Jacinda Webber

When Donald Trump became president of the United States the first time, William Coleman ’25 was twelve years old.

Now a graduating senior from Yale College eyeing a job in Washington in a House representative’s office, Coleman is reflecting on what it meant to become politically aware in the first term and what it means to be leaving Yale during the second.

“In a way, I feel like my generation and Trump have a bond,” Coleman wrote to the News. “As he learned about how the federal government works, so did we. Every novel aspect of government for us is understood in part by what effect Trump would have on it and what effect it would have on Trump.”

Trump’s presidential victories in both 2016 and 2024 gave rise to varied responses by Yale students — from surprise and disappointment in 2016 to “quiet acceptance” last fall. 

Coleman is one of many Yalies whose political careers have been impacted by two terms of Trump. Others still noted that Trump’s ascendance mirrored conservative entrenchment on campus. 

Trump and campus climate 

Swayed from libertarianism by the conservative discourse on campus, former president of the Buckley Institute and chairman of the Tory Party Trevor MacKay ’25 said that he will leave Yale “extremely conservative.”

“Yale and New Haven helped illuminate what I now perceive to be the excesses of liberalism, which placed me more in line with what some have termed the ‘New Right’ than I was before I came to campus,” MacKay said. “I think my politics were encouraged by the Trump presidency, and being at Yale has only strengthened my resolve as a conservative.”

During her time at Yale, Stephanie Hu ’25 was active on Yale’s political scene, coming into college “pretty liberal.” However, Hu said that she has struggled to cling to the label over the last four years.

A former floor leader of the Right for the Yale Political Union, Hu said Trump’s influence over the last decade has been so sustained and potent that she can’t recall what pre-Trump-era political conversation looked like.

Hu described the YPU as a “refreshing space” that lacked the self-censorship she observed in other spaces across campus. 

“When I came to Yale, I found myself questioning this overt attention to rhetoric and politically comforting language,” Hu said. “I think the turning point really came during the two election cycles I have seen on campus, when I found myself questioning whether I was not being fed the same meaningless talking points that the left has attacked Trump for.”

MacKay said that being conservative at Yale, to him, means resisting the status quo. 

“I came to Yale with the determination to never shy away from my political beliefs, so when others at Yale rejected me for my politics, these places welcomed me with open arms,” MacKay said. “The era of Trump did make leadership of these institutions more difficult than I anticipated, but this merely strengthened my resolve during the course of my leadership. After all, if you stand for something, you are bound to make somebody upset somewhere.”

Leaving Yale, MacKay hopes to remain well-spoken and engaged about his ideologies through intelligent discourse. However, he remains fervent in never being open to political compromise.

Yalies look to future careers 

Coleman, who plans to work on Capitol Hill, said he understands why many of his peers are disinterested in the prospect of doing so in the midst of so much political chaos. He is optimistic, though, that in the coming months and once the dust settles, good, impactful policies will begin to emerge from the meetings of lawmakers.

“I’m a Democrat trying to work in a hostile Congress where my party has no control,” Coleman said. “I figure if I enjoy Washington under these conditions, I’ll enjoy it under any conditions.”

Katherine Chou ’25 will also work in Washington at the Congressional Budget Office, analyzing how proposed legislation would affect the federal budget and its broader macroeconomic impact. 

Chou’s interest in policy was born in high school, where she was intrigued by bioethics and the regulation of science and technology.

“At that time, many debates on basic research funding and early AI strategy were still handled in a bipartisan way,” Chou said. “But watching Donald Trump’s presidency during those formative years showed me how that equilibrium can shift. Tariff decisions framed as national security tools, the day-one revocation of President Biden’s 2023 AI executive order and a noticeably softer line on Big Tech antitrust from the White House all show how adviser networks and partisan incentives can redirect policy almost overnight.”

She believes that Trump’s second term in office is defined largely by “Dark Enlightenment” ideas entering high levels of government and the ominous influences of donors and Silicon Valley figures such as Marc Andreessen, Peter Thiel and Elon Musk.

Chou plans to watch over the next four years to see how Trump’s reign will affect the structure and legitimacy of the U.S. government.

“I’ve always been drawn to policy work because I’ve believed that government policy lays the foundation for the infrastructure of our future,” Chou wrote. “This doesn’t have to be true. And I think this administration, more than most in recent history, could challenge these fundamental assumptions about the government’s role.”

Hu anticipates the next four years to be “volatile, as it has proven to be already.”

Additionally, she is worried about the lack of a bipartisan approach to addressing issues pertaining to the American public. Yet, Hu described increased political participation from young Americans as a “ray of hope.”

Trump is the second president to serve two nonconsecutive terms.