It’s been a fantastic two weeks for presidential primary news since we last gathered for this column, dear reader. We’ve seen the press conferences, the special counsel report, the “Dark Brandon” memes, the extremely threatening statements made against NATO allies. There’s no use skirting around how uncomfortable or angry those have made many of us voters feel — especially those goddamn memes. Get those red eyes away from me, Joe!

But for those needing to shed off that layer of secondhand embarrassment, much like a sweaty leather jacket, I’d love for you to step into my office and read about yet another part of government we forget about constantly: the staff who work for elected officials.

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The idea came to me after reading the comment section under an opinion piece by The New York Times, where some person named Fry from Walnut Creek, California, wrote, “Vote for the team. Not the man.” 

Now, while we have no idea if Fry is a real person with deep political knowledge or a literal Shih Tzu from a Jersey suburb, they brought up a good point: No matter what level of government you’re electing someone to, it’ll never be up to that single name on the ballot alone to get the job done or fulfill promises.

Most of us couldn’t even fathom how large each branch of the federal government actually is. In the 100-large Senate chamber alone, there are 4,162 staffers working in all the offices, shaking down to roughly 40 per elected official split between Washington, D.C., and their multiple statewide offices. 

This, by the way, isn’t counting the additional several hundred that help keep each committee running, such as the Senate Committee on the Judiciary (the one that confirms justices and other nominations, but also provides some of the craziest sound bites you’ve ever seen).

The White House staff totals to about 1,800 per administration, made up of both political and nonpolitical appointees hired at the discretion of the president and their chief of staff. 

The whole executive branch, including agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security and the Food and Drug Administration, totals thousands of staffers handling every job imaginable — from creating rules and regulations, helping communities affected by natural disasters, recalling foods from grocery stores to handling the general, just-as-important office work to keep the gears turning.

But why give a damn about the staff? Well, it doesn’t take a genius (like me, in some lucid moments) to tell you that the staff positions at the upper rungs of the government are both highly politicized and barely glossed over by members of the public. 

They have some of the biggest, most important jobs we could ever offer someone, and we do ourselves harm by not caring who our candidates might seat in those chairs, especially when the senators we voted for have the responsibility to vet them in the public eye as well. Plus, in recent decades, it’s become an even more threatening environment for high-level staff to even keep their jobs with a stagnant, divided Congress.

Just yesterday, for instance, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives impeached former Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas — the man in charge of overseeing our border security, Citizenship and Immigration Services, and the U.S. Coast Guard, to name a few — in a near-party-line vote.

Back during President Obama’s administration, the issue of installing pivotal federal judges was even worse, let alone the staffers — 90 positions (or 10% of the whole federal judiciary) stood vacant, with even noncontroversial candidates waiting for years to be confirmed as he battled with a Republican Senate.

Such lower-profile staffers, directors and officers are getting crammed into the carry-on luggage of each presidential ticket, but when they get unpacked into their new administrations, they could be given sweeping authority: They may run entire agencies, meet with world leaders during war with no public input or damage an entire administration’s image with the slightest misstep.

Public trust is a fickle thing, but no matter what, a position at the highest rungs of the government ladder will always rely on trust for its power and legitimacy. The teams that former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden bring to their administrations will matter equally to the figureheads themselves if given a second term.

CJ Haddad is a junior writing about local, state and federal laws we use in our daily lives. She is also the managing editor at the Daily Trojan. Her column, “Public Disclosure,” runs every other Thursday.