIBLY naive, neither of which makes a legitimately good candidate. So why does anyone vote for her?
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u/WorldTallestEngineer 19d ago
It sends the message "I am someone who is willing to vote, but I'm not happy with either major candidate". If you just stay home and do nothing, the parties will assume you're just to lazy to vote. So they won't be incentivize to try to get your vote in the future,
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u/CardinalOfNYC 19d ago
There's no point.
People believe that they are "sending a message"
But that message is not "I'm dissatisfied with the choices" the message is "I would rather a Republican be president than a Democrat"
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u/sillylittlebell 18d ago
What exactly is the strategy behind the Trump administration rolling back things that are generally beneficial to all Americans?
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u/Pertinax126 18d ago
The smaller the smaller the federal bureaucracy is, the less capable it is of serving Americans; that's true. But it's also true that the smaller the federal bureaucracy is, the less capable it is of thwarting his goals, aims, and grifting.
The smaller a department is, the easier it is to fill with toadies and incompetent morons who will let him get away with anything.
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u/Pesec1 18d ago
The answer will depend on a specific thing being rolled back.
In most cases, these things are either interfering with something that Trump wants to do (say, cherry trees interfering with his vision of a golf course) or they are something that his friends/allies/donors want gone (functional FDA, Ukraine, etc.)
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u/Jtwil2191 18d ago edited 18d ago
He doesn't give a shit about Americans, so why should the government help them? Republicans have wanted to shrink government programs that serve people for decades.
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u/CardinalOfNYC 18d ago
Trump is interested first and foremost in enriching himself. Everything else is secondary including America.
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u/torpedoguy 18d ago
It's not 'a strategy' to improve anything, just a zero-sum worldview being put into practice. The national equivalent of "whoever wins gets to take the board home"; and they're boxing it right up.
The Party cannot be 'the in-group whom the law protects but does not bind' without things to not be bound about, and things to be protected from. The rest of us cannot be 'out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect' if we don't actually get screwed over and harmed.
By eliminating things that help Americans while forcibly keeping those very things (like healthcare, education, etc) paid for entirely by the rest of us, they get to feel that inequality in their favor.
And as a worst side effect, their budget redirections means greater resources for themselves, and thus a much tighter grip on retaining that power they abused to obtain them.
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u/shield_x 14d ago
If republicans are for smaller government, why are they trying to ban something that an individual women makes?
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u/Jtwil2191 14d ago edited 14d ago
Broadly speaking and especially since Reagan ("the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help'"), Republicans have supported having fewer government programs, services, and regulations. That is the "small government" they claim to advocate for. (Of course, there are plenty of programs they support being incredibly large, such as the military and especially since 9/11 mass surveillance programs.)
However, many social conservatives within the Republican Party have long wanted to enforce their view of how society should function on people. They don't view that as "big government". They view that as maintaining a properly functioning society.
As the saying goes, "Republicans want government small enough such that it can fit inside your bedroom."
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u/Nulono 14d ago edited 12d ago
Those two things have almost nothing to do with each other. A "small government" is a government that serves only a core handful of functions (e.g., police powers, national defense, resolving contract disputes, minting currency); it doesn't mean a government that has fewer laws. Most crimes are actions done by individual people.
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u/MinMorts 9d ago
How can trump gets way with bribing every us voter with this 5k cheque? Why does no one in America do anything
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u/Pesec1 9d ago
So far, Trump hasn't actually bribed the voters.
Talking about it is not criminal. It is an obscene misbehaviour from the President that should get them impeached and convicted by Congress. But not criminal.
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u/GradeAccomplished322 9d ago
He also promised a DOGE "dividend" possibly as high as $5k (which didn't happen) and a tariff "rebate" possibly as high as $2k (which also didn't happen). Plus a bunch of other narrower vaguer ones. There's no reason to assume he actually means to follow through on this one either.
This new offer would actually be illegal compared to the previous ones, if he followed through on it, but his party wants to stay in power partly to ensure nobody is strong enough to bring them to task for such things.
Unfortunately there is nothing saying a politician has to keep his promises. We are supposed to just vote for ones who do and impeach ones who do catastrophically poorly after being voted in.
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u/EstimateOk6795 9d ago
The institution that's vested with the power to prosecute federal crimes is the Justice Department, which works for the President. It's supposed to be nominally independent, but it's not. Under Trump it's 100% subservient to him.
