Class spotlight: GOVT 30.17, ‘The 2024 elections’

This fall, government professors Russell Muirhead, Herschel Nachlis and William Wohlforth will teach GOVT 30.17, “The 2024 Election,” to educate students about the Nov. 5 election and its implications for foreign and domestic policy, Muirhead said. The class will host ten guest speakers over the term, including former Vice President Mike Pence, attorney and Brandeis University professor Anita Hill and Senator John Fetterman (D-PA).

Muirhead said he and his fellow instructors came up with the idea for the class together. They wanted to teach students what he said would be an “extraordinary” moment in American politics.

“This feels, like 2020, … like an extraordinary (election) — as if the very definition of America is partly at stake,” Muirhead said. “This election strikes at the very foundation of what America is.”

The course is divided into three segments, each lasting three weeks and taught by a different professor depending on their expertise, Nachlis said. The first part, taught by Muirhead, focuses on American constitutionalism, democratic theory, and political philosophy. Wohlforth will then follow with his segment on U.S. foreign policy before concluding the lesson with Nachlis’ coverage of U.S. domestic policy.

“In a course like this, students can leverage those elements of the professor’s knowledge portfolio that are most relevant to the specific course,” Wohlforth said.

The first guest speaker, Sherrilyn Ifill, attended the class on September 24 before giving a public lecture on campus the same day. Two days later, the class opened with a class-wide poll on the upcoming election with Bill Kristol, former chief of staff to Vice President Dan Quayle. Kristol, like Ifill, then gave a public lecture in the Filene Auditorium.

Of the 76 registered students, 73 participated in the poll. When asked who they wanted to win, 90% voted for Vice President Kamala Harris, while the remaining 10% supported former President Donald Trump.

When students were asked who they thought would win, 82% voted for Harris and the remaining 18% voted for Trump.

“As someone who is in favor of Harris, the split from 82 (to) 18 is too optimistic,” Kristol said.

Their predictions should be closer to 55% for Harris and 45% for Trump, he noted.

As part of the survey, students also identified the policy areas they are most concerned about over the next four years, including reproductive rights, guns, immigration and foreign policy.

The Rockefeller Center for Public Policy hosts the class’s speaker series. The lectures – which will feature all GOVT 30.17 speakers – are free and open to all Dartmouth students and the public, although the course’s 76 students are guaranteed admission. The registered students can also speak with the guests as a group after the lesson.

Margaret Edmonds ’27, who is enrolled in the course, said she was able to talk to Ifill after visiting the class and found her “super insightful.”

“It’s special that we can talk in a classroom with such powerful experts in the field of politics,” Edmonds said.

To give students a comprehensive understanding of today’s polarized political climate, the three professors invited guest speakers from a wide range of ideologies, Wohlforth said. The goal is to facilitate conversation across the political aisle.

“I think it’s really important that everyone understands why smart people of good will, with whom we may not agree, take the policies and political positions they do and find aspects of life meaningful in ways that we may not have,” said Nachlis. .

Edmonds said it was “very special” to be taught by “three professors who all have different ideological views and different areas of expertise.”

Victoria Cosmo ’28, who is taking the course, said the class has created a “safe space” to talk about political topics that can often be “intimidating.” These discussions have helped her and her classmates understand their “role as citizens,” she said.

“We’re at a point politically where a lot of people feel the need to be involved, but they don’t really know how to go about it,” Cosmo said. “It feels really good to take a course that … tells you how to think critically when it comes to voting and when it comes to vetting candidates.”

In an email statement to The Dartmouth, Phillip Shim ’27 wrote that he “really enjoys” the class, despite not being “super at the more complex details of US government.”

“All three professors go out of their way to contextualize and critically examine the structures underlying the American political system,” he wrote. “They are also incredibly conscious of creating a culture where minority political views can be expressed freely, and where sensitive or controversial opinions are allowed to be expressed and discussed.”