‘I was expecting more people to try and rein in the craziness, but it didn’t happen.’

Ronald Wielebski, 21, is a sophomore at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater majoring in cybersecurity. He is still processing the early stages of the new Trump administration, but he is not letting the new administration’s actions define how he and his friends live their lives.

Stephen Wielebski: How has the new presidential administration affected your everyday life up to this point?

Ronald Wielebski: I think, to an extent a lot of it so far has just been figuring out what the actual hell has been implemented and what has yet to be implemented because a lot of stuff so far has been caught in the courts and blocked. It’s now a thing of trying to figure out, “Okay, what’s blocked? What has actually gone through? What things are already getting defunded?”

Stephen: Are you surprised at how things are panning out right now with how the new administration is taking things?

Ronald: Nope, I’m not surprised that anything that is going on right now as far as how everything has just been like, “Yeah, I saw that coming.” It’s weird because even the things where you saw it coming from a mile away, you thought, “There’s no way though, right?” Even those things are happening. So, I’m not surprised by anything.

Stephen: What about leading up to the election? What were you expecting then as compared to now?

Ronald: I was expecting more people to try and rein in the craziness, but that didn’t happen so, what can you do?

Stephen: Is there an executive order or administrative action that you’ve taken exception to the most or that has affected you the most as the new administration has begun to unfold?

Ronald: I guess as far as taking exception to, I would say the one that was aimed at banning transgender-affirming care. This is because I have a lot of LGBTQ friends and following the passing of that executive action, there was a period of about a week and a half to two weeks where we were trying to process things like, “What the hell does this order actually mean for people? Does that mean that they can’t get their medicine anymore? What does that mean for doctor’s visits that they had? What is the next thing that’s going to be passed?” It’s been difficult to process because they’re targeting these people first, and it makes you wonder, “What’s next, gay marriage? Revoking more laws that protect the rights of LGBTQ people?” You look at places like Iowa as a clue to what their next steps could look like and I fear that this executive action was just the start of the ball rolling against LGBTQ issues.

Stephen: Are you planning to organize politically in any way in response to the new administration?

Ronald: There are some things where I would want to do more, but it’s a little bit hard to do around school. I feel like if I wasn’t in school currently, I would be doing more, but there have been protests every week or two on campus about things that the Trump administration has done. I feel like people are still being politically active about it and I think that’s a good thing, but I think there are a lot of things that we haven’t seen yet because people are still busy. I feel like once we hit say, spring break, or the summer, we’re going to see a lot more because there’s going to be a lot more people with a lot more free time to do all these things.

Stephen: Could you elaborate more on what kinds of things students are protesting about the new administration on the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater campus?

Ronald: Yeah. So, I remember towards the start of the semester there was an anti-ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) protest. That one I think the biggest one that we’ve had so far on campus. They were protesting how ICE was doing raids around the Whitewater area, and that was also around the time when they were talking about going into schools and conducting raids there. Aside from that, I think I’ve seen two or three other campus protests that were tackling more general issues. There was a person with a sign about tariffs. There was another person with a sign about LGBTQ issues. Those were more general protests rather than specific ones like the ICE protest.

Stephen: What would you say your next steps would be in response to this new administration? How do you plan to move forward in response to this new administration as it continues to progress?

Ronald: Aside from protesting, trying to get people to join in voting against their causes and all the other activism stuff that’s currently going on, I think the best thing that I can do is just continue living my life. If I let these things destroy me while I’m trying to fight back against them, then in the end they win anyway because frankly, if I have to give up everything to stop what they’re doing, then I’m going to have nothing either way. So, it’s just trying to find the right balance of fighting back while continuing to just live my life, if that makes sense.