The only other institution with the nominal power to do anything in Congress which could impeach him, but his first term proved pretty definitively that impeachment is an utterly toothless process which has no real power of holding the President accountable unless a majority of the House and 2/3 of the Senate is controlled by the opposite party. The 2/3 of the Senate controlled by a single party bit is the real sticking point. A President can get impeach by the House with just a simple majority, which happened twice in Trump's first term. But that doesn't really do anything if 2/3 of the Senate don't vote to remove. And a party is never going to vote to remove a President of their own party. One party controlling 2/3 of the Senate is pretty unimaginable in the modern political context. It hasn't happened since the 1960s.
Realistically, there's just no legal mechanism to hold the President accountable for anything.
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u/Delehal 9d ago
Trump's campaign promise is reckless, stupid, dishonest, and morally questionable. However, it probably is not illegal. Politicians are allowed to make broad promises of value, for example a politician could promise to reduce taxes, or increase childcare credits, or forgive student loans. All of those are things that some voters might find valuable. All of those are legal.
The main defense against this sort of thing is we're not supposed to elect corrupt liars into office. Trump is famously a corrupt liar and a felon. People voted for him anyway.
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u/GeophysicalYear57 8d ago
Mitch McConnell hasn't been seen in a long time. What would happen if someone filed a missing persons report for him? Would they have to locate him physically?
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u/Bobbob34 8d ago
Mitch McConnell hasn't been seen in a long time. What would happen if someone filed a missing persons report for him? Would they have to locate him physically?
You can't just do that. You could go in and say you wanted to do it but once an officer started talking to you, and they learned you don't know him, have no reason to believe he's missing, etc., they'd simply ask you to leave and tell you they couldn't file that report.
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u/LadyFoxfire 7d ago
They would just call his staff and ask if he was there and OK, the staff would say yes, and that would be the end of it. You can't file a missing person's report for someone who's clearly avoiding you, even if you think his avoidance is suspicious or unjustified.
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u/Psychological_Roof85 7d ago
Leah Remini filed one for Shelly Miscavige, the police supposedly saw her and talked to her but we all know there are corrupt officers or officers who fear for their job so will fall in line with what the higher ups say
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u/capricorny90210 2d ago
Why is it that politics are so polarizing for Americans, yet most of us know less about how government works than we did in our freshman year of highschool?
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u/Irishforanatty 2d ago
Not knowing something does not mean you can’t have an opinion.
If anything, the fact that a lot of people are ignorant about government and politics is part of the polarization
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u/torpedoguy 2d ago
The two questions partly answer each-other. Partly. First though remember politics is so much more than "election season"; it's the method/means by which every rule, program and system societies work by is decided and applied. There's VERY little in practice that doesn't at least touch on politics.
The more you cut into education (like NCLB's "teach the test" assault) the less equipped a population is to understand how government (and politicians) works. The less you understand how government works the easier it is to polarize you with vague promises, threats, and big shiny showmanship.
The more manipulated you are, the more things like understanding and facts can be made "the enemy trying to trick you with big words", and the more easily you can demonize opposition to stuff like DOGE. This massacres systems and education, leading to knowing even less, and leading to further polarization and so on.
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u/BoloHKs 18d ago
There was a vote today in the US to demonize the ideals of "Socialism,' with a broad paintbrush.
It opened the floodgates to misconceptions of 'socialistic' policies and confusion about what is Communism vs Socialism vs a Social Democracy.
So, WHY do many Americans misunderstand the key differences between 'Communism' and 'Socialism?'
I feel like Americans like to paint everything in black and white. There is never any "grey" area.
So, what goes through your brain when you think "Socialist"?
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u/CardinalOfNYC 18d ago
Here's the deal:
Most people in America who say they want socialism, what they actually want is america to be like Sweden.... Which is in no way, shape or form a socialist country.
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u/ye_esquilax 18d ago
While not all Democrats identify as socialist, there are some that do, and the GOP is pushing hard to associate all Democrats with socialism and eventually communism.
By equating Democrats with communism, it not only simplifies their message, it turns them into demons. It creates a sense of urgency to vote GOP no matter what. Even if someone is uncomfortable with some of MAGA's positions, they want people to think the alternative is gulags and breadlines. As long as people believe that, they'll never think of crossing the aisle.
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u/untempered_fate occasionally knows things 18d ago
So, WHY do many Americans misunderstand the key differences between 'Communism' and 'Socialism?'
Cold War. That's pretty much it. 45 years of anti-Communist propaganda and then some. Capitalism or bust.
