Last November, late into the night, Kasteel Well students watched with bated breath as Donald Trump won the 2024 election. This semester, many said they chose to skip the 47th president’s inauguration ceremony altogether.
Trump was inaugurated on Monday in the Capitol Rotunda, ceremonially recognizing his political comeback four years in the making. In the months following his electoral victory, many Americans and Emerson students have expressed post-election disappointment, anger, and fatigue, with polls indicating that two-thirds of U.S. adults are tuning out of political news.
“No one here has mentioned the inauguration,” said Hallie Munsat, a sophomore interdisciplinary studies major studying at Kasteel Well. “But anytime I’m texting people back home, I feel like they’re talking about [it].”
Emerson students studying at Kasteel Well and other abroad programs traveled outside of the U.S. for move-in weekend and orientation just days before the oath-swearing ceremony. For some, the move marked a sense of distance from the inauguration, but also from their peers back in America.
Emerson senior visual media arts student Sienta Tan Yi said none of her peers studying this semester at Paris College of Art have been focusing on the inauguration.
“I feel kind of guilty for not being there, almost,” said Munsat, a native of Washington, D.C., whose family lives there. “[They] will probably be cooped up in their house because of how many people are going to be there. It’s kind of scary.”
Others at Kasteel, like Nicholas Romano, said the change of country has allowed for a welcome respite from the pressures of American politics and its media cycle.
“It’s a really nice change, even from [the] suburb [I live in], which sometimes feels a little tense [politically],” said Romano, a sophomore visual media arts major from Massachusetts.
Ria Wipperfurth is an Emerson senior studying sustainability in business in Florence, Italy, through CEA CAPA, a non-Emerson program offering study abroad opportunities. She said she was happy to be away from America for the first months of the Trump term, but recounted feeling embarrassed when Italian English speakers discovered she was American.
“I can see the pity … it’s an immediate ‘I can’t imagine that being my reality’ look on their face,” Wipperfurth said.
Students like Levi Armstrong, a sophomore political communications major at Kasteel, said they are worried about how Europeans may perceive Americans abroad during a Trump presidency.
“It’s really awkward thinking that some people see us as being a fan of Trump just because we’re American,” said Armstrong.
One notable moment from Trump’s first day in office was his declaration of a national emergency at the southern border in line with promises to begin a process of deporting millions of migrants.
According to Rodrigo Bueno Lacy, a Mexican and Dutch political scientist, geographer, and European migration scholar at Kasteel Well, the potential for mass deportations is “the most concerning” aspect of Trump’s return to The White House. “The logical consequence, if you look at the history of this talk in Europe in the 20th century, is genocide,” he said.
Lacy compared Trump’s rhetoric to similar ideas in European governments, specifically in the Netherlands, France, and Germany, where during recent increases in economic inequality conservative leaders have scapegoated immigrants, transgender individuals, and other “vulnerable populations with little political representation.”
Another pivotal moment from Monday’s inauguration came when Elon Musk drew criticism in America and Europe for a gesture some said mirrored a Nazi salute during his speech at the Capital One Arena.
“This for me is fascism, purest fascism,” Ralph Trost, a German historical researcher and educator who teaches European History in the 19th and 20th centuries at Kasteel Well, said in reaction to the gesture. “Fascists are sitting in the government of the United States.”
Trost expressed sympathy and sadness for Americans and said he told students after election day to remember that America belongs to the people, not Trump.
Many students shared that the opportunity to experience European culture while abroad gave them insight into how different countries handle their politics and made some sympathetic to the idea of emigration for political reasons.
Emily Champagne, a sophomore journalism major, said she found the Dutch to be very forgiving and optimistic compared to a “culture of negativity” in America. “I hope that [Americans] take a trip out to the Netherlands [so they can] get some perspective on how to be more positive, especially when thinking about politics,” she added.
Munsat said she respects those who chose to emigrate, sharing she has a friend who moved to France over concerns that the Trump administration could nullify his and other established same-sex marriages.
“[In Europe there] is a higher quality life in terms of health care and … some human rights,” Munsat said.
Trost cited the size and importance of the European Union as reason for not adopting a fatalist mindset about Trump taking office. He added that he sees America not changing its government since its founding as a cause of many of its issues.
“That means don’t leave the country—change the system [to] make it much more democratic,” Trost said.
Lacy said that European and American politics are much more similar than either of them think.
Geert Wilders, who Lacy called “the shadow prime minister of the Netherlands,” and his Party for Freedom, now the largest political party in the Dutch House of Representatives, are famous for their anti-Islam rhetoric and far-right populism which have drawn comparisons to MAGA and Trump.
Lacy said that Trump’s anti-immigration sentiments and promises of mass deportations “is absolutely terrifying,” though “he’s not the only one … [it’s] a pattern all across Europe that I think has never been [any] less vitriolic than it has been in the U.S.”
He added that the vision of Europe as a utopia of welfare states no longer holds up to modern realities. For him, the rise of “downright fascists” and “Nazis” embodied by far-right politicians in Europe and America are a consequence of left-wing liberals leaving “the field open.”
“People are voting for these people out of desperation because I think they think the game is rigged,” Lacy said, “and the more decent [people], the ones interested in human rights … they did not deliver.”
Across the spectrum of students, faculty, and programs, many expressed reasons for optimism and remaining level-headed when thinking about the next four years.
“Realistically, we just have to move forward, think about how we’re living our lives, and not let one single person affect the way we think about things,” Champagne said.
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