Category: Politics

When the federal government threatened to cancel billions in research funds from Harvard University – as it has also done to other research universities – the message was clear: Institutions that speak or think in ways elected officials dislike can expect to pay a price.

But in a recent ruling that underscored a principle at the heart of American democracy, a federal judge struck down the Trump administration’s move. The “government-initiated onslaught against Harvard was much more about promoting a governmental orthodoxy in violation of the First Amendment than about anything else,” U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs wrote.

The Harvard controversy began when the Trump administration announced plans to cut off billions in federal research funds because it objected to the university’s public positions, campus culture and some of its academic scholarship. No one contended that Harvard had mismanaged money or failed to meet grant requirements.

Instead, the White House said the school had done too little to eliminate so-called woke diversity, equity and inclusion – DEI – policies and alleged that antisemitism proliferated on campus, as evidenced by student demonstrations against Israel’s conduct in the Gaza war.

Along with the American Association of University Professors, Harvard filed suit in response to the funding cuts, arguing that the administration’s action was punitive and unconstitutional – a textbook case of retaliation. By canceling funding, the government was deploying financial pressure to silence disfavored speech.

Protection for dissent and disagreement

In striking down the funding cut, Burroughs ruled that the administration’s move violated the First Amendment. The First Amendment protects freedom of speech, press, religion and assembly by limiting government intrusion. While government officials may disagree with Harvard’s speech – whether that means faculty scholarship, public statements or the culture of campus debate – they cannot retaliate by pulling federal support, the judge wrote.

As chair of a public policy institute devoted to strengthening deliberative democracy, I have written two books about the media and the presidency, and another about media ethics. My research traces how news institutions shape civic life and why healthy democracies rely on free expression.

The principle at work in the Harvard case is simple: Free speech protections don’t just apply to individuals in the town square or in places where public decisions are being made.

First Amendment rights extend to private institutions, even when their views or policies contravene official government opinions, and even when they receive funding from the government. Government reprisal does more than chill speech – it sets up a system where only state-approved viewpoints can flourish.

Supreme Court has seen this before

The ruling in Harvard’s favor follows a long legal tradition of Supreme Court rulings that bar the government from demanding ideological acquiescence in exchange for support.

In the case Speiser v. Randall that was decided in 1958, the court struck down a California law requiring veterans to sign loyalty oaths to receive tax exemptions. The decision created the doctrine of unconstitutional conditions, a principle that forbids government from making the receipt of a government benefit or entitlement conditional in a way that interferes with the exercise of a constitutional right.

In Perry v. Sindermann, a 1972 decision, a professor was denied reappointment at a state college after criticizing administrators. Even without tenure, the court held, the government could not retaliate against him for protected speech.

And in Legal Services Corp. v. Velazquez, the court in 2001 invalidated restrictions that barred federally funded legal aid lawyers from challenging welfare laws. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that such limits “distort the legal system” by preventing some members of the bar from making arguments on behalf of their clients, while the government would face no similar restriction in promoting their own views.

Supreme Court’s contemporary signals

More recent cases show the court wrestling with the same question in new contexts.

The court’s 2013 decision in Agency for International Development v. Alliance for Open Society International struck down a requirement that nonprofits adopt a government-approved position opposing prostitution in order to receive global health funding.

The government, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, could not make program funds dependent on grant-seeking groups adopting particular political or moral beliefs. In this case, that meant the Alliance for Open Society did not have to condemn sex work in order to qualify for public health funding.

Likewise, in Janus v. AFSCME from 2018, the court struck down an Illinois law that required public employees who chose not to join a union to still pay fees to support it. The state had argued that these “fair-share fees” were necessary because unions bargain on behalf of all workers. But the court said that forcing nonmembers to pay was a form of compelled speech – subsidizing union political organizing – that abridged the First Amendment.

While the context is very different from Harvard’s funding dispute, both cases highlight the same principle: The government cannot use money – whether through subsidies, grants or mandatory fees – as a way to compel or suppress expression. These rulings show that the First Amendment protections apply to government funding and policy questions that quietly shape who gets heard and who does not.

Long history of retaliation

While American myth celebrates the idea that the United States welcomes dissent, the government has a history of punishing protesters.

The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 criminalized criticism of the federal government. During World War I, the Espionage and Sedition Acts were used to imprison activists and silence newspapers. In the 1950s, Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s crusade against alleged communists extended to universities, with faculty losing jobs and having their careers destroyed.