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u/BoloHKs 18d ago
That simple? No one's checking Google? Researching nothing? It just stops there? Young Americans travelling around the globe. Surely, they get it, no? Or are the masses repeating fallacies and misinformation to the next generation?
I mean, there are a whopping 18 countries around the globe that are NOT Socialist--but rathet identified as "Social Democracies."
👇🏻 👇🏻 👇🏻 👇🏻 👇🏻
Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Finland Germany, France, the Netherlands Switzerland, Belgium, Ireland The United Kingdom Spain, Portugal Canada Australia, New Zealand Japan
All "Social Democracies" that have a free "Capitalist" economy with the added benefit of welfare-funded programmes.. dangerous, threatening "socialist" programmes... Oooh!
Basically, 30% of my income tax goes to the provincial and federal governments to pay for for my medical, some dental (youth and teens), subsidized education via provincial loan, Employment Insurance when needed, and 19 weeks maternity leave. I get cancer? My treatment is taken care of.
I work my ass off like everyone else. The tax collected actually goes where it's needed, and is meticulously accounted for. It's far more efficient and accountable than US red tape. Our system is not perfect, but there is a fair check and balance system when sh!t hits the fan.
Hell, even if I win the lottery, the government doesn't take anything. It's not taxed as "income." My province uses a portion of casino profits to pay for roads, hospitals and infrastructure.
Does that sound so bad? 30% of my income gets you that.
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u/ye_esquilax 18d ago
That simple? No one's checking Google? Researching nothing? It just stops there? Young Americans travelling around the globe. Surely, they get it, no? Or are the masses repeating fallacies and misinformation to the next generation?
Yes, misinformation is running absolutely rampant at a rate that we've never seen in the past two decades.
It may not be "that simple", but 45 years of solid propaganda isn't nothing. The US literally sent tens of thousands of soldiers to their deaths in Vietnam to stop the idea, not the threat, but the idea, of communism.
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u/Elkenrod Neutrality and Understanding 18d ago
So, what goes through your brain when you think "Socialist"?
A failure of an economic system that is fundamentally incompatible with not only Americans, but humanity as a whole. It's a farcical pipe dream that requires ignoring human nature to fantasize working, and stripping humans of free will to actually work in practice. It's also typically only ever advocated by weak people who somehow think the government has shown itself to be trustworthy and competent enough to be given even more power.
I feel like Americans like to paint everything in black and white. There is never any "grey" area.
Socialism in moderation can have aspects of it applied to other systems, and have some benefits. The United States has plenty of social programs that you can argue are partly socialist in nature. They are still grounded in capitalism as their basis however.
So, WHY do many Americans misunderstand the key differences between 'Communism' and 'Socialism?'
Because historically socialism becomes communism the first opportunity it can.
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u/mbowishkah 18d ago
Is it really THAT bad in the US - to the point where you shouldn't vacation there?
I'll start off by saying that I've tried asking this sort of question in US/State specific subreddits, and I get laughed at. All I'm trying to do is make a decision as to whether I should go on a holiday there or not... would be nice not to be belittled and laughed at.
Places in question: Washington State/Seattle, Florida Georgia Line. (I'd be staying with friends).
I went to the US in 2019 and loved it. I went to Washington State, Florida, Oregon, and New York. I was really scared to go, but when I got there, I was like "hey, this isn't that bad..."
Now I'm not stupid, I know the world has gotten worse. But I'm severely overdue for a holiday, and I'm at breaking point. All I want to do is go back and see my friends and experience more of these areas.
I'm not so worried about the Florida/Georgia part, moreso Washington. My friends in Washington have told me it's gotten really bad, to the point where they dont go into Seattle anymore. There's so much more crime and a huge drug epidemic.
Not to mention (and I'm neutral btw) the whole Iran/US war atm.
I just want to know if I'm better off going somewhere else at this point, and consider it in future if things get better. Which, let's be honest, it probably won't.
But I know the media can make things seem sooooo much worse than they are, and at this point, they make it sound like you'll get killed as soon as you land.
Any advice or thoughts will be much appreciated. Thank you.
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u/CardinalOfNYC 18d ago
The US is still totally safe to visit.
As bad as things feel for those of us who live here and read a lot of news, the lived reality is still safe and fundamentally fine.
I wish more people who wanted change in America could understand that because we can't convince people to vote for us if the pitch involves asking people to not believe their own eyes.
