Every day, there seems to be too much news pouring from the White House for anybody to make sense of what’s happening. I’m a political science major, and I can hardly find the time to watch tariff-related updates vaporizing my investments before Elon Musk guts the next department of thousands of federal employees. So how do you make sense of all this?
To put it simply: you’re not supposed to. Donald Trump is using a strategy devised by Steve Bannon, his former chief strategist who has since fallen out of favor with the president (to put it lightly). In an interview with PBS, Bannon said, “Every day we hit them [the media] with three things. They’ll bite on one, and we’ll get all of our stuff done.”
How many of us have the time to sift through dozens of articles (not just the headlines), while also being a student? That’s the point. Trump’s strategy is to flood media outlets to the point where they can’t write about it all, and we can’t read about it all. A lot of what he does is political posturing and pandering, but don’t let that distract from what does matter.
Things like declaring English the national official language and renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America really have no inherent value. These are just actions that relate to his supporters that Trump puts (an extremely narrow version of) America first, especially considering over thirty states had already designated English as their official language.
However, the Associated Press’ access to the White House and the privilege of flying with the president on Air Force One has been severely restricted as a result of the news agency’s refusal to adhere to Trump’s renaming of the Gulf. The White House has since announced that it will be choosing which reporters are allowed to ask questions at its venues. Needless to say, it is alarming to see a president attempt to wield undue control over the media, instrumental to the functioning of a healthy democracy.
It can be easy to feel desensitized to Trump’s rhetoric around immigrants and transgender people, but we absolutely can not be complicit in it. How much civil rights progress has the United States made if the president can call people “savages” in a joint address and members of congress can use anti-trans slurs or misgender colleagues and go unreprimanded by the chair? History is full of leaders who have demonized minority groups to self-interestedly exploit populist sentiment. This is no different.
All I hope is that you take a few minutes out of your day to check the news, despite how difficult it can be. We need to know what’s happening if we are to make a difference. Our generation is the next to inherit the world. Civil rights progression isn’t guaranteed. If we get complacent in thinking that everything is going to be okay, it will be too late before we realize it’s not. We are the stewards of our fellow beings. We should act like it.
