In a democracy, accountability is non-negotiable. Accountability ensures all perspectives are accurately portrayed, maintains trust with citizens, and minimizes the abuse of power.
So why has the Trump administration left every terrible disaster unscathed?
Ever since Trump’s first term in office, secrets have been held, and minimal accountability for situations such as official records, national security and scientific research has been taken; this behavior has only worsened in the administration’s second term. The Trump administration must end its culture of secrecy and irresponsibility.
In the middle of Trump’s first term, he failed to resolve the issue of family separation across borders.
According to the American Immigrant Council, the Government Accountability Office found that federal agencies failed to properly assess the “zero tolerance” policy (mandated the criminal prosecution for all adults who crossed the border illegally) and did not consider the long-term effects it could have on families.
Officials from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) were unaware of the policy implemented until it was announced publicly. The DHS and HHS did not have a steady procedure to determine if a child had been separated from their family until weeks after the policy had been stopped, and the ORR shelter staff were sometimes not aware that a child had been separated until the child had informed them.
The administration never took accountability, with Trump deflecting and blaming others.
Later that term in 2019, COVID-19 began to rise. According to PubMed Central, the administration attempted to minimize the threat of the virus by comparing it to the “seasonal flu,” furthering a lack of belief in medicine and the scientific practices that surround the medical field. The president’s mindset on public health was criticized throughout the entirety of the pandemic.
This strategy of public denial and secrecy is responsible for the nation’s failure to keep safe during COVID-19. This political dismissal led to a failure of the organizational bureaucracy, delaying critical national testing and supply chains for essential personal protective equipment. By the time the administration accepted the severity of the virus, the chance for early containment had been lost.
According to the HHS, the initial test kits were useless due to the contamination of the N1 probe (an important component for determining if the virus was positive or not) and a lack of design of the N3 probe (another detector), which resulted in inaccurate tests and a lack of lab progress, which delayed everything even further.
The administration acted to prioritize their political perspective rather than American citizens.
A new issue, rife throughout Trump’s second term, has been the removal of scientific information and critical scientific practices, as well as the lack of transparency about the filtering and altering of these changes.
According to Columbia Law School, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) deleted the new scientific integrity policy from their website on Aug. 21. This highlights the administration’s complete and utter lack of responsibility, action, and accountability. One of the most notable examples is the EPA’s instruction to scientists in the Office of Water (a division of the EPA responsible for protecting the U.S. population from water pollution) to pause the publication of their research while processing information on a new review procedure as of September.
A presidency must be built on a foundation of trust for a strong term.
Another recent failure of the administration during their second term has been the restriction of academic freedom. As explained by the Presidents’ Alliance, there has been a consistent effort to halt in-state tuition availability for students who are undocumented while also opening civil rights federal investigations into universities offering undocumented students scholarships all because of some political sway.
The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights claimed these violated Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act by demonstrating prejudice against U.S. citizens based on their national origin status. According to the Harvard Gazette, Harvard rejected demands from the Trump administration though he threatened to remove a huge chunk of funding from key science programs.
The Trump administration has failed to take accountability in many ways all while pressuring companies and agencies to place secrecy not so secretly around critical scientific processes. The president’s administration has never looked this bad. Not only is this culture of secrecy and unaccountability wounding citizens, but it is forcing agendas that the administration has no right to push.
The only way to earn public trust is to have open communication and recognize American rights and freedoms because without any of that, the presidency is simply just a businessman profiting from the lies he creates.
