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First-time voter Roxy Sprowl discusses what she learned about active listening in a Vote by Design workshop.
From apathy to agency: How to reframe elections for new voters
Solomon is on the faculty of Stanford University's design school and a creator of Vote by Design, an effort to promote civic engagement among younger voters by having them create presidential job descriptions.
<p>In the last presidential election, less than half of eligible young people voted. Why? </p>
<p>After all, countless initiatives have been launched to register and mobilize these voters. School lectures stress the importance of voting. Celebrities swamp social media with urgent pleas. And in some states, there are even drives to lower the voting age. Why then do young people reject their right, and responsibility, to vote? </p>
<p>The standard theories are that "young people don't care enough about their future" or "they aren't able to see beyond their own limited self-interest and make decisions for the greater good." But in truth, young people do care, and their interest is only increasing. In fact, the Census Bureau says people ages 18 to 29 were the only age group that increased its representation at the polls in 2016. </p>
<p>So, if they do care, then why don't they vote? Experience in running a new voter literacy program, with over 1,000 students from around the country, shows that the issue is not apathy, but a lack of agency. </p>
<p><p style="text-align: center;" id="sufn"><a style="font-weight: bold;margin:40px auto;font-size:2rem" href="https://thefulcrum.us/st/newsletters">Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter </a></p></p><p>For too long, we have relied on history or civics classes to teach students how government works and the various roles that matter. We teach them that the president must be a natural-born citizen, at least 35 years old, and have lived in the United States for at least 14 years. But memorizing the Constitution or historical timelines is not a proxy for learning how to be a deliberative voter. We teach them about past presidents like Lincoln and Washington. And we assume that these history lessons provide all the preparation they needed to cast an informed vote.</p>
<p>Here's what we don't teach them: How to identify the qualities they want in a president, and why, and how to overcome their biases and look beyond the campaign messages to identify a candidate with the qualities they seek. </p>
<p>Also, we certainly don't ask them to envision the worlds the candidate would shape or how their leadership qualities would allow them to prevail over the crises they are likely to face. </p>
<p><div class="x12"><div class="htlad-Desktop_Content_Banner"></div></div></p><p>That's why I was part of a team that created Vote by Design, a digital civics program created by educators for educators. It is designed to empower students to engage in the democratic process as independent and capable voters. We created it to ignite student agency, shift mindsets and build voter skill sets. It connects to themes of citizenship, civic engagement, inclusion and equity. </p>
<p>In the curriculum, we ask students to choose qualities they care about in a president, rather than focus on their policies. And we ask them to respond to a specific challenge — a geopolitical crisis or a natural disaster, for example — as if they were president, drawing on these previously identified qualities.</p>
<p>Immediately, students are able to see how the qualities and values they've selected show up in the types of decisions a president must make under pressure. They begin to realize the choices and decisions leaders have to make often have nothing to do with the policies they espoused in a campaign. They also soon realize no president is perfect, or can possibly have all the background and expertise needed for the role, but all presidents are called upon to step up and reveal themselves for the leaders they are. </p>
<p><div class="x12"><div class="htlad-Desktop_Content_Banner"></div></div></p><p>The results of this brief exercise are extraordinary. How students think about the roles and qualities of the president are often transformed. </p>
<p>"I used to think our political system had gotten hopeless," they report. "Now I think ... there are many possible ways to return to compassion and integrity."</p>
<p>"I used to think that I had no idea about who our president should be and why it matters," they add. "Now I think presidents should represent all the people, to present a unified front in order for people to trust them with a country." </p>
<p>And finally: "I used to think what my friends and family thought. Now I think for myself." </p>
<p>These are not the reflections of apathetic people. They are the reflections of people who had been so unprepared and confused they didn't even want to vote. And they are the reflections of people who have now learned how to vote. They turned their so-called apathy into agency. </p>
<p>These are young people who will vote next month — and likely every election thereafter. </p>
<div></div><p>Vote By Design's team believes in the power of young people. We believe they care about this world and our future. We believe they should speak up and vote for the changes they wish. We believe young people not only deserve the right to vote, but deserve the right to learn how to vote. And it is our job to teach them.</p>
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Civic Ed
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The media needs to do better explaining differing political values
Anderson was editor of "Leveraging: A Political, Economic and Societal Framework" (Springer, 2014), has taught at five universities and sought the Democratic nomination for a House seat in Maryland in 2016.