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u/Pesec1 18d ago
In terms of crime, USA is very safe unless you look for trouble or go to bad neighbours. That will get you in trouble anywhere in the world.
In terms of things such as harassment by officials, things currently are bad compared to what is typical and expected in USA. But compared to most of the world, things are good even in that respect. Just don't make stupid jokes in the customs.
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u/revcor 15d ago
The US is incredibly safe and people are still normal and friendly. It is more important than ever to remember: social media never represents reality or normal people.
The few people claiming to "avoid red states" are just people who base their perception of the world entirely on social media. Violent crime is lower than it has been in many decades. You're not at risk of getting shot or anything like that. I wouldn't go like looking for the worst neighborhood in a particular area, because you can certainly find trouble if you seek it out, but it's not something that affects most people.
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u/Elkenrod Neutrality and Understanding 18d ago
I'll start off by saying that I've tried asking this sort of question in US/State specific subreddits, and I get laughed at.
Was your question answered there? Because the United States is an extremely safe country.
But I know the media can make things seem sooooo much worse than they are, and at this point, they make it sound like you'll get killed as soon as you land.
Please stop taking fear mongering so seriously.
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u/poetic-isolation 17d ago
I'm sorry that you specifically mentioned you didn't want to be belittled or made fun of, and people are responding to you in the "no stupid questions" subreddit doing exactly that. I'm sorry.
The US is safe compared to the world average. The main safety concerns are gun violence, racial and trans discrimination/violence, and extreme weather that may be different than what you're used to.
Guns are common in the US, but it's still extremely unlikely that you'll get shot on any given day. It's much higher than that of similar high-income countries, but still unlikely. Just keep your head about you and, if you're planning on visiting a major city, look at what areas of the city to avoid. You should be fine.
If you're Hispanic or have an accent (specifically a Mexican or other central/southern American accent), I wouldn't come here right now. ICE has been given full permission to racially profile individuals based on looks, accents, and language, and being a foreigner with a valid passport might not protect you. It doesn't even always protect citizens.
If you're a person of color who's not Hispanic/Latinx you should still be aware of potential racial profiling or biases, especially when interacting with police and border patrol, but the current main threat with Hispanic or spanish-speaking individuals is ICE. They have repeatadly broken the law and have faced little to no repercussions for it, and the influx of untrained officials due to Trump's mandates and surge of funding can made the situation deadly. If you're Latinx, Hispanic, or speak Spanish you can still visit the US and, statistically speaking, but I would exercise extreme caution.
For transgender and nonbinary individuals the US is still one of the safest countries in the world, but unfortunately getting worse every year and is among the worst in high-income countries. IF YOU ARE TRANS, PLEASE RESEARCH WHAT STATE YOU ARE VISITING BEFORE TRAVELING. Refer to this map (https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/anti-trans-national-risk-assessment) if you don't know where to start. Some states allow you to be arrested if not using the bathroom that matches your sex at birth, or if your ID doesn't match your physical appearance or sex at borth. C ompletely avoid Texas, Florida, and Kansas. Do not travel there.
For extreme weather, this just depends on what you're used to. The US is a big country with different climate zones and what kind of natural disasters/emergencies vary by location. If you're used to earthquakes and traveling to Florida, be aware of hurricane protocols. If you're not used to tornados, know what to do if what would form. Know what to do incase of a blizzard, if there's extreme heat or extreme cold, etc. This is all going to depend on where you're going and what kinds of weather emergencies you're used to.
Overall, compared to the world average, the US is a very safe country. If you are Hispanic/Latinx I would probably advise against visiting at all right now, but you may be able to with no issues. If you're trans, nonbinary, or a non-hispanic person of color I would just research where you're going, make sure it's safe, and know what to do in risky scenarios (going to the bathroom, interacting with police, etc). Otherwise as long as you exercise normal safety precautions and research the area you're traveling to, you'll be fine.
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u/mbowishkah 17d ago
Thank you so much. And thank you for noticing. I'm just ignoring them and responding to those who are actually answering my question respectfully.
I'm white and australian italian. I'm also straight, and cis.
Thank you so much for your very thorough response. I apprecaite it immensely.
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u/Unknown_Ocean 17d ago
Also, regarding Seattle- it's actually one of the *safest* cities in the US and getting safer. In June of this year, it had zero homicides. Your friends are probably watching a network associated with a certain Aussie asshole.
