Reactions to the First Four Weeks

“Over the last few months since the presidential election—and more recently since Trump’s inauguration—I’ve heard people joke about moving away from the United States. I’ve heard it from my friends, my family, and online: “If things go really badly, we’ll leave.” 

Why is it that people want to leave America? This country was considered by many to be a land of opportunity and freedom, and people still immigrate here for the same reason. But our ties to America do not appear as strong as we may have thought.

Prevalent issues perpetuated by Trump during the short time he’s been in office drive the discouraging sentiments that I’m hearing from people around me. Safety is one concern. More incidents have taken place on the subway, and there is a pervasive feeling that some people are acting more violent and dangerous as a result of far-right influence. Undocumented immigrants are under threat of violence. Armed groups have been empowered; leaders of radical organizations who participated in the January 6 riots have been pardoned by Trump. The economy is another major concern. Many young people feel pressure to have a successful career, but as a result of AI development and other rapidly changing industries, career paths are increasingly uncertain. On top of that, Trump has drastically increased tariffs on our strongest trading partners. Prices will go up since many of the products we use on a daily basis are made of imported parts.

Climate change is also a pressing matter, and we are unable to ignore its effects. Everyone remembers the Canadian wildfires that filled New York City with smoke and dust just two summers ago. Last summer was the hottest on record, and storms, fires, and natural disasters are constantly occurring. The recent fires in Los Angeles wreaked havoc on the city, and this will take much time and effort to reverse. Instead of offering solutions to lower the chance of such disasters, Trump left the Paris Agreement and has been discouraging climate research and funding to discover new forms of clean energy. 

Finally, the tone of politics has become very heated. Hearing politicians threaten others, such as how Trump made threats about what he’d do to Biden’s family if he won, can make people wary of speaking up and makes them feel hopeless about what will happen next. At a time when young people find it hard to share their voices and are fearful of what the future holds, America does not seem like the land of opportunity or hope. It is hard to maintain a sense of belonging in a country where we don’t feel safe, stable, and secure. Since a convicted felon is paving the way, it doesn’t seem like this will change anytime soon.” —Sasha Gogolin, freshman

“Just a day after President Trump’s inauguration, he announced his plans to invest billions of dollars to build artificial intelligence infrastructure in the United States. He emphasized the importance of investing in the establishment of AI development infrastructures to counter foreign advancement. With President Trump’s support, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and Oracle chairman Larry Ellison announced the creation of joint project Stargate, pledging up to $500 billion to finance massive infrastructure projects to power artificial intelligence. This announcement promises a bright future for artificial intelligence in the United States.

However, a week later, China introduced Deepseek, an open-source generative AI that can compete with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. They claimed it only cost six million dollars to create Deepseek—a fraction of Stargate’s cost. Deepseek has attracted many American users and recently became the most downloaded app in the United States’s App Store, posing a threat to America’s artificial intelligence dominance. Surprisingly, President Trump viewed this sudden development positively—a sign that artificial intelligence can be more affordably developed. Nevertheless, he framed Deepseek’s emergence as a “wake-up call” for American industry to be more alert in ensuring dominance in artificial intelligence. 

Following Deepseek’s emergence, President Trump met with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. Nvidia—a technology company that designs and supplies advanced computer chips—plays a vital role in artificial intelligence development. During the meeting, house committee leaders urged national security advisor Michael Waltz to consider the potential benefit of restricting exports of Nvidia’s semiconductors used by Deepseek. Given Nvidia’s essential role in artificial intelligence development, this export control would slow down artificial intelligence development in China. Although this would temporarily ensure American dominance, it may also pressure China to develop its own semiconductor technology to advance ambitions, resulting in growing tensions between the two world superpowers.

The Trump administration demonstrates a great commitment to advancing artificial intelligence with its announcement of Stargate. However, the sudden emergence of China’s Deepseek escalates tensions between the United States and China, marking the start of a global artificial intelligence race. To maintain dominance, the Trump administration must continue to invest in artificial intelligence development and take strategic measures to combat foreign competition.” —Junseo Lee, freshman 

“Donald Trump has been called a demagogue—a populist and person who outright disrupts the rule of law and often exploits the nation’s people. Greek philosophers coined the word “demagogue,” and it eventually evolved to be used in modern politics. The reason Trump has been labeled as such is that—similar to past demagogues—he undermines the rule of the law and is able to spread ideas by using frequent populist rhetoric. 

The word “demagogue” can be split into two components: “demos,” meaning the people, and “agogos,” meaning leader or guide. The word was originally used in a positive way, but slowly became a negative word. Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle were particularly critical of demagogues and viewed them as dangerous figures who could destabilize democracy. In Athenian democracy, demagogues often rose to power by appealing to poorer citizens and making false or unkeepable promises similar to Trump’s 2024 campaign. Trump has appealed to the lower class, promising lower grocery and gas prices. Trump’s leadership style aligns with many historical examples of demagoguery. He frequently attacks others that have different opinions and other democratic institutions that threaten him and his beliefs. He was labeled as a “ threat to democracy” in 2024; despite this, he still won as a result of his populist policies.

