Happy Fourth of July! On this day celebrating American independence, many Americans are no doubt feeling a deep sense of unease about the country’s politics. In a June 2024 Gallup poll, 77% of Americans reported they were dissatisfied with the way things are going in the United States. In 2023, 79% of Americans described American politics in negative terms, 65% said they were exhausted by politics, and 61% reported that political conversations with people they disagree with are stressful and frustrating. Only 10% felt hopeful about US politics.
These feelings are reinforced by a constant bombardment of negative stories in the news media and on social media. The images and narratives emerging in the midst of the campus protests that occurred this spring may have been particularly disheartening, regardless of where you fall on the issues involved. So I wanted to share with you some good news that might give you at least a little bit of hope on this 248th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.
This past year, the DCI’s Assistant Director Sara Copic and I participated in a Bridging Differences Community of Practice hosted by UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center. This group included 28 deliberation scholars and practitioners from across the United States who are working earnestly to foster more productive dialogue on their college campuses. They came from large public and private universities, medical colleges, law schools, community colleges, and liberal arts colleges like Davidson.
We met regularly as a large cohort to hear from experts in the field on topics such as the science and practice of listening, the psychology of intergroup processes, and the measurement and evaluation of dialogue outcomes. We were also split into small groups who met separately to discuss our progress on our work, challenges that have come up, and questions we had for one another. My group had representatives from Stanford University, Providence College, the University of Alabama, and California State University East Bay, and it was fascinating to hear about everyone’s different experiences with bridging divides on their campuses.
What I took away from this experience was a sense that a lot of good and smart people are working creatively, thoughtfully, and tirelessly on building connections across social and political differences. Even though you may not see it and it is not the first thing that comes up on your newsfeed, there is a solid and growing community – for example, over 200 campus leaders have participated in the Greater Good Science Center’s Bridging Differences in Higher Education Learning Fellowship since its inception – engaged in this work. From the conversations I participated in as a part of this community, I was deeply impressed by everyone’s commitment to fostering productive conversations on challenging topics, despite the challenges they face.
I also saw even more clearly how the DCI is an important part of this work. As innovative and active as we are, we may often feel that we are swimming alone in a toxic sea of hyper-polarization. But we are in fact connected to an extensive network of efforts with similar goals and methods that is building more deliberative cultures and communities across the country. The movement to engage more productively in political conversation is real and growing, and the DCI – and anyone who has participated in a D Team or Deliberative Forum or been a member of the DeeP Collaborative – is contributing to the growth and dynamism of that movement. As we examine other deliberation programs, this is a point we make frequently to our DCI Fellows, but it is worth reinforcing among our wider community as well.
As an election season that threatens to be one of the most acrimonious and rancorous in recent memory gets underway, the challenges to this work are no doubt significant. But just as the Continental Congress overcame the immeasurable odds against them and came together to sign the Declaration of Independence in 1776 (the reimagined 1776 musical that I saw last year provides a trenchant reminder of their difficulties), so too can we find ways to bridge our differences in the months and years to come.