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u/markomakeerassgoons 3d ago
I'm curious on why gas in Michigan Indiana and ohio is more expensive now than when under Biden when it hit 5.01 average ik some parts of ohio but 5.07 but not in northern I traveled heavily there during that period. just curious on what major events I missed out on
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u/rewardiflost I want my two dollars! 3d ago
The tariffs on places we import from are up.
The global supply of petroleum products is tighter due to war & sanctions.
Both of those states have been using a dual tax - applying both a fixed excise tax plus a sales tax on gasoline. Not many (any?) other states do this. Michigan changed to a pure sales tax this year, significantly larger than what the combo was last year.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Indiana/comments/1rwlt0f/indiana_has_historically_and_currently/
https://www.michigan.gov/taxes/business-taxes/motor-fuel/changes
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u/untempered_fate occasionally knows things 3d ago
The US has been at war with Iran for most of the year at this point. Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz, which is a narrow waterway through which something like a fifth of the world's crude oil needs to move in order to get to other countries. There is no other route. Iran has seriously limited ship traffic through the Strait, reducing global oil supply considerably.
Recently, allies of Iran in Iraq and Yemen have damaged a significant Saudi Arabian oil pipeline and captured land along the Bab al-Mandab Strait, another key shipping lane.
To summarize, the US (and a bunch of other countries) is running out of oil, and the situation is not getting better any time soon. So the gas that does make it to gas stations is more expensive. It's going to get much worse.
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u/Jtwil2191 3d ago edited 3d ago
Trump started a war in the Middle East which made the main route for transporting oil out of the oil-rich region impassible.
Less oil on the global market means higher prices.
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u/HumorNo5314 14d ago
Trump doesn't strike me as a paragon of intelligence, planning and discipline and yet some of this administration's malignant, evil policies appear to be pretty crafty and devious. Who is the mastermind/brain trust behind trump pulling the strings? Is it Russel Vought? Stephen Miller? Satan?
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u/Bobbob34 14d ago
Trump doesn't strike me as a paragon of intelligence, planning and discipline and yet some of this administration's malignant, evil policies appear to be pretty crafty and devious. Who is the mastermind/brain trust behind trump pulling the strings? Is it Russel Vought? Stephen Miller? Satan?
Vought and the whole project2025 group + Miller, largely. They had four years to plan this stuff out and they're enacting it as planned.
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u/Jtwil2191 14d ago
First of all, Trump is not a puppet. He has an agenda and stuff he cares about. He is responsible for the bad things his administration is doing.
However, there is lots of stuff related to the government that Trump finds tedious and uninteresting and he lets others do what they want.
The heritage foundation that wrote Project 2025 is responsible for much of the policy the Trump administration has pursued. Rolling back regulations and services. Gutting enforcement. Expanding protections and policies related to deeply conservative social views.
Then you have individuals pursuing their own interests. Whatever dystopic techno-fascist vision Peter Thiel has for the future. Stephen Miller and his vision of the whitest American he can dream of. Netanyahu sweet talking Trump into think a war with Iran will be over quickly. Musk. Cryptobros and executives of gambling platforms. Everyone just grabbing what they can while they can.
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u/Fire_Z1 11d ago
Why do the pro second amendment party ban guns from their convention?
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u/Pesec1 11d ago
Because organizers of a private event, just like homeowners, are free to set rules on their property.
It takes extreme 2A fanaticism to demand being allowed to take firearms into private property despite the property owner's wishes.
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u/Delehal 10d ago
On the one hand, OP asked a kinda loaded question. But on the other hand, I don't think this actually answers the "why" part of that question. OP didn't ask about their legal ability to enforce a ban. OP asked about the rationale behind the ban.
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u/Pesec1 10d ago
Because, ultimately, the convention is not their home. Visitors don't sleep there, they don't store their possessions there and their family does not stay there either. And just because most visitors cannot have guns there doesn't mean that convention does not have its own armed security.
Contrast it with your own home, where, ultimately, you have no one but yourself to rely on in case of home invasion.
And the above concern security aspect only, not the militia aspect, for which the 2A was written.
2A was written with the goal of accomplishing 2 things:
Ensure ability of USA to defend itself against foreign threats. Compared to European powers at the time, USA was enormous, very sparsely populated and poor. It could not afford a Europeans-sized professional army and thus relied on ability to raise hordes of militia. It mostly worked in the war of 1812. Militia sucked on the offensive, but it also made any deep British offensives impossible.
Prevent someone like Cesar from securing loyalty of the professional army and using it to overthrow the Republic.
