It feels like the actions of the current president or his administration inspire a great deal of questions these days, and I feel it induces and uncomfortable strain of current focus into the sub when people ask about something only because the president said it, or they are wondering how this similar event played out in the past only so it can be a parable to a current situation (which may be a flawed application ) of the present administration and not for the sake of the past itself.
I'd recommend you to take a look at our thoughts in this thread. Though it's from a few months ago, it addresses a similar issue. While we acknowledge that questions inspired by current events, but not about them live in a weird grey area of our 20-year rule, we also understand that headlines can generate genuine interest in historical topics. All we ask is that questions be framed in a purely historical manner that remove the need to interpret ongoing events. For instance:
Have we had a president like Trump?
vs.
Who was the first federal employee found to violate the Emoluments Clause?
We do take some efforts to contain the questions you are concerned about. If five users ask about the same quote from a politician in one evening, we typically redirect them and potential respondents to a single thread. Also, we often post a megathread to compile questions on significant events. But we have no interest in outright restricting questions in good faith on any topic (though some previous events might suggest otherwise). We all have topics we'd like to see more or less of, yet even when a certain question type becomes an obnoxious meme repeated, we prefer to err on the side of fewer topical limits.
Questions that ask "how bad/corrupt/worst of all time/etc was (any president after 1997)" are going to be removed.
Questions that ask "so (any president after 1997) did _____, how does that compare to past presidents" are fair game.
You can read more about the rationale for our current events rule in this Rules Roundtable, but the short version of it is: Drawing comparisons from history to current events is one of the basic reasons we study history. Asking "how did people do this in the past" and "what is the historical precedent for doing things" is fairly standard in terms of what historians do.
Now of course, the issue for the mod-team is that in a thread about, say, the current president firing someone who is investigating them, we need to draw a line between what people in the past did and how it colors our interpretation of current events. We have, however, on balance decided that while taking about current events per se is out of scope here, talking about how past events are like current events is acceptable.
That all said, though, if you're seeing a thread that looks funny, or comments that seem out of place, please use the handy dandy "report" button and let us know!
If historians cannot look to the past for some insight/parable/comparison to the present, then who can? This is not the only function of the study history, to be sure, but it is one of its functions, and I don't think it's too controversial a statement to suggest historians can — and should — contribute to conversations about the present, with reference to the past. (Knowing as any good historian does, of course, that the past is no certain guide to the future.)
It is strange to me that one would suggest otherwise. If you don't want to read the questions or their answers... then just avert your eyes.