Election season creates a chaotic atmosphere across America. With endless distractions and misleading coverage, it is often difficult for citizens to navigate the intricacies of an election.
When deciding who to trust throughout this election cycle, voters may find it beneficial to seek the insights of lifelong political analysts. At RIT, Sarah Burns, an associate professor of political science, has established herself as a leading local voice around the national election.
Burns attended the University of Toronto for her undergraduate education and Claremont Graduate University for graduate school. She specialized in political science during her university studies and focused on American politics and political theory in graduate school, earning her doctorate in August 2013. Later that month, she started as a faculty member at RIT, where she has been ever since.
Burns’ personal research work focuses primarily on American foreign policy — especially military policy and military operations. Her 2019 publication, “The Politics of War Powers,” explores the history of the American separation of powers system and its continuous evolution. The publication focuses on the history of presidential unilateralism, a policy of taking action on one side of an issue regardless of other sides' support for the action. Burns argues that the separation of powers system worked well for the nation’s first 140 years, until a dramatic expansion of executive power occurred as a result of military operations through both world wars. She insists the trend has continued all the way from the era of those wars to the present day.
Her coverage of local and national elections also stands out, as she has served as an expert speaker and election-night commentator. Michael Brown, an RIT history professor and local public historian, offered his perspective on Burns’ expertise.
“Professor Burns is not only an accomplished scholar and teacher but also a public intellectual on the local scene,” Brown explained. “Area community organizations and news media have often asked her to furnish them with expert perspective on politics, and I have frequently tuned in to local TV or radio on election night to find her offering context and analysis there.”
Understanding the 2024 Election
Through her involvement in local political coverage and her status as a professor at RIT, Burns has raised election awareness both in her classes as well as the greater Rochester community.
This election cycle, Burns believes that RIT students will be more politically active compared to previous years, owing in part to campus efforts encouraging voting participation. Burns has been collaborating with Taj Smith — RIT’s executive director for culture and diversity education — along with Grace Carlic, assistant director for the Center for Leadership and Civic Engagement (CLCE), to provide students with opportunities to engage with the election process.
Instructing her Political Parties and Voting course in the midst of this election presents a unique opportunity for Burns and her students to better understand the voting process. The class also provides an opportunity for students to identify the values they prioritize during this particular election. The most significant values identified by sampled students in the class included the economy, environment, individual rights, housing and polarization.
For two years now, Burns has also focused much of her research on Project 2025, an initiative organized by the Heritage Foundation for promoting and implementing conservative politics to reshape the federal government. She stated that the Trump campaign is making a conscious effort to separate the former president from the program.
“I think the reason he's distancing himself from Project 2025 is because it's not playing very well in the mainstream because it is such a radical project,” Burns stated.
Burns’ sentiment coincides with the feeling that the proposed initiative does not align with current American values. Burns suspects that many of the ideas presented would be difficult to implement for multiple presidencies, and that voters who may not be aligned with a particular party may be turned off by extreme policies in either direction.
“It’s the kind of project where I would doubt that it would be easy for them or realistic for these things to occur in one administration or even three or four,” she explained.
She also considered that Project 2025 could have a disproportionate influence on independent voters, as well as possibly energizing people on both extremes to act for or against the implementation of the project.
For national issues like Project 2025 and the election altogether, students may find that engaging in the democratic process will allow them to express themselves. Burns offered advice for student engagement from her perspective as a professor and political scientist.
“Students should feel like if the more they engage, the more they try, the more they'll feel like they have agency in the country...” — Sarah Burns
“Students should feel like if the more they engage, the more they try, the more they'll feel like they have agency in the country, and they have agency to change what they think is most important to change,” she stated. “Similarly, they'll find that the anxiety about what the future holds will diminish through action.”
