Head to Head 04-23-25

April 23, 2025

Nearly 100 days into President Donald Trump’s second term, The Davidsonian asked Davidson College Democrats President Kailliou
Macon-Goudeau ‘25 and Davidson College Republicans President Stephen Walker ‘26 to share their thoughts on the 47th presidency.

Davidson Democrats

Q: What is your assessment of President Donald Trump’s first three months in office?

Macon-Goudeau: Donald Trump’s first three months have been a completely predictable disaster. While my expectations were low, wrecking the economy and the Constitution in the first 90 days was an exceedingly rare fail, even by Republican standards. And the worst part is that it’s all his own doing. No pandemic, no complete crash from the previous administration—just straight failure. I mean, trying to find what Trump has done well is like trying to find emojis on a Ouija board. A dying fish couldn’t flop this hard.

Q: In which policy area(s) do you think Trump has been the least successful?

Macon-Goudeau: Where has Trump done poorly? Where do I even begin? Donald created a trade war after isolating our allies and empowering our enemies. He has switched on both his strategy and messaging more times than he’s been divorced. He has invested as much in domestic manufacturing as my deceased grandfather. He plans on doing a massive tax cut to the rich which will further increase inflation. He has attacked core government function, and his administration has leaked and shared critical information on a semi-regular basis. He is calling on sending “homegrowns” to a U.S. sponsored torture dungeon in El Salvador. He has somehow the richest and most corrupt cabinet in almost all human history. I mean, I have more left thumbs than this man has competent coworkers. I wouldn’t let this administration watch my pet rock, but somehow, they all get access to our nation’s finances and secrets.

Q: What would you say to Republicans who have been highly supportive of Trump’s presidency thus far?

Macon-Goudeau: I know you are invested in Trump. I know we have disagreements on what should happen in this country. But what Donald Trump is doing serves the only person he has tried to serve: himself. His executive actions are getting struck down one after the other. Legal deportation rates haven’t changed that much. Universities are ideologically opposed to conservatism more now than ever before. Other nations are uniting against us. Donald Trump has no interest in genuine conservative values or making this country great. He is doing a ruthless power grab that won’t help anyone. If we defeat this fascist threat now, we can go back to having the important conversations about how to make this country better. But we can’t do that with this man in office. This needs to stop.

Davidson Republicans

Q: What is your assessment of President Donald Trump’s first three months in office?

Walker: The Trump plan that has taken shape in these first few months seems to be to use a wide array of tactics to implement reforms and important points on his agenda as quickly as possible. President Trump made many promises during the campaign and is exhausting every option to ensure he makes good on those promises. Negotiating ends to multiple major global conflicts, curbing illegal immigration and DEI practices at home and restoring democratic accountability to federal bureaucracy will take time. Dishonest pundits will try and pull you in different directions with their hasty conclusions, but we ultimately will have to wait and see whether he can get enough congressional support and appellate court wins to make his reforms stick. What we can say at this point is, unlike the political establishment, he is at least working toward making good on the promises that got him elected.

Q: In which policy area(s) do you think Trump has been the most successful?

Walker: I think historian and classicist Victor Davis Hanson’s assessment of what results make this young administration unique hits the nail on the head: “In general, no Republican president of the past 50 years sought to radically reduce the size of government and balance the budget. None closed the border and began deportations. None avoided optional ground wars while solely hitting aggressors from the air. None led a cultural counter-revolution to reverse the left’s long march through our institutions.” President Trump is doing all these things and much more. As with all presidencies, there will be errors, political infighting and unexpected crises to grapple with. But the policy initiatives this administration is fighting to prioritize suggest they have a chance to attain historic success. Their early efforts make the “Trump has done more in three months than Biden did in four years” line feel quite appropriate.

Q: What would you say to Democrats who have been highly critical of Trump’s presidency thus far?

Walker: Dissenting voices are important, but the current alarmist anti-Trump rhetoric is both heavily infected with bias and harshly received by those who disagree, alienating them from ever considering your perspective. You cannot market your opinions as irrefutable facts and personally attack anyone who disagrees to ensure you go through life never having to interact with anyone on the other side of a dispute. The intellectual intolerance of the left creates another reason for your “closeted-Republican” peers on campus to support the president and makes higher education one of the most divisive collective entities in the nation. In an era of extreme polarization, that is really saying something.