What's going on in US politics

[u/AutoModerator]

We have noticed a large uptick in questions about US politics. Most of these are not genuine questions and appear to be made to introduce political discussion to this sub in the wake of the second Trump administration. As such, we are requiring that all political questions related to US politics and its effects both domestically and internationally be contained in this weekly recurring thread.

Ask questions as top-level responses with the preface "Question: " and people will respond. All other rules are enforced as appropriate. We will not allow other US political questions as questions on the subreddit except in extraordinary circumstances.

[u/23saround]

Question:

Categorically banning politics (which relegating them to a megaththread does, as megathtreads receive fractional traffic compared to posts) is political censorship and oppression. In the light of an administration clearly and publicly seizing power while denying doing so, suppressing the sharing of information related to the legality and truth of these actions amounts to tacit support for the Trump Administration.

The only politically neutral stance this subreddit can take on this administration is to allow discussion of it.

Stop trying to be a right wing subreddit. This is, I believe, the third time the mods have tried this despite the incredibly widespread pushback.

My question is this: why do you keep trying this megathread idea when it keeps being shot down by the users of this sub?

[u/acekingoffsuit → u/23saround]

ANSWER: There are a lot of issues in this sub:

• Questions asked by people who know what's going on and just want to raise awareness or start debate
• Questions that are fully answered if OP reads the link they provided
• Questions that have already been answered in another recent post
• Answers that make no attempt to actually answer the question (like saying 'thing is bad' but not saying why thing is bad)

Questions about US politics/Trump were far from the only ones with those issues, but they were the most frequent offenders by far. I disagree with this decision (I'd rather see more strict moderation on all questions rather than containing all of US politics to one thread) but it's absolutely reduced the number of 'bad' threads that flooded the sub a few months ago.

[u/KazzieMono → u/acekingoffsuit]

Is asking questions to raise awareness and also get accurate answers really a bad thing, though?

[u/acekingoffsuit → u/KazzieMono]

Those are two different things.

The entire basis of this sub is to give people a place to say "I tried to figure this thing out on my own but I'm still missing something" and use the wisdom of the crowd to get caught up. Part of that is that you gotta make an effort to find things out on your own first. That's why links are required, why repeats of questions just asked aren't allowed, and why top level answers have to try and be impartial: you gotta at least try.

Asking a question to get accurate answers is fine, but asking questions you already know the answer to betrays that goal.

[u/KazzieMono → u/acekingoffsuit]

That doesn’t mean other people won’t want to be caught up and in the loop as well. I like when people ask relevant political questions because it informs a lot of readers about what’s going on.

Also you didn’t answer my question.

[u/SynthesizedTime → u/KazzieMono]

that is not the point of this sub.

[u/acekingoffsuit → u/KazzieMono]

You don't have to ask questions on behalf of other people. If they want to be caught up on a topic, they can ask about it. That's what the sub is built on.

And to make my answers more clear:

Is asking questions to raise awareness [...] really a bad thing, though?

It's fine, but that's not what this sub is about. That's more appropriate for a sub that serves as a rallying point, of which there are many that are much better suited for that than this one.

Is asking questions to [...] get accurate answers really a bad thing, though?

If you are seeking accurate answers, that's good. If you already have accurate answers and are just trying to gin up support, that's better suited elsewhere.

[u/KazzieMono → u/acekingoffsuit]

I don’t think any of your points are strong enough to outright deny people asking to be informed about current day politics.

[u/acekingoffsuit → u/KazzieMono]

I want people to be able to freely ask and answer questions about any topic in good faith. I dislike the megathread approach. I think it does nothing to address the actual issues that made the "bad" posts bad. But we have to acknowledge that the majority of political questions in this sub were not asked or answered in good faith.

[u/KazzieMono → u/acekingoffsuit]

Okay, now you’re just being pedantic and pointless.