How has the second Trump administration impacted Wesleyan University students’ hometowns? What can students from outside the New York City, Los Angeles, and Boston metropoles add to that conversation?
The Argus sought out members of the class of 2029 from Austin, Texas, Washington, D.C., and Johnson City, Tenn. to hear about their home communities and how they feel in their new liberal arts bubble.
UsZee McKoy ’29 from Austin, Texas
McKoy, a prospective government major hailing from Austin, Texas, described the city as “a mix of artists, very traditional people, [and] a lot of activism.”
“Austin is kind of the exception to Texas,” McKoy said. “Texas is a good old boy state: very rural, very conservative. Austin is kind of in the middle as ‘liberal-progressive.’”
McKoy explained the particular impact that the current Trump Administration has had on his home city in the Republican state.
“In contrast to a lot of the students who come from California and the Northeast, where you all have Democratic [leaders],” he said. “Texas has [had] Republican Party [leadership] for the past 30 years.”
Current changes in Texas, he explained, might not be caused directly by the Trump Administration, but have certainly been amplified by his return to the White House.
“We recently had changes regarding our congressional maps in the state of Texas, and now they have been completely gerrymandered more than they were before,” McKoy said. “Now the vote of a Black Texan is 1/5 of that of a white Texan.” In August, the NAACP sued Texas, in partnership with the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, claiming that the passage of the new electoral map construed racial gerrymandering, reducing the worth of Black votes.
Trump’s policies, McKoy shared, have affected people he knows personally.
“[Due to] the administration’s hard stance against DEI and higher ed, I know many professors who are at risk of losing their jobs at the University of Texas,” McKoy said. “My mother’s office [The Austin Office of Equity and Inclusion] is under investigation by the Department of Justice. [I also know] members in my community who have been taken by ICE.”
Arriving at Wesleyan, McKoy said, has been “a big culture shock.”
“[T]here seems to be kind of an ignorance about why people voted for Trump in the recent election,” he said. “I wish that a lot of my classmates would understand that Donald Trump is not the end-all…he didn’t cause these problems…he’s simply amplifying them…Those in the Northeast are very ignorant of that, because they are in a liberal bubble.”
McKoy explained that, while he likes Wesleyan and enjoys living in a different part of the country, he misses certain elements of home. He also wished that students viewed politics as existing “on a spectrum, not in a vacuum” and emphasized that “it’s important that Wesleyan encourages dissent and doesn’t bow down to this administration in any way, shape, or form.”
Hannah Wiener ’29 in Washington, D.C.
From Texas, The Argus traveled up to Washington, D.C. to hear about Wiener’s experience.
Wiener explained the feeling of instability that has enveloped D.C. since Trump came back into office.
“You can tell people are a little more on edge, especially because in D.C., the majority of households have at least one person who has worked or is currently working for the government.”
When the National Guard was stationed in D.C. this past summer, Wiener explained that D.C. citizens were fearful of protesting on No King’s Day on June 14.
“We were afraid of tanks coming in and shooting us,” she said.
Wiener also discussed her mother’s experience as Deputy Chief of the Disability Rights Section in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice.
“My mom…was forced to resign within the first three months of Trump’s [second] term, because her boss, who ran the Disability Rights Section…was demoted to basically do the work of a paralegal,” Wiener said. “[The entire Disability Rights Section] was reassigned…and totally fell apart.”
In April 2025, the Trump Administration provided the option for all federal workers to resign with pay through August or to continue working and risk getting fired at any time.
Wiener’s mother and (many other former D.C. federal employees) are currently unemployed.
In comparing her experience living at Wesleyan to growing up in D.C., Wiener expressed a certain comfort in being away from the city.
“I am a little relieved to be in a bubble and have a break from the intensity of D.C., because everyone is always thinking about what the Trump Administration has just done.”
While she enjoys the break from the turbulence of D.C., Wiener confessed feeling regret for leaving.
“I also do feel a bit guilty,” she said. “A lot of people…are really suffering, and I feel like it’s necessary to try and help in any small way you can.”
Abby Slap ’29 in Johnson City, Tenn.
The Argus got a rural perspective from Slap, a prospective English and Film Studies double major from Johnson City, Tenn.
“[Johnson City] is very small…a lot of single-family homes,” Slap said. “In the distance, a lot of farmland and smaller former coal communities…the downtown area was very gritty and dilapidated, and it felt like people had left it behind.”
According to Slap, Johnson City has changed a lot since COVID-19.
“The town began popping up on ‘Best Of’ lists of places with a low cost of living, good to raise a family in, and so a lot of conservative people from liberal states like New York, California, and Colorado were suddenly moving into the city in droves.”
Slap said the local population feels mixed about these sudden changes.
“Ironically, with all of these people coming in for a low cost of living, it has jacked up things like home prices,” Slap said. “While at the same time, people are obviously excited whenever we get bigger chains like Chipotle.”
Additionally, Slap explained, the Trump Administration has affected education in Johnson City by allowing half of the government-funded private school vouchers to go to families outside of the income threshold. Vaccination rates have also gone down: Last year, “20% of the incoming kindergarteners didn’t have all their vaccines,” Slap said.
In addition, Slap’s mother, a former public school teacher, remembers that teachers were advised in 2020 “to just take books out of their classroom in case there was one that a parent could challenge.” Though Slap notes that these issues have been “on the boiler plate for longer [than Trump has been in office],” his policies have, in certain ways “made education actively hostile towards people trying to learn.”
Slap recounted a family friend from Mexico whom the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office deported.
“The community hasn’t really been able to rally around people in the same way that other communities have when there are ICE raids,” Slap said.
“[At Wesleyan], you read something on the news, and it doesn’t [seem to be affecting people],” she said. “It feels more hidden, because we’re also all having a Wesleyan experience at the same time.”
Jade Acker can be reached at jacker01@wesleyan.edu.
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