Since the popularization of television in the 1950’s and the rapid expansion of the Internet in the 90’s and early turn of the century, the United States has seen a great number of administrations and several points of view on each. We have gone from the incredibly popular Kennedy rhetoric being viewed by the masses to the sometimes silly offhand comments of George W. Bush (which often earned him criticism from the media). With television, the Internet and the other forms of popular media, we are now able to follow the daily decisions and actions of our current administration. Not only does the White House have a website, but there are separate twitter accounts for both the President and the White House. It makes sense that a modern government needs more modes of communication with its people, but having so many forms of following the government means that it is now under more scrupulous eyes than it has ever been before. If you have been following any form of news in the past year, you should have noticed that this most recent presidential race has been anything but ordinary, as has the administration that followed. Never before has any President not placed his major business holdings in a blind trust before taking office, and never before has the President ever placed family members without previous political experience in such high positions.
A fair question to ask is just how much these precedents matter and if they are even worth keeping up. My personal answer would be a very strong yes to both; still retaining any control of a private business you held before taking a public office introduces a strong conflict of interest to the office and the decisions you make. Even if you try your best to remain unbiased, your decisions are bound to more doubt and questions if you still own or have influence over any part of your corporation (which the President gave to his sons Don Jr. and Eric). The other precedent that Trump has shattered is the placement of his daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner in high positions within his administration. Ivanka is named a regular employee of the White House (and as such, is being paid) and serves as an advisor while Jared Kushner is currently the senior advisor to the President, having held a variety of different official titles prior to now. The presence of these family members in these positions has been largely questioned by several media outlets and journalists, wondering if this administration will be seen as an impulsive and incoherent — only time will tell.
The Trump administration is not the first to involve family; the Kennedy and Clinton administrations both involved family members. Both Jacqueline Kennedy and Hillary Clinton went above and beyond as first ladies, and John F. Kennedy appointed his brother Robert as Attorney General. However, it is important to note that Robert had nine years of prior political experience and also served as counsel and advisor to several different Senate committees, while Jared Kushner and the Trumps all are coming straight out of the business world. One might describe them as political outsiders, and this would not be the first time one was elected. Jimmy Carter famously ran for President as a ‘Washington outsider’ and won by a landslide, associating himself in a way similar to Andrew Jackson’s comparison of himself to the ‘common man’ over a century and a half earlier. However, this is the first time someone has been elected to the presidency with absolutely no political experience whatsoever, and he selected several more people with little experience to be his advisors.
Jared Kushner is shaping up to be more paramount to Trump and his foreign policy decisions than any cabinet member, which all had to go through formal confirmations with the Senate. So figures such as Rex Tillerson and Neil Gorsuch must be scrupulously studied and discussed in order to be an advisor to the President in his official cabinet, in hearings that can take upwards of three days, but the President’s son-in-law can be selected without any formal process to become the executive right-hand man? Kushner has just recently embarked on a trip to Iraq (in lieu of the actual Secretary of State or National Security Advisor) in order to act as an emissary of the Trump administration to express support for the Iraqi government and be briefed on the steps they are taking to prevent terrorism. Usually, it has been the role of the entire cabinet to act as the President’s eyes, ears, and mouthpiece when dealing with foreign powers, but this novice to the White House is taking on a role that he has not been officially designated and is ill-prepared for.
man running in forestPhoto by 