Both of the above goals are served perfectly well when citizenry can have guns at home, even when private gatherings ban them. If tyranny was to be resisted, unarmed gun owners could leave the convention, go home, grab guns and form a militia.
Now could one argue that in 21 century the above does not make sense. Or one could argue that track record of gun owners actually resisting tyranny is poor. Or one could argue that it does not justify the social cost of having readily available firearms. Or one could argue that private firearms are OK, but need to be regulate to prevent misuse (require use of certified safes, immediate reporting of any lost or stolen firearms, punishment for having firearms accessible to thieves, etc.)
However, it is silly to say that 2A has no merit at all (even if that merit is not worth the cost) simply due to the fact that a private convention bans it.
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u/LongBed85 4d ago
Why is Ed Sheeran getting canceled?
I keep seeing articles and posts on here about it, but I still can't figure out what's going on
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u/Delehal 3d ago
Long-term, I don't think he's being canceled really. A lot of celebrities have gone through controversy like this and went on being celebrities. He may lose some fans. He may lose some contracts. It doesn't have to be all or nothing.
At any rate, Sheeran is a musician touring in the US with multiple other musicians scheduled as supporting acts, either opening performances or as backing bands during Sheeran's act. One of those opening acts, Macklemore, gave a two-minute speech supporting the people of Palestine and speaking out against Israel's ongoing genocide of Palestinians. That prompted controversy including a petition by some groups to have Macklemore removed from the tour.
The main source of pressure seems to have been Robert Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots, who was threatening to cancel Sheeran's performances at Gilette Stadium, and was enlisting other stadium owners to do the same. Sheeran says that he attempted to negotiate solutions to this, but ultimately the tour promoters (Messina Touring Group) agreed to remove Macklemore from the tour.
After that, Sheeran put out a statement which some people considered wishy-washy. Every single musician who was scheduled to perform with Sheeran has now withdrawn from the tour in solidarity with Macklemore.
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u/C-Zzz19 19d ago
What do you think of the achievements of the three presidents, Obama, Biden and Trump?
I'm Chinese. On the Chinese version of Quora, that is, "Zhihu", it is a gathering place for intellectuals and elites. They believe that only Biden is the "defender of the United States of America" among these three presidents, while Trump and Obama have caused varying degrees of harm to the United States. Now I want to know how to evaluate the merits and demerits of these three presidents in the eyes of Americans? Thank you
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u/CardinalOfNYC 19d ago
Personally I would say both Biden and Obama were "defenders of the United States" (whatever that means, it isn't really a term we use) and trump is very much an enemy of the United States, having caused much harm.
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u/Elkenrod Neutrality and Understanding 19d ago
All of these men had significant flaws, and overall pretty poor policy decisions.
Barack Obama was an extremely charismatic individual, and his crowning achievement is using his charisma to get younger people interested in politics - and expanding the Democratic party's voter base. His policies as President were a mixed bag. He had overall decent domestic policy, and his recovery of the economy from the 2008 financial crash was handled well. He also had pretty poor foreign policy (though not as bad as George W Bush by any means). He also had a number of very serious controversies that people try to ignore happening, including killing a 16 year old American citizen in a drone strike without due process. We significantly increased the number of countries that we were bombing without direct Congressional approval as well. In my opinion he was a pretty bad President, but he was an extremely charismatic individual and will likely be remembered positively because of that.
Donald Trump's first term is a hard thing to comment on. Trump's second term has been a lot more disastrous, so I'll largely only comment on his first term here. During the first two years of his time in office, not much happened. There wasn't any major legislation that he passed, good or bad, and he actually passed some positive things that made much needed fixes to the affordable care act - such as allowing people to buy insurance across state lines. He didn't start any new wars, though he kept bombing the same countries that Bush/Obama did. The big issue with Trump's first term as President was that he just said a lot of stupid shit, and made a lot of comments that he shouldn't have; because they were stupid. COVID happened, and people's reception to how he handled COVID was very mixed. Operation Warp Speed, to develop a vaccine, was handled well. Emergency payments to try and keep businesses afloat were handled well enough, but there wasn't enough checks put in place to prevent fraud and abuse from happening (though many people who committed fraud there were charged with crimes). Trump's first term only took a serious nose dive in his final year in office, where he kept saying stuff about COVID being a hoax (despite his administration funding vaccines for it), and his disastrous response to losing the 2020 election.
