Today’s politicians are under an unprecedented amount of scrutiny. Neither major party candidate is able to make a move without the whole world screaming and turning to social media to voice and rapidly spread their opinion, or even possible misinformation.

It’s ironic that presidential scandals are highlighted and spread via technology because they often also manifest themselves due to technology. We know this to be true in regards to Hillary Clinton and her deleted emails.

Due to the technology that is available today and the world in which we live, politicians aren’t able to get away with the kinds of scandals that presidents of the past were able to.

This is a time in history where technology has advanced far enough to allow for a private email server to be used by a candidate. This is also a time where there is enough tracking and transparency to catch any mishandling of that technology.

This is something old-timey presidents did not have to deal with. Think of all the historic scandals that were probably never made public due to papers being shredded to unreadable scraps, or untraceable phone calls being made.

It’s not that politicians are any less untrustworthy, or that sketchy things definitely haven’t been happening in our country’s past — we just weren’t able to know about it on the same level as we are now.

As a result, things are easily blown completely out of proportion. Clinton is labeled a liar, while historic presidents are revered. Debate time is used to focus on Hillary’s emails rather than important issues, even when she has already admitted in the past that using a personal server was a mistake. A minor email scandal turns into something that cannot be put to rest, and ends up inhibiting dialogue of far more important issues.

Sunday night’s debate showcased this. Early on, Donald Trump jumped to saying he would jail Hillary Clinton if made president. He claimed she deserved to be investigated and jailed because of the 33,000 emails she allegedly deleted in violation of a congressional subpoena.

More specifically, saying he would “get a special prosecutor to look into [Hillary’s] situation because there’s never been so many lies, so much deception,” that “there has never been anything like this.” He goes on to accuse her of “[getting] a subpoena and after getting the subpoena, [deleting] 33,000 emails and then [acid washing] them or [bleaching] them.”

But this scrutiny isn’t rooted in fact. FBI director James Comey has said over and over that there isn’t evidence that Hillary’s emails were deleted in attempt to hide them, and that they were in fact deleted before any subpoenas had been issued, but the scrutiny and hyper-focus on these emails remains.

A minor email scandal should not come close to Trump’s vast array of issues, from how he speaks of women to his lack of qualifications. A minor email scandal gets in the way of discussing issues that matter—and leads to far too much scrutiny. This wouldn’t even be an issue if not for our technology heavy age.

Krystyna is a junior in English.

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