Another word to describe the U.S right now could also be oligarchy where power is concentrated in a small number of people. Despite many of Trump’s cabinet picks being unqualified to run a country, they may still hold a vast amount of power in government. After Donald Trump’s inauguration, Elon Musk entered federal politics. Musk donated millions of dollars to the Trump campaign and aligned himself with Trump. Musk’s role and other Big Tech leaders in Trump’s campaign had a large amount of influence over the election. Regardless of Trump’s policies and his last term, he is popular because of the rash promises he has made. He has exploited concerns about the country’s future in order to win. However, the majority of the promises he has made will not be kept, and incoming tariffs will only make things more expensive. This acts directly against most Americans’ wishes. Along with other unkept vows, this will only hurt our country, despite Trump’s promises during his campaign.” —Lawerence Hicks, freshman

“Our presidential system descends from colonial legislatures when Great Britain still ruled us. But, across the Atlantic, Great Britain—and the larger United Kingdom—moved in a different direction, fusing two branches into effectively one sovereign power: Parliament.

In the United Kingdom, the opposition is generally powerless to stop the governing parties. Lords in the House of Lords can rarely stop a determined government. Unlike in the United States, there is no written constitution that binds parliaments in the judiciary. Parliament can generally do whatever it wants and the most the courts can do is issue a “declaration of incompatibility” with the European Convention on Human Rights. All they can do is watch and wait until the next election; hopefully, the governing party is rejected for their policies and the opposing party wins power.

In the United States, our extensive system of checks and balances generally prevents vast power accumulation. However, many American governing politicians have, for better or for worse, been elected on platforms that would fundamentally uproot American society. Thus, there is popular support for these policies. Today, until there is a catastrophic impact, people will continue to carelessly vote for a harmful party so long as that party only incrementally harms our system. 

This would befuddle Americans used to a concept of an opposition being obstructionists, but such a phenomenon is very much American and has only become widespread. The opposition has the role of both obstructing the policy of the governing party and defeating the governing party, but the latter comes first. As is commonly attributed to Napoleon, “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” You need to win elections to stop the governing party from continuing to enact their policy, and sometimes part of that is making their policy a referendum on the party, especially if the policy is disastrous. 

Donald Trump can lay claim to an electoral mandate for at least the next two years and, likely, the next four years. Unlike in 2016, he won the popular vote, and he has slim majorities in both houses of Congress. These next four years will be horrific, but the American people may deserve, for better or for worse, the consequences of what they voted for.” — Muhib Muhib, senior

“As I read the news these past few weeks, I’ve wondered whether I’m reading about Trump’s mass deportation plans or Hitler’s initial policies that led to the Holocaust. As Trump seeks to blur the lines between “undocumented criminals” and nearly all immigrants of color, the parallels between America in 2025 and Germany in the 1930s are uncanny.

Trump’s key strategy for gaining support for his horrific mass deportation policy is rooted in his highly-contagious degrading rhetoric. He refers to an influx of immigrants into the United States as an “invasion;” he evokes fear and immigrant hate through false narratives about immigrant sexual offenders; he dehumanizes them as “animals” and as having “bad genes.”  Finally, Trump scapegoats immigrants as the cause of economic struggle, claiming they aim to take over American jobs. 

These tactics are horrifyingly familiar; along with every form of propaganda imaginable, Hitler spent much of his political career creating a false, derogatory, and sub-human narrative about Jews; he evoked a nation-wide fear that Jews would eventually cause the German economy’s downfall. This narrative led to the mass deportation of Jews to labor and concentration camps and, eventually, to the extermination of six million Jews. 

To the horror of millions, Trump announced plans to turn Guantanamo Bay—a military base used as an inhumane prison for those suspected of terrorism following 9/11—into a “tent-city” for deported immigrants, This is part of his first steps towards creating deportation camps that mirror those in the Holocaust. Trump has justified his actions with arguments about overpopulation and criminal immigrant activity. Yet, ICE has begun to question, raid, and detain Navajo Native Americans, operating on the basis of racial-profiling. 

This suggests a society-wide fall and governmental pivot to extremist hate policy; it utilizes similar mechanisms as during World War II. For example, on February 3, Trump invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to justify a mass deportation of people during, very much, not a time of war. The last time the act was invoked was to justify the internment camps of Japanese, Italian, and Germans in America. This shouldn’t surprise anyone: Trump vowed to enact the largest deportation of immigrants in history, yet 49.97 percent of Americans’ voted for him. 

Hitler was also elected into power. 

Trump’s policies mirror Hitler’s, but understanding this shouldn’t create a sense of hopelessness because there are two crucial differences between America in 2025 and Germany during the height of the Holocaust—our democracy and freedom of press. Although freedom of speech is increasingly challenged, sharing ideas and advocating for what we believe in is the most powerful form of resistance. The parallels between Trump’s and Hitler’s immigration policies should remind us that our rights to vote and advocacy are crucial; if we learn from history, we will be vigilant in protecting journalists’ ability to report and voters’ ability to pull the lever.” — Maxanne Wallace-Segall, sophomore