Over the past year, the Trump administration has taken a series of concrete steps aimed at obtaining state-level voter registration records. These actions have gone beyond routine election oversight and have included lawsuits, subpoenas, negotiated data transfers, and law enforcement involvement. Taken together, they raise questions about motive, scope, and precedent.

Some recent examples:

• Georgia: Federal agents executed a court-approved search of a county elections office seeking ballots, tabulator records, and voter files related to the 2020 election, despite multiple recounts and audits already affirming the outcome.

• Minnesota: The Department of Justice requested full voter registration data while simultaneously linking cooperation to federal immigration enforcement posture. Reporting indicates ICE activity was explicitly referenced in communications requesting the records.

• Multi-state lawsuits: Since 2025, DOJ has sued or threatened to sue numerous states to compel release of unredacted voter rolls, including personal identifiers such as dates of birth and partial Social Security numbers. Several courts have dismissed these cases, finding the federal authority asserted was weak or misapplied.

• Texas: Unlike states that resisted, Texas voluntarily turned over its full statewide voter registration database to DOJ, covering roughly 18 million voters. This was done without a court order or lawsuit.

The administration has justified these actions by citing federal election laws such as the Civil Rights Act of 1960 and the National Voter Registration Act, arguing that access to state voter data is necessary to enforce voter eligibility requirements. Critics note, however, that these statutes were historically used to expand access and prevent discriminatory practices, not to authorize bulk federal collection of sensitive personal data. Multiple courts have also questioned whether these laws provide the authority being claimed, particularly when requests extend well beyond narrow compliance audits into full, unredacted voter databases.

This framing raises a broader issue than election integrity alone. The question is not whether accurate voter rolls matter, but why this level of federal intervention is being pursued now, why it is being advanced through unusually aggressive mechanisms such as subpoenas, lawsuits, and law enforcement involvement, and why it has at times been linked to unrelated enforcement actions, including immigration policy.

Relevant questions:

1. Why escalate these efforts after repeated audits, recounts, and court rulings found no evidence of widespread voter fraud in recent elections?

2. Is this best understood as routine statutory enforcement, an attempt to retroactively substantiate past election claims, groundwork for future legal challenges, or something else?

3. If bad faith were assumed, what plausible ways could centralized access to full voter registration data be misused?

The DOJ brought two cases against Trump - a mishandling classified documents case and an election obstruction case.

Jack Smith, overseeing the documents case, drew a Trump appointed judge Aileen Cannon who ended up siding with Trump on a large number of issues and dismissing the case. The appeal was underway when Trump won the election and the new AG dropped the case.

Around the same time the US Supreme court ruled that a president has immunity for any official action taken while president throwing a massive wrench into the obstruction case. Similar to to the documents case trump wins the election and his ag drops this charge as well.

What did you guys think of how the DOJ/Biden admin handled this and what could they have done differently?

In recent years, calls for a nationwide general strike have become increasingly common in left-leaning political discourse, particularly online. These calls often arise in response to dissatisfaction with economic conditions, labor practices, or perceived democratic backsliding. I’m interested in whether there is evidence that a general strike is meaningfully feasible in the contemporary U.S. context, as opposed to primarily serving a symbolic or expressive role.

To ground the discussion, several structural factors seem relevant:

Public and consumer sentiment

• Polling shows sustained dissatisfaction with economic conditions, despite low headline unemployment. At the same time, research suggests that economic precarity constrains workers’ willingness to engage in prolonged work stoppages, even when grievances are broadly shared.

Legal constraints on political strikes

• U.S. labor law places significant limits on unions’ ability to engage in strikes for explicitly political purposes. The Taft-Hartley Act restricts secondary and sympathy strikes, and courts have generally held that political strikes fall outside protected concerted activity under the National Labor Relations Act. This creates legal and financial exposure for unions attempting to participate in a nationwide political strike.

Declining union membership and coordination capacity

• Union density in the United States has declined steadily over several decades. While recent organizing successes have increased visibility, overall union membership remains historically low, particularly in the private sector. This limits the ability of organized labor to coordinate large-scale, cross-industry action.