In each of those episodes, dissent was framed as dangerous to national security or social stability. And in each case, the tools of government – whether criminal law, congressional investigations or funding threats – were used to discipline voices that strayed from the party line. The impulse to punish institutions for perceived ideological deviance is part of a recurring American story.

What’s distinctive today is how the tactic has been folded into the culture wars.

Where earlier generations of politicians used criminal prosecution or loyalty oaths, the contemporary fight often plays out in budget spreadsheets. Defund public radio. Cut university budgets. Zero out grants to the arts.

These are not just fiscal decisions; they are symbolic moves aimed at disciplining institutions seen by conservatives as too liberal or too critical.

Why this matters beyond the courts

The latest ruling may protect Harvard in this instance, but the larger conflict is not going away.

The legal decision confirms that retaliation violates the First Amendment, but political leaders may continue to test the boundaries. And among the public, the idea that universities should play along with official doctrine in exchange for continued government funding may eventually gain traction. That possibility feels especially real given Trump’s promises, echoed by Vice President JD Vance and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, to wield federal power against universities and civic groups they portray – often inaccurately – as leftist, radical or violent.

A society where public funding flows only to institutions aligned with those in power is not a free society. It’s one where government can shape the landscape of knowledge and debate to its own ends.

The Harvard decision offers a reminder: The First Amendment is not just about the right to speak without fear of jail. It’s also about ensuring that the government cannot punish speech indirectly by threatening livelihoods and institutions. That’s why this case matters to the future of free expression in American democracy.

Stephanie A. (Sam) Martin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

After the Sept. 10, 2025, assassination of conservative political activist Charlie Kirk, President Donald Trump claimed that radical leftist groups foment political violence in the U.S., and “they should be put in jail.”

“The radical left causes tremendous violence,” he said, asserting that “they seem to do it in a bigger way” than groups on the right.

Top presidential adviser Stephen Miller also weighed in after Kirk’s killing, saying that left-wing political organizations constitute “a vast domestic terror movement.”

“We are going to use every resource we have … throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle and destroy these networks and make America safe again,” Miller said.

But policymakers and the public need reliable evidence and actual data to understand the reality of politically motivated violence. From our research on extremism, it’s clear that the president’s and Miller’s assertions about political violence from the left are not based on actual facts.

Based on our own research and a review of related work, we can confidently say that most domestic terrorists in the U.S. are politically on the right, and right-wing attacks account for the vast majority of fatalities from domestic terrorism.

Political violence rising

The understanding of political violence is complicated by differences in definitions and the recent Department of Justice removal of an important government-sponsored study of domestic terrorists.

Political violence in the U.S. has risen in recent months and takes forms that go unrecognized. During the 2024 election cycle, nearly half of all states reported threats against election workers, including social media death threats, intimidation and doxing.

Kirk’s assassination illustrates the growing threat. The man charged with the murder, Tyler Robinson, allegedly planned the attack in writing and online.

This follows other politically motivated killings, including the June assassination of Democratic Minnesota state Rep. and former House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband.

These incidents reflect a normalization of political violence. Threats and violence are increasingly treated as acceptable for achieving political goals, posing serious risks to democracy and society.

Defining ‘political violence’

This article relies on some of our research on extremism, other academic research, federal reports, academic datasets and other monitoring to assess what is known about political violence.

Support for political violence in the U.S. is spreading from extremist fringes into the mainstream, making violent actions seem normal. Threats can move from online rhetoric to actual violence, posing serious risks to democratic practices.

But different agencies and researchers use different definitions of political violence, making comparisons difficult.

The FBI and Department of Homeland Security define domestic violent extremism as threats involving actual violence. They do not investigate people in the U.S. for constitutionally protected speech, activism or ideological beliefs.

Domestic violent extremism is defined by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security as violence or credible threats of violence intended to influence government policy or intimidate civilians for political or ideological purposes. This general framing, which includes diverse activities under a single category, guides investigations and prosecutions.

Datasets compiled by academic researchers use narrower and more operational definitions. The Global Terrorism Database counts incidents that involve intentional violence with political, social or religious motivation.

These differences mean that the same incident may or may not appear in a dataset, depending on the rules applied.

The FBI and Department of Homeland Security emphasize that these distinctions are not merely academic. Labeling an event “terrorism” rather than a “hate crime” can change who is responsible for investigating an incident and how many resources they have to investigate it.

For example, a politically motivated shooting might be coded as terrorism in federal reporting, cataloged as political violence by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, and prosecuted as homicide or a hate crime at the state level.

