Soon after Joe Biden officially won the 2020 presidential election, speculation surrounded what the president-elect’s political appointments would look like. As names started rolling in, it became obvious that the emphasis by the media and the public was going to be a shallow diversity lens. The headlines speak for themselves: Biden created an all-female communications team! The first-ever Latino could lead the Department of Homeland Security! The youngest person to ever be named National Security Adviser is headed to the White House!
I get it: Part of the excitement and utter relief of the Biden transition is watching the president-elect’s team announce new appointees and nominees who have at least a baseline level of competence and experience — and who haven’t promoted the work of white nationalists or unapologetically spent taxpayer money on air travel. People have said during this political era that the bar is the floor, but I say it’s the earth’s inner core at this point.
For the last four years, every new nomination or hire by Donald Trump’s administration felt like a further descent into bureaucratic asininity and/or abject cruelty. We have a Secretary of Education who didn’t appear to know the basics of education policy during her confirmation hearing. We have at least one federal judge who had never tried a case in court. We have Rudy Giuliani doing whatever the hell Rudy Giuliani does. After this demoralizing era, we just want people who are better than these terrifying clowns. We want people who at least have résumés that make sense for the positions they’re in. We want people who can stop the metaphorical (and, in some instances, physical) bleeding. We want people whom we know can get the job (or at least a job) done.
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But that doesn’t mean we can’t have higher standards for Biden, his cabinet, and his administration. The progressive wing of the party, for example, has taken issue with Office of Management and Budget nominee Neera Tanden, and while many say her appointment won’t be the hill they die on, they still deserve to have their grievances heard. Rahm Emanuel has also faced heat ever since his name was floated to be a Secretary of Transportation nominee, due to his record as mayor of Chicago, where, amongst many issues, opponents alleged that his administration covered up the shooting of teenager Laquan McDonald by a police officer — an accusation Emanuel has denied. Biden’s pick as director national intelligence, Avril Haines, would be the first woman to serve in that role, but she also happens to be considered “the architect” of Obama’s drone warfare strategy. And Biden nominating Alejandro Mayorkas to become Secretary of Homeland Security doesn’t change the department’s deep-seated historic problems.
Considering that Biden wouldn’t be in office if it wasn’t for Black, Indigenous, and Latinx voters, in addition to capturing the majority of the electorate amongst women, young people, and middle- and low-income voters, it’s crucial to hold his transition team’s feet to the fire and to hear what those constituencies want out of his term as president. If the Trump administration’s barely existent attempts at diversity have shown us anything, it’s that superficial representation isn’t enough if it isn’t coupled with strong ideals and action. Biden owes these voters that. The appointment of officials like Marcella Nunez-Smith, Yale University’s associate dean for Health Equity Research, to his COVID-19 equity task force is the kind of move the new administration should be making.