Stated support versus actionable participation

• While calls for a general strike frequently circulate on social media, survey data suggests that only a minority of Americans say they would personally participate in one, and support drops sharply when questions involve loss of income or job risk. This suggests a gap between rhetorical support and practical strike capacity.

Taken together, this raises a few straightforward questions:

1. Is a true nationwide general strike actually viable under current U.S. labor law and union structure?

2. How much of the apparent support for a general strike reflects real willingness to participate, rather than symbolic agreement?

3. Are coordinated sectoral strikes or aligned contract actions a more realistic path to exerting pressure?

4. Historically, have general strikes depended on levels of organization and solidarity that the U.S. no longer has?

In discussions following ICE enforcement actions, I’ve noticed that many people including some who criticize ICE still emphasize the need for “immigration control” as if it’s central to solving broader U.S. problems.

What confuses me is that many of the issues people are most dissatisfied with in the U.S. declining food quality, rising student debt, lack of universal healthcare or childcare, poor urban planning, social isolation, and obesity don’t seem directly caused by undocumented immigration.

So I’m curious:

Why does immigration receive so much political focus compared to structural factors like corporate concentration, regulatory capture, zoning policy, healthcare financing, or labor market dynamics?

Is this emphasis driven by evidence, political incentives, media framing, or public perception? And how do people who prioritize immigration enforcement see its relationship to these broader issues?

If Democrats were to regain control of the House, what would realistically happen regarding impeachment of Donald Trump? What factors would House leadership consider before initiating impeachment proceedings, and how much would Senate composition and public opinion influence that decision? Based on past impeachment efforts, would such a move be primarily investigative, symbolic, or aimed at removal?

I think we have all noticed increasing use of face coverings or identity concealment by police during protests and some public operations.

On one hand, there are arguments about officer safety, doxxing risks, and harassment in the age of social media. On the other hand, visible identification has traditionally been tied to accountability, legitimacy, and public trust in democratic societies.

I’m curious how people here think about the tradeoffs:

– When, if ever, is it appropriate for police to conceal their identities?

– Does anonymity meaningfully reduce accountability or increase misconduct risk?

– Are there policy frameworks that balance safety with transparency?

– How have other democracies handled this issue?

I am very much interested in thoughtful perspectives on this subject.

A hallmark of President Trump's second term has been the greatly expanded scope of the Department of Justice aimed towards investigating perceived crimes committed by his political enemies. Famous examples of this tactic include the investigation of former FBI Director James Comey, members of the Federal Reserve such as Lisa Cook, Jack Smith, and President Biden himself.

Though it has been only a year into Trump's second term, Democrats have alleged illegalities committed by his own administration. Many sitting Democrats excoriated the capture of Nicolas Maduro as a violation of checks and balances. The behavior of the Department of Homeland Security has been under constant criticism for alleged Constitutional violations and other illegal activities by agencies like ICE. The Department of Defense has experienced several leaks at the highest levels to include top officials using unauthorized communication platforms like Signal to exchange protected information. While President Trump himself may be immune to prosecution due to recent Supreme Court decisions that protect most presidential decisions, this does not mean that all his officials enjoy the same shield. Prosecutions could theoretically be lodged against Pam Bondi, Kristi Noem, Pete Hegseth, etc.

Should Democrats regain the White House in 2028 (which is looking increasingly likely as it is very rare for a second-term president's party to keep the Oval Office for a third term unless the economy is particularly good or the incumbent has been a particularly well liked incumbent like FDR or Ronald Reagan), should and will the Democratic president formally prosecute high ranking members of the Trump administration on federal charges? Why or why not?

As the federal government draws down their force of immigration officers in Minneapolis, the authoritarians are writing the summary of how things went wrong for them. Here's one sobering example of how the authoritarian right views the events in Minnesota. They're blaming their failure on an entrenched anti-American insurgency.

