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Wednesday’s shooting is merely the latest indication that violence appears to be creeping closer to the center of American politics.
The Village Square works with The New York Times podcast “The Run-Up” on conversations between Trump and Clinton supporters
Throughout those battles, antidotes to our civic poisons have always run through the American bloodstream too. Americans have continually found ways to neutralize their discord and catalyze diversity, turning them into sources of strength.
Early legislators came to work “in the spirit of avowed misunderstanding, without the smallest wish to agree.” Jefferson’s solution? He invited diverse lawmakers to dinner and was widely credited with saving democracy. Maybe we can too?
One enduring reality makes every challenge of democracy more difficult: people. Nothing our founders might have imagined — not checks and balances or limits to executive power — may stand a chance against human nature, now weaponized on social media. Does empathy?
As current events batter already weakened institutions of democracy, it’s increasingly hard to navigate how we gather together under the banner of “e pluribus unum.” We’ll be joined by presidential scholar Clay Jenkinson as we struggle together to understand (and learn lessons from) the tumult of our times.
What if we turned our attention from the chaos in Washington and rededicated ourselves to order in how we’re living into the promise and principles of democracy with each other – neighbor to neighbor, the “of, by, and for the people” of it all? And what might happen in Washington if we did?