<p>If given one moral word to use in a campaign speech, a Democrat would probably pick "justice" whereas a Republican would probably pick "freedom." </p><p>Republicans love to talk about freedom because they believe the purpose of government is to ensure our freedom — freedom from foreign invasion; freedom from assault, theft, bribery and other forms of interference in our lives; freedom to have a business and operate within a broadly free market; and freedom to pursue our own good, which includes the good of our families.</p><p>Democrats love to talk about justice because they believe the purpose of government is to promote a just society — with justice in our election system so all have an equal right to vote; justice for women against those men who have harassed or assaulted them; justice ensuring those who have lost out in terms of natural talents and socio-economic class, especially children, are provided the means to have the same opportunities as those who have been more lucky.</p><p>Freedom and justice can both draw forth deep emotions from their advocates. </p><p><p style="text-align: center;" id="sufn"><a style="font-weight: bold;margin:40px auto;font-size:2rem" href="https://thefulcrum.us/st/newsletters">Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter </a></p></p><p>Those denied freedom feel as though they have been wronged. </p><p>Someone whose father fought and died in Vietnam or World War II may have deep emotions connected to the value of freedom because the dad fought and died for it.</p><p>Likewise, someone whose mother was raped as a teenager may have deep emotions connected to the value of justice because they always find themselves standing up for fellow citizens who have been violated in some deeply personal way. It is one thing to have a car stolen and quite another to have a man throw you on the back seat of his car and force himself on you.</p><p>Many different theories of freedom and justice have been advanced by Western democratic thinkers — whether they fall into the liberal, libertarian, conservative, social democrat or socialist traditions. College students in political philosophy classes learn that rival theories don't accept the same definitions of such moral concepts as freedom, justice, equality and autonomy. Instead, rival theories typically define and develop moral concepts in different ways. They may not use all the same concepts, and they may draw differing sets of connections among the concepts.</p><p><div class="x12"><div class="htlad-Desktop_Content_Banner"></div></div></p><p>This is why political philosophers often talk past each other in their debates — because, in the end, the values they embrace and the perspectives they advance are different. It would be nice if Don Lemon on CNN, Tucker Carlson on Fox, Rachel Maddow on MSNBC and all our other prominent media commentators pointed this out when discussing the debates between politicians. </p><p>It is simply not true that Democrats and Republicans, or even some factions within each party, share the same "American" values and only disagree about the means for upholding them. Our politicians — who admittedly rarely get to the point of systematic explanations of the concepts and values that drive their arguments — do not share the same values as their opponents. </p><p>Within American society there is room for basic disagreement over basic values like freedom and justice, and it is precisely that room that helps explain why voters who are indecisive or uninterested have difficulty understanding the fights between the parties. Add to these conceptual fights all of the theatrics and the posturing, and it becomes very hard to understand what values really drive particular points of view.</p><p><div class="x12"><div class="htlad-Desktop_Content_Banner"></div></div></p><p>Achieving a decent level of national respect for the differing opinions of Democrats and Republicans will require the media doing more to help voters understand how terms like freedom and justice are being used by politicians — and explaining whether their candidates' overall positioning is consistent with how they are defining their terms.</p><p>It is then up to voters to decide which points of view they prefer, whether the candidates in question have done what they claim they have done, whether they like the visions proposed and whether they like and respect the people who are presenting them.</p><div></div><p>But we should not assume all that divides candidates is their records, the means they took to promote them and their personal character — because they usually have very different values and very different priorities in the first place. </p>
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Politics For The People Book Club
Organizers: Independent Voting and The People
The book club's fall selection is "The Politics Industry: How Political Innovation Can Break Partisan Gridlock and Save Our Democracy," by Katherine Gehl and Michael Porter. Gehl will be joining the Politics for the People discussion on Sunday, October 4 at 7 pm EDT. While you read, interact with others by checking out their reviews and chapter summaries today at politics4thepeople.com.
Location: Webinar
Civic Ed
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Covid offers an opening to reinvent the American identity
Kneip is a sophomore at the University of Notre Dame and vice president of the school's chapter of Bridge USA, a national student-run organization seeking to depolarize campuses and boost their civic engagement.