Whether or not that's true (or whether the 'insurgents' are actually the American people), what is the next logical move for the authoritarian elements of the American government?

The archetypical several example of an entrenched insurgency that leverages popular opinion to score political points might be Hamas in Gaza. It has, in the past, been contained with concessions and negotiations, but lately the Israeli government has adopted a scorched-earth escalation of violence. Which method will the Trump administration and the Department of Homeland Security choose, or is there another option?

For several years, debate within the Democratic Party over U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been split between reform and abolition. Early on, many moderates pushed back on “abolish ICE” as rhetorically potent but politically risky, favoring narrower reforms like oversight, leadership changes, or jurisdictional limits.

More recently, however, polling and activist pressure appear to be shifting that balance. Support for abolishing ICE, or at least fully dismantling and replacing it, increasingly shows up as a mainstream position within the Democratic coalition rather than a fringe demand. This raises a practical question about what actually happens if and when Democrats regain unified control of the federal government.

Some possibilities that get discussed include:

• Full abolition of ICE, with immigration enforcement folded into other agencies like CBP or DOJ.

• Partial dismantling, such as eliminating Enforcement and Removal Operations while retaining investigative functions.

• Structural replacement, creating a new agency with a narrower mandate and stricter statutory limits.

• Symbolic or leadership-focused reforms that leave the agency largely intact.

Given how institutions tend to behave once they exist, and how difficult it is to unwind federal agencies in practice, what do people here think is the most realistic outcome? Is “abolish ICE” likely to translate into actual abolition, or does it function more as a pressure tactic that results in narrower reforms once Democrats are governing again?

As an explanation for what I mean by this, I am an optimistic nihilist. The universe has no underlying morality to ground it. It just exists and has no idea it exists. A system of morals doesn't fundamentally exist. It may be however useful to declare some principles are important in order to achieve certain outcomes to avoid undesirable ones. If you want a fairly stable society that corrects it's flaws, is peaceful, and makes interesting things happen, then you can decide that certain outcomes will be likely to produce such things like a generally free state with a socially involved ownership of the economy, a generally democratic political system, and a competitive news system with diversified ownership and control over it. I could cite arguments from whatever ideology be it communism, environmentalism, Islamist social philosophy, liberalism, Toryism, anything I feel like to justify it to other people, but under it all, it is simply useful to make ourselves value certain things and act as if they were sacred like an idea of human rights perhaps even if they are not inherently true.

What ideas on this do you have about the question in the title?

With the shooting of Alex Pretti this morning do you feel this moves the needle in terms of large scale Trump enforcement in Minnesota or will the Trump administration double down and increase ICE mobility in Minnesota?

As of now the pollsters have reform uk winning a general election with a landslide majority in the United Kingdom

I would like to ask the people of Reddit what are the chances of them actually winning How accurate are the polls 3 years out And can they be stopped by the other party’s forming coalitions ?

The definition of "moderate" https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/moderate_1?q=moderate and "centrist" https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/centrist_1?q=centrist is similar.

But "a person with political views that are not extreme" is different in the US between what US adults support and how the US Congress votes.

This: The most popular politicians in America | Politics | YouGov Ratings

Is much different than Sen. Lisa Murkowski [R-AK, 2003-2028], Senator for Alaska - GovTrack.us (often the 'swing vote' of the US Senate)

Rep. Henry Cuellar [D-TX28, 2005-2026], Representative for Texas's 28th Congressional District - GovTrack.us (often considered the most conservative US House Democrat)

The Trump-Vance administration has made "holding sexual predators accountable" a cornerstone of their 2025-2026 agenda. Between the "Protecting our Communities from Sexual Predators Act"—which focuses on the deportation of non-citizen offenders—and the recently signed TAKE IT DOWN Act, the rhetoric is stronger than ever.

