Draining the swamp or clogging the drain?

With the inauguration of President-elect Trump looming, many are still uncertain of what his presidency is going to look like due to his fluid stance on many issues. To gain insight as to what a Trump administration may entail, people have begun looking at his cabinet appointments.

First is Trump’s nominee for Attorney General, Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama. Sessions has a checkered past, with many accusations of racism brought against him. In 1986 he was nominated by Ronald Reagan to a federal judgeship in Alabama, but was rejected by the Senate Judiciary due to concerns of Sessions’ ability to judge fairly and impartially.

At his hearing, four Department of Justice lawyers testified that he made racially offensive remarks, such as referring to a white lawyer as “a disgrace to his race,” which Sessions denied. He also said that he believed that the Ku Klux Klan was okay, until he found out that they smoked pot. Sessions admitted to saying this, although he claimed that he was joking.

His possible racism or bad sense of humor aside, he has also been vocal in his opposition to illegal immigration, his desire to cut down on legal immigration, his opposition to the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the Affordable Care Act, and same-sex marriage. It’s also worth noting that he was a supporter of the Iraq War, which was sold to the American people as a pack of lies.

Next is the possible new head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt. Pruitt is a lawyer from Oklahoma, who was made Oklahoma’s Attorney General in 2010. After his election he created a “Federalism unit” to “more effectively combat unwarranted regulation and systemic overreach by federal agencies, boards and offices,” according to his online biography.

Pruitt denies that climate change is linked to human activity — despite almost every scientist providing evidence to the contrary, and he has sued the EPA several times to try and block environmentally friendly regulations from going through. Pruitt also has a history of being a friend to the oil industry, in particular ExxonMobil — whose CEO is Rex Tillerson, the new Secretary of State — when it fell under investigation for hiding information about climate change.

These are just two of many questionable appointments that have been made by our President-elect. These nominees alone should be immensely concerning for everyone. A racist who was previously barred from federal office is about to be responsible for enforcing the laws of our nation. It’s a good thing that we don’t have a policing problem in our country, especially when it comes to police relations with minority groups.

A climate change denier who has defended big oil is about to be in charge of the agency responsible for protecting our environment from the harmful effects of human waste and pollution. Combine this with Trump’s claim that climate change is nothing more than a hoax being perpetrated by the Chinese, and the future of our planet begins to look very dire indeed.