<p>A hobbled economy illustrated by spotty grocery store inventory, unprecedented unemployment, rising death tolls and mass uncertainty. The suspension of overseas travel, wedding receptions, religious celebrations, parties, concerts and in-person classes. </p>
<p>In once-bustling cities from New York to San Francisco, one would have thought it impossible to ever feel so alone. Yet the empty streets and exhausted medical workers should reveal something to us: The American people may value independence, but we will never be independent.</p><p>Globalization, while not a new phenomenon, has been rapidly picking up speed in the last 25 years due to increased access to information and technological advancements in data sharing and fiber optics. In light of the coronavirus pandemic, it is evident the United States has yet to learn a lesson from other countries by failing to invest in a civic education which promotes an essential global element in understanding American identity. </p><p><p style="text-align: center;" id="sufn"><a style="font-weight: bold;margin:40px auto;font-size:2rem" href="https://thefulcrum.us/st/newsletters">Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter </a></p></p><p>Martha Nussbaum's "<a href="https://catalog.loc.gov/vwebv/search?searchArg=0807043133&searchCode=GKEY%5E*&searchType=0&recCount=25&sk=en_US" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Patriotism and Cosmopolitanism</a>" attributes this failure in American civic education to a belief in the superiority of American values.</p><p>While we pride ourselves in the belief that all humans are created equal, we contribute to a living standard that cannot be universalized because of the economies of many developing nations. If humans are truly endowed with certain inalienable rights, then we — as a nation committed to justice and liberty for all people — are obliged to consider, interact with and cooperate with the rest of the world's ways of thinking.</p><p>Adopting a cosmopolitan approach to our concept of citizenship does not require relinquishing our American identities. It does compel us to take a second look at how important that identity is to us. A <a href="https://woodrow.org/news/national-survey-finds-just-1-in-3-americans-would-pass-citizenship-test/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">study two years ago</a> found that only a third of native-born Americans were able to pass the government's civics test for prospective citizens — which 90 percent of the real test-takers pass. </p><p>We must not place unwavering trust in American patriotism when its main practitioners lack basic governmental, historical and cultural knowledge — harming the very values of unity, justice and equality that patriotism claims to uphold. </p><p><div class="x12"><div class="htlad-Desktop_Content_Banner"></div></div></p><p>The value of communal or national identification should not be regarded as superficial, but concern must also be paid to the development of a community open to all. Education that cultivates appreciation of difference is imperative, so each generation may be able to identify and emphasize common aims and perspectives among those who may initially seem different. Understanding the experience of another and suspending judgement allow one to be receptive to perspectives previously unconsidered.</p><p>Such a blended identity of national and universal perspectives — or<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1344038?seq=1" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> cosmopolitan patriotism</a>, as the British-Ghanaian philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah calls it — is not only beneficial, but essential. Now more than ever, the United States finds itself embroiled in conflict alone atop the international stage, as it remains the global epicenter of the pandemic. </p><p><div class="x12"><div class="htlad-Desktop_Content_Banner"></div></div></p><p>Amid our devastation, the coronavirus has presented us with an opportunity to reconstruct the view of how we, as Americans, interact with the global community. It is imperative we take this opportunity with all proper urgency and awareness. We have seen what will happen if we do not respond. To overcome this global pandemic, we need to reinvent the way we engage in civil discourse.</p><p>I joined BridgeUSA before I ever needed to consider that it was exactly the kind of organization we need in a global pandemic. Now, I realize how crucial our mission — of cultivating respectful dialogue from a multitude of perspectives — is. </p><p>It is these perspectives — based on our demographic diversity, approaches to problem-solving and personal backgrounds, traditions and experience — that hold the truth of American identity: We the People are a nation of immigrants. We are the leading force of democracy. But we will not succeed in upholding our treasured American values until we recognize that the world's problems are our problems.</p><p>The way forward starts by acknowledging the interdependence of humanity as well as the relevance of individual experience and expertise. To end this pandemic, medical advancements must become public goods to all. Information on vaccine and prevention progress must be public knowledge. Breakthroughs achieved through such cooperation must maintain international accessibility, not become unattainable in many markets.</p><p>We need to follow the example of the Chinese and Cuban doctors and nurses who bravely traveled to Italy and Mexico this spring to aid them in their fight against the virus. We must be ready to freely send humanitarian aid as Turkey has done. The source does not matter, though politics would have us believe otherwise. In a global pandemic, allies and trade partners do not matter. A virus does not obey such restrictions. </p><p>For once, the world faces a common enemy. We must first concentrate on defeating it, with all proper and judicious cooperation. We can worry about who to blame later. And that can be a start to our fresh American identity — one that can be a proud part of our civic education system.</p>
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