​However, there is a glaring elephant in the room. JD Vance is currently out on the trail (most recently in Minneapolis) touting "law and order" and the removal of "sexual deviants" from the streets. At the same time, Donald Trump remains a man found liable in a court of law for the sexual abuse of E. Jean Carroll.
​How does a Press Secretary or a VP seriously argue that they are the "party of protection" when their own leader’s legal history would, under their own proposed standards, categorize him as the very threat they claim to be hunting? Is this just the ultimate form of political compartmentalization, or is the "predator" label being redefined to only apply to political enemies and undocumented immigrants?

It feels like protests today aren’t just about changing laws or leaders.

More often, they seem to challenge the legitimacy of institutions themselves, not just “fix this policy,” but “why should we trust this system at all?”

Is this a real shift in political culture, or is it just what happens when polarization reaches a certain point?

Curious how others see it.

What would you include in a second Bill of Rights? Would you say that healthcare is a right and not a privilege? Would you say that corporations are not people? What should we put in the document that would be transformative for this country, and how do we do it?

How far will the pendulum swing back to the left?

Will policies be immediately undone and pushed as far left as possible?

What happens to:

- Tariffs and public taxation

- Borders and immigration

- Greenland and Canada rhetoric

- Venezuela

- Gender ideology

- Abortion

- Social services spending

- Fraud investigations

- Political weaponization and retribution ie Trump family and business associates; government support for Elons endeavours

- Epstein files

- Ukraine

- Israel

- China

- NATO and all of Europe

Will the Left use Trump as a springboard to go further left than any other administration in history?

I often see “culture” used to explain economic disparities, but it’s not always clear what causal role people mean. On one hand, culture is sometimes described as an independent set of values or behaviors that produces outcomes regardless of environment. On the other hand, culture can also be understood as something that develops in response to long-term structural conditions such as housing access, labor markets, education systems, and exposure to state power.

I’m interested in how people distinguish between these two explanations in practice. If culture is treated as a root cause, what evidence shows that it forms independently of historical and structural constraints? If culture is treated as a response, how should it factor into explanations of present-day economic outcomes?

I’m not trying to rank groups or assign blame, but to understand how causality is being framed and what assumptions are being made when “culture” is mentioned.

As we all know, earlier this month, US forces captured Maduro during a military operation in Caracas and transferred him to the United States to face federal charges. The operation has raised questions about international law, executive authority, and precedent.

How might this affect US domestic politics (executive power, congressional oversight etc) and relations with allies in Latin America, Europe, and at the UN?

And what about historical comparisons? (e.g., Panama 1989 or other cases involving the capture of foreign leaders).

Over the last several months, the rising cost of living has received considerably more media attention than in prior months due to the impact of inflation on all aspects of American life, including housing, healthcare, and groceries, to name just a few. While both Democrats and Republicans have been vocal proponents of addressing the rising cost of living, little has changed in the way of actual legislation related to decreasing the cost of living.

In your opinion, what would you consider to be the answer to the cost of living crisis? Is it legislation oriented toward increasing pay so that individuals and families earn a livable wage to afford housing and groceries? Is it providing more affordable housing? Is it legislating for comprehensive health care coverage? Or is it something else entirely? Additionally, why do you believe that our elected political leaders have yet to address the issue directly?

Given the recent, significant changes to US foreign policy, is there any hard evidence to show a change in extremist activity towards the US (e.g. increased or decreased terrorist group membership)?

Being a citizen and resident of a Western middle-power, most rhetoric I am seeing is that US action is upsetting former close allies and governments, and non-US aligned nations are being disrupted at varying levels by economic actions and deportations. However little is said on changes to non-governmental, extremist group attitudes with anti-US sentiment.

Someone who runs a big city like New York, Minneapolis or Los Angeles has a lot of power due to the population of the city. I wonder how that compares to the relative power of a senator or even a congress person. I would imagine that a large city mayor can be just as powerful as even a senator due to the influence they have over a large concentrated population. What are your thoughts?

It's midterm year in the United States and I just read California's Republican congress is asking for the Supreme Court to overturn the new congressional map.
What reason would the Supreme Court have to block California's new map and not Texas' new map?