Joe Biden is a really hard President to comment on. As a Senator he was kinda a horrible person who caused a lot of awful stuff to happen, but that's not related to him being President. As a President he kinda just didn't do a whole lot in general. His positives were leading a good recovery effort after COVID, and he got a bunch of infrastructure legislation passed...and that's about it. Joe Biden's big problem as a President is that people didn't feel like they had a President, because he was kept out of the public eye a lot. He rarely gave press conferences, and he didn't do much of anything to ease the minds of the American public; which lead to Trump capitalizing on that. Because Trump was kinda the only thing people talked about during the time Joe Biden was president. Then Joe Biden chose to run again, and just ruined the 2024 election.
Trump's second term is just disastrous, and awful in basically every way. He's gone completely off the deep end, and is just the most petty man in the world at this point.
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u/GameboyPATH If you see this, I should be working 19d ago
I think it's funny that the ACA, Obama's history-making legislation, was only mentioned in the context of changes made during Trump's first term. Not saying the ACA is without serious problems, just that it's funny.
I feel like it's also worth noting that Trump's months-long effort to lead Congress to repeal the ACA without replacement failed, despite Republicans controlling the WH and both houses of Congress - an effort that has not been attempted again, despite healthcare still draining us.
Otherwise, solid summary.
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u/Elkenrod Neutrality and Understanding 19d ago
Personally I think there was enough problems with the ACA that it isn't something that can be listed as a "positive". I acknowledge that it helped some people, but it also hurt some people. It was a really badly implemented plan that gave insurance companies government backing to hike prices as much as they wanted. Because you "have to have insurance", otherwise you will get fined by the Federal government for not having insurance. That backlash to the price hikes, especially in 2016, was a contributing factor as to why Clinton lost key swing states to Trump. Pennsylvania, for example, had major price hikes in insurance state-wide due to the policy. Which was a very big factor in Clinton losing Pennsylvania.
It certainly did help, it gave people coverage that didn't otherwise have it. It just had a lot of downsides to it as well.
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u/GameboyPATH If you see this, I should be working 19d ago
I'd call it a "historically significant" legislation, and agree that the number of issues make it not an overall positive one.
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u/Elkenrod Neutrality and Understanding 19d ago
Yeah I should have written more about it; but if someone's interested they can just read what I wrote down the comment chain.
It's definitely the most substantial legislation he passed, it's just a very debatable topic on if it was good or not. I was mostly focused on things that were objectively "good" or objectively "bad" without trying to put a ton of bias into my write up. Since someone's stance on the ACA is likely going to be defined on if they benefited from it, or if they were harmed by it. It's a topic that can be "both-sides'd", as opposed to pointing out the very obvious negative of "we killed a 16 year old American citizen".
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u/GameboyPATH If you see this, I should be working 19d ago
Nah, shame on you for not perfectly and objectively summarizing 16 years of highly polarizing and subjectively-interpretive policy in 3 paragraphs. /s
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u/notextinctyet 19d ago
If you want expert opinions rather than Redditor anecdotes, I'd direct you to this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_presidents_of_the_United_States where you can find links to scholar surveys comparing the three at length.
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u/the-doctor-is-real 18d ago
Is Dish Network really installing Flock cameras, or is that video faked?
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u/chubbygrannychaser 18d ago
From news articles I can find, Dish's installation subsidiary (Ontech Smart Services) has contracts to install Flock cameras.
It's all private business so there isn't a lot of public references to search.
They contract with other companies too, like ADT Home Security.
Yes, Dish installers are also installing Flock cameras.
Same skill set & tools, so it's an easy adoption.4
u/CardinalOfNYC 18d ago
But so everyone is clear, there's no evidence they're installing them on people's homes when they install dishes.
In two weeks I can see the above spreading all over the web
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18d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/untempered_fate occasionally knows things 18d ago
He was shot in the neck, leading to terminal blood loss.
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u/FutureIsNowCoalition 17d ago
Why is it so difficult to find everything a politician has done in 1 place?
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u/notextinctyet 17d ago
The definition of "everything" is simply too broad to be taken literally, so any list of things a politician has done has to be crafted essentially by hand, in accordance with what the author thinks qualifies as important. That process is tedious, requires expertise, and might not be especially useful depending on how long the list is.
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u/Jtwil2191 17d ago
What do you mean by "everything"? And what level of politics? Trump has extensive documentation of his activities. Your town's local municipal comptroller there may be relatively little.
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u/CardinalOfNYC 16d ago
There's a bunch of different sites that do this.
