The first week of classes is filled with reading syllabuses, going over the basics and learning new names. Getting distracted is easy — it is a natural response when you find something boring. But not paying attention allows crucial information to slip past you. Miss too much material, and you may find yourself back in the class next semester.
Clearly, distractions can be harmful, and it seems now that planned sideshows are being weaponized by politicians to control public attention.
The recent news stories regarding President-elect Donald Trump’s tweets — regardless of subject — serve a clear purpose. It is a strategy to keep controversy out of the news. Purposefully distracting people was annoying during the election, but now that the new executive branch is being assembled and appointed, it is potentially harmful. This week’s appointments should be followed closely.
The executive branch of the United States is where politics, expertise and bureaucracy all collide. The president is often busy or away, so the cabinet holds great power over the trajectory of our nation.
Yet, the cabinet may be the least glamorous part of American politics. A lot of its work goes unnoticed because it is largely technical and can often be hidden in the bureaucratic process.
It is easy to get distracted by the sideshow Trump is creating. By all means, it is interesting to see the soon-to-be-president inciting Twitter wars with celebrities. While we probably all have our hot takes on Meryl Streep’s speech, these cabinet appointments are too worrisome to ignore.
There are too many appointees to go through all of them, and given the long political and business careers of many of the appointees, we do not have enough space to analyze their careers or their policy history line-by-line. Even if we could, it is unreasonable to say this board could find any sort of consensus on every nominee.
This editorial is a reminder to pay close attention to what is going on in 2017. You will find new reasons to be upset, new reasons to be encouraged and new reasons to be fearful. If you hate Trump, finding issues with his cabinet will not be hard. Even if you are a steadfast Trump supporter, you may be surprised by the cabinet nominees.
Perhaps a difficult thought experiment would be asking yourself if you would still feel the same if the context was changed. Think broadly about what that context means. Simply changing actors is not enough if one does not account for larger societal norms and constructs.
