Marissa Ryan

Loncharich looks back as club members enter the room. According to Loncharich, there was a large turnout for the second meeting of the year.

Junior Sasha Matsuki said she is generally disappointed but not surprised when she sees the latest news regarding President Donald Trump and his policies. However, Matsuki said she wanted to have positive expectations going into his presidency.

“Before (Trump) won the election, everything that could have happened was all conjecture, and everybody was saying, ‘You should give him a chance,” Matsuki said. “I think that now that it’s not conjecture; it’s actually him being the president, (and) my opinion of him has gotten worse.”

Many Americans went into Trump’s presidency with their expectations for him in place. However, as Trump gets further into his presidency, his ability to meet those expectations varies from person to person, which has a major effect on their views of him.

Kiley Gardner, Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) officer and senior said she expected Trump “to be completely incompetent and not tactful at all.”

However, Gardner said, “I did not expect him to follow through with everything he’s done so far, so I guess I am kind of surprised that he’s actually making efforts (to follow through with his campaign promises).”

Jace Loncharich, Young Republicans president and senior, said he had a similar experience regarding Trump’s presidency.

He said, “I think he was the better of the two candidates, but at the end of the day, he’s not the conservative I really wanted.”

But Loncharich still said Trump has exceeded his expectations.

“You set low expectations, and (Trump) breaks it,” Loncharich said. “As soon as he did anything even half decent, I was happy.”

U.S. history teacher Gordon Copee said both liberals and conservatives have also become more outspoken since Trump’s presidency, either in favor of or against Trump.

“For a very long time, America’s been divided among political lines, and because (Trump’s) such a strong personality, I think that it just highlighted those differences,” Copee said.

Matsuki said she agreed.

“I believe Trump has emboldened a lot of people who thought that their opinions were too taboo before; it is not that these ideas haven’t existed before, certainly, they have, but he’s just shown that you can embody certain ideas and still make it to the highest office in the United States with them.”

Gardner said she wasn’t sure during the election whether Hillary Clinton or Trump would make a better president. Now, however, she said she wishes more people would have voted for Hillary.

“The climate (of the LGBT community) has definitely changed because a lot of the people who were, like, outwardly homophobic and outwardly transphobic are coming out and expressing their views because they felt like they couldn’t before because Obama’s more liberal,” Gardner said.

According to Copee, Trump’s presidency cannot quite be considered “normal.” Copee said, “Trump brings an outsider’s perspective to Washington, and I feel like that’s why so many people voted for him. He didn’t take the traditional path to the White House, meaning he has limited political experience, but he tends to rely on his business skills to guide him.”

Matsuki said she recognizes this.

“I don’t think that he has enough of a background in law or politics that would be required or even be a good idea for a president to, you know, to be qualified to sit in the Oval Office,” she said.

Qualifications aside, “First 100 days, they say, is the biggest snapshot of a presidency,” Loncharich said. “From this point on, he’s probably going to push the same stuff.”

Despite trying to have positive expectations going into Trump’s presidency, Matsuki said her expectations were low. She said she isn’t surprised at the actions he has taken.

“The tone has been very negative,” Matsuki said. “Unless somehow things suddenly flip-flop, I don’t see anything really changing.”