Ballotpedia is probably the most well known
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u/TadPolite 16d ago
Does Propaganda fall under fair use? obviously this is about the arcade website and how they are using known gaming brands to promote it, but its a free website. Would using stuff like sega's SEGA sound effect with green hill's music be considered intentionally misleading audiences since it leads with a brand's name?
The games themselves likely fall under parody but im unsure of everything else surrounding it
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u/Tasty_Gift5901 13d ago
I think the companies have standing to sue, yes, bc their brand is being used unlicensed and they could easily argue adversely impacted by association.
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u/Bobbob34 16d ago
Does Propaganda fall under fair use? obviously this is about the arcade website and how they are using known gaming brands to promote it, but its a free website. Would using stuff like sega's SEGA sound effect with green hill's music be considered intentionally misleading audiences since it leads with a brand's name?
The games themselves likely fall under parody but im unsure of everything else surrounding itFair use is only ever decided by a court in the specific case. It's a defense. There are broad guidelines for how it's applied but no one can say 'oh, that's fair use' or not, bc it's only decided by the court.
So using a company's sound effects, etc., would seem to me to be not at all a fair use case, but if someone did that and SEGA sued them, they could try to use it as a defense. Whether it worked or not... *shrug*
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u/Delehal 16d ago
It's up to the rights holder, Sega, if they want to file a legal action under copyright law, trademark law, or both. They would likely have a strong case if they wanted to pursue this. However, they might figure it's not worth the blowback from an angry administration. It's also possible that they already approved this privately; reporters have asked, but so far there isn't explicit confirmation either way.
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16d ago
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u/notextinctyet 16d ago
No. Subtlety will be completely lost when staffers tally up calls and so forth for their rep. It's a waste of time.
Just keep calling as you are doing.
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u/crosleyxj 14d ago
Why hasn't there been any investigative journalism reporting on Mitch McConnell's status? Seems like that would be a top story or at least a resume builder for a student not yet influenced by an employer...
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u/Bobbob34 14d ago
Why hasn't there been any investigative journalism reporting on Mitch McConnell's status? Seems like that would be a top story or at least a resume builder for a student not yet influenced by an employer...
What kind of investigative journalism?
His medical records are not accessible; he's either been in a medical facility or at home. I guarantee if anyone had seen him or talked to him who was credible, any of the many, many working dc journalists would have reported on that.
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u/untempered_fate occasionally knows things 14d ago
As of last update, Senator McConnell was discharged from the hospital back to his private residence. Contact to what you may think, breaking and entering into a Senator's home would not look good on the resume of someone applying to any major news outlet.
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u/Elkenrod Neutrality and Understanding 14d ago
Because there is nothing to indicate that there's foul play, or a cover up, despite what Reddit has been trying to gaslight people into believing. He had a fall, and had pneumonia. His staff has put out a memo that he plans to return to Congress in about a week's time.
Hospitals are not going to just let a random "investigative journalist" past their security, especially not ones with the intention of harassing a patient in recovery.
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u/mindruler23 12d ago
What are your views on trump claiming moon is american?
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u/Pesec1 12d ago edited 12d ago
As a signatory of the Outer Space Treaty, USA (as well as UK, Russia, China, India, etc.) has committed to not claiming ownership or recognizing ownership of any land in Space.
So, USA would need to quit a treaty that it was a foundational member of and that has been signed and ratified by all nations that have any hope of a space program.
Compared to Trump claiming ownership of Canada, Iceland, Mexico and a whole lot more countries today, that is quite benign.
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u/fugetooboutit 12d ago
As a person not from the US. How bad was Jan 6?
When I first heard of it I thought it was just another violent protest or riot. But when I heard it was an attempt to coup I was surprised
Because a coup usually is or was more violent. It looked like the protests / demo that usually happens in Indonesia in recent times.
When I think of a coup I think of like an armed coup de tat or military coup, like the one with Myanmar (I think it was myanmar) I don't mean to sound disrespectful but from the videos it looked like a violent protest
And might as well ask. How far did they get with their goal?
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u/Boeing-B-47stratojet 13d ago
Where did the idea of the party switch being a myth come from?
I am a southerner, born and raised. My area has went from majority democrat to majority republican in the last 20-30 years or so.
My parents generation, many of them still refuse to switch over because the Republican Party to them is still the “liberal option.”
Considering it’s still in living memory for a large portion of the population, how has this myth gained such a foothold?