Patterns in incidents and fatalities

Despite differences in definitions, several consistent patterns emerge from available evidence.

Politically motivated violence is a small fraction of total violent crime, but its impact is magnified by symbolic targets, timing and media coverage.

In the first half of 2025, 35% of violent events tracked by University of Maryland researchers targeted U.S. government personnel or facilities – more than twice the rate in 2024.

Right-wing extremist violence has been deadlier than left-wing violence in recent years.

Based on government and independent analyses, right-wing extremist violence has been responsible for the overwhelming majority of fatalities, amounting to approximately 75% to 80% of U.S. domestic terrorism deaths since 2001.

Illustrative cases include the 2015 Charleston church shooting, when white supremacist Dylann Roof killed nine Black parishioners; the 2018 Tree of Life synagogue attack in Pittsburgh, where 11 worshippers were murdered; the 2019 El Paso Walmart massacre, in which an anti-immigrant gunman killed 23 people. The 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, an earlier but still notable example, killed 168 in the deadliest domestic terrorist attack in U.S. history.

By contrast, left-wing extremist incidents, including those tied to anarchist or environmental movements, have made up about 10& to 15% of incidents and less than 5% of fatalities.

Examples include the Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front arson and vandalism campaigns in the 1990s and 2000s, which were more likely to target property rather than people.

Violence occurred during Seattle May Day protests in 2016, with anarchist groups and other demonstrators clashing with police. The clashes resulted in multiple injuries and arrests. In 2016, five Dallas police officers were murdered by a heavily armed sniper who was targeting white police officers.

Hard to count

There’s another reason it’s hard to account for and characterize certain kinds of political violence and those who perpetrate it.

The U.S. focuses on prosecuting criminal acts rather than formally designating organizations as terrorist, relying on existing statutes such as conspiracy, weapons violations, RICO provisions and hate crime laws to pursue individuals for specific acts of violence.

Unlike foreign terrorism, the federal government does not have a mechanism to formally charge an individual with domestic terrorism. That makes it difficult to characterize someone as a domestic terrorist.

The State Department’s Foreign Terrorist Organization list applies only to groups outside of the United States. By contrast, U.S. law bars the government from labeling domestic political organizations as terrorist entities because of First Amendment free speech protections.

Rhetoric is not evidence

Without harmonized reporting and uniform definitions, the data will not provide an accurate overview of political violence in the U.S.

But we can make some important conclusions.

Politically motivated violence in the U.S. is rare compared with overall violent crime. Political violence has a disproportionate impact because even rare incidents can amplify fear, influence policy and deepen societal polarization.

Right-wing extremist violence has been more frequent and more lethal than left-wing violence. The number of extremist groups is substantial and skewed toward the right, although a count of organizations does not necessarily reflect incidents of violence.

High-profile political violence often brings heightened rhetoric and pressure for sweeping responses. Yet the empirical record shows that political violence remains concentrated within specific movements and networks rather than spread evenly across the ideological spectrum. Distinguishing between rhetoric and evidence is essential for democracy.

Trump and members of his administration are threatening to target whole organizations and movements and the people who work in them with aggressive legal measures – to jail them or scrutinize their favorable tax status. But research shows that the majority of political violence comes from people following right-wing ideologies.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

When a junior at an Orange County public high school in Florida visited the school library to check out a copy of “On the Road” by Jack Kerouac, it wasn’t in its Dewey decimal system-assigned location.

It turns out the title had been removed from the library’s shelves because of a complaint, and in compliance with Florida House Bill 1069, it had been removed from the library indefinitely. Kerouac’s quintessential chronicle of the Beat Generation in the 1950s, along with hundreds of other titles, was not available for students to read.

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the bill into law in July 2023. Under this law, if a parent or community member objected to a book on the grounds that it was obscene or pornographic, the school had to remove that title from the curriculum within five days and hold a public hearing with a special magistrate appointed by the state.

On Aug. 13, 2025, Judge Carlos Mendoza of the U.S. Middle District of Florida ruled in Penguin Random House v. Gibson that parts of Florida HB 1069 are unconstitutional and violate students’ First Amendment right of free access to ideas.

The plaintiffs who filed the suit included the five largest trade book publishing houses, a group of award-winning authors, the Authors Guild, which is a labor union for published professional authors with over 15,000 members, and the parents of a group of Florida students.

Though the state filed an appeal on Sept. 11, 2025, this is an important ruling on censorship in a time when many states are passing or debating similar laws.

I’ve spent the past 26 years training English language arts teachers at Arizona State University, and 24 years before that teaching high school English. I understand the importance of Mendoza’s ruling for keeping books in classrooms and school libraries. In my experience, every few years the books teachers have chosen to teach come under attack. I’ve tried to learn as much as I can about the history of censorship in this country and pass it to my students, in order to prepare them for what may lie ahead in their careers as English teachers.

Legal precedent

The August 2025 ruling is in keeping with legal precedent around censorship. Over the years, U.S. courts have established that obscenity can be a legitimate cause for removing a book from the public sphere, but only under limited circumstances.

In the 1933 case of United States v. One Book Called Ulysses, Judge John Munro Woolsey declared that James Joyce’s classic novel was not obscene, contradicting a lower court ruling. Woolsey emphasized that works must be considered as a whole, rather than judged by “selected excerpts,” and that reviewers should apply contemporary national standards and think about the effect on the average person.

In 1957, the Supreme Court further clarified First Amendment protections in Roth v. United States by rejecting the argument that obscenity lacks redeeming social importance. In this case, the court defined obscenity as material that, taken as a whole, appeals to a prurient – that is, lascivious – interest in sex in average readers.

The Supreme Court’s 1973 Miller v. California decision created the eponymous Miller test for jurors in obscenity cases. This test incorporates language from the Ulysses and Roth rulings, asking jurors to consider whether the average person, looking at the work as a whole and applying the contemporary standards in their community, would find it lascivious. It also adds the consideration of whether the material in question is of “serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value” when deciding whether it is obscene.

Another decision that is particularly relevant for teachers and school librarians is 1982’s Island Trees School District v. Pico, a case brought by students against their school board. The Supreme Court ruled that removing books from a school library or curriculum is a violation of the First Amendment if it is an attempt to suppress ideas. Free access to ideas in books, the court wrote, is sacrosanct: “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion or other matters of opinion.”

What this ruling clarifies

In his ruling in August 2025, Mendoza pointed out that many of the removed books are classics with no sexual content at all. This was made possible in part by the formulation of HB 1069. The law allows anyone from the community to challenge a book simply by filling out a form, at which point the school is mandated to remove that book within five days. In order to put a book back in circulation, however, the law requires a hearing to be held by the state’s appointed magistrate, and there is no specified deadline by which this hearing must take place.

Mendoza did not strike down the parts of HB 1069 that require school districts to follow a state policy for challenging books. In line with precedent, he also left in place challenges for obscenity using the Miller test and with reference to age-appropriateness for mature content.

The Florida Department of Education argued that HB 1069 is protected by Florida’s First Amendment right of government speech, a legal theory that the government has the right to prevent any opposing views to its own in schools or any government platform. Mendoza questioned this argument, suggesting that “slapping the label of government speech on book removals only serves to stifle the disfavored viewpoints.”

What this means for schools, in Florida and across the US

In the wake of Mendoza’s decision, Florida schools are unlikely to pull more books from the shelves, but they are also unlikely to immediately return them. Some school librarians have said that they are awaiting the outcome of the appeal before taking action.

States with similar laws on the books or in the works will also be watching the appeal.

Some of these laws in other states have also been challenged, with mixed outcomes. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit already struck down Texas’ appeal of a ruling against Texas House Bill 900. And parts of an Iowa bill currently are being challenged in court.

But the NAACP’s lawsuit against South Carolina Regulation 43-170 was dismissed On Sept. 8, 2025. And Utah’s House Bill 29 has not yet faced a challenge in court, though it could be affected by the outcomes of these lawsuits in other states.

James B. Blasingame does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who defied President Donald Trump’s calls to help overturn the 2020 presidential election results in his state, on Wednesday announced he’ll run for governor of Georgia in 2026.

“I’m a conservative Republican, and I’m prepared to make the tough decisions. I follow the law and the Constitution, and I’ll always do the right thing for Georgia no matter what,” Raffensperger said in an announcement video.

The secretary of state will likely face an uphill battle to receive party support as he still draws ire from Trump’s MAGA base for refusing to follow the president’s orders to “find” the votes necessary to overturn the presidential election in 2020. But Trump and the secretary of state appeared to mend fences earlier this summer, at least temporarily, when Raffensperger went to the White House to participate in a discussion with the president on election integrity.

In his announcement, Raffensperger highlighted his experience as a “successful entrepreneur” to bolster his “business plan for Georgia’s future” — which he vowed would increase affