Out of site, out of mind

In the "Public Surveillance" section of this week's reading, Graber and Dunaway discuss the power of the media to determine what issues will become important to the public and which issues will be largely ignored. This made me think of the contrast in immigration policies between the Obama and Trump administrations. Although President Trump has certainly amplified the humanitarian crisis at the border and implemented abusive policies such as systematically separating children from their parents, some of the damaging policies taking place at the boarder preceded the Trump Administration. For instance, the practice of "kids in cages" is not new. I'm not pointing this out in defense of Trump-- let me emphasize again, his immigration policies are damaging and abusive; however, I think that this is an important reminder in the context of this chapter. As Graber and Dunaway write, "[C]onditions that might be tolerated in obscurity can become intolerable in the glare of publicity". It is definitely good that these issues have come into "the glare of publicity"-- people are paying attention and fighting against these policies now, but the fact that some of these policies are not new serves as a reminder that just because we don't hear about it doesn't mean that there isn't a problem. If we'd been paying attention five years ago, how would the world look different now?