Civil discourse

But, and we were talking about this a lot in the past, we have to have this conversation again.

This is why civil discourse is so important.

This is why the art of disagreeing well is vital.

It's an absolute necessity.

But I know historically, we do our best work with bipartisan legislation.

When we work together, when we tone down the rhetoric, when there is civil discourse, when we work on long-term solutions, even if it takes a little bit longer to get the law passed because you have to get the votes and you have to do the horse trading that's necessary to get the votes, that's long-term progress.

Just winning a legislation or passing a bill by a slim margin, well, the next time the other party's in charge, they're just going to flip it.

Well, do you think that's something that the independent voters aren't getting from the traditional political coverage we're seeing now? And it's probably one of the reasons from what I've read of your Independent Times News on the website, it isn't merely serving or observing independent voters.

But let me ask you, and this might sound kind of obvious, and I think I know my answer, but I'd like to hear it from you.

What does solutions-focused political conversation mean to you?

Civil discourse, everything starts with civil discourse, which is the purpose and the idea and the dream of James Madison writing the First Amendment.

That was the reason why the First Amendment, to make sure that we can disagree, but disagree respectfully and always engage in civil discourse.

And then going back to like the majority wins and, you know, obviously with voting, there's different choices.

But, you know, civil discourse, like you and I could disagree, Lauren.

And I don't have to call you a horrible person or a dummy or, you know, like, you know, we don't have to get personal attacks on people, but really state my opinion.

I'm free to say what my opinion is, the reasons I believe that, even research, maybe if, you know, I want to go there.

We've got all sorts of stuff on the docket.

We're going to host a summit on civil discourse, freedom of expression, and political violence on October 1st.

And we're bringing in individuals from across the country to talk about those three topics, which are frankly, so important and so front and center on college campuses these days.

We're in the of course, the 250th anniversary year of the Declaration of Independence.

So Um, we've got folks coming from, you know, uh, Dartmouth and Duke and, uh, UC Irvine to, to talk to us about, uh, sort of where we are with these three important topics.

And, and, and you two will be a key component of that.

When we talk about, uh, the state of civil discourse, uh, we're going to have, um, uh, we've, we have an invitation to go to the, uh, American Association of State Colleges and Universities conference for presidents and chancellors to take this message of the civility project to them in mid-November.

And the real exciting part for me is the effort we're going to embark on in 2027 to create a curriculum that we can offer our students to go through some development on how to be a a productive member of a team.