By News Department, The Cornell Daily Sun

“Please rise for the horribly treated Jan. 6 hostages,” former President Donald Trump’s campaign announced to Dayton, Ohio rally attendants in March. Seconds later, the national anthem played — sung by the J6 Prison Choir, a group of jailed Trump supporters charged with crimes related to the January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection.

In a highly anticipated election year, Americans of all political affiliations anxiously brace for Trump’s campaign and electoral outcomes over the next few months. But to most, what’s going on — and what to expect — remains uncertain.

Theda Skocpol, the Harvard University Victor S. Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology, contextualized the rise in Trump’s popularity and associated extremism in an April 9 keynote lecture titled “Rising Threats of U.S. Democracy – Roots and Responses” in which she described what Americans can anticipate in the upcoming 2024 election.

Skocpol, who studies socio-political transformations, is one of 19 current A.D. White Professors-at-Large selected by the University. The Professors-at-Large program was formally established in 1965 to ensure that Cornell remained academically well-connected despite its remote location.

Prof. Suzanne Mettler, government, who introduced Skocpol at the lecture, described non-resident professors of the program as “the world’s greatest scientists, artists and scholars,” brought to campus from other institutions to “advance our intellectual and creative life in a manner that transcends traditional boundaries of academic disciplines.”

Skocpol visited the University to deliver three public lectures, though Cornellians in social sciences disciplines often read her research year-round.

“[My students] know that [they] can’t get out of any course with me without having read some Skocpol on the syllabus, sometimes a few times,” said Mettler, who teaches Government 1111: Introduction to American Government and Politics.

Read the full story on the The Cornell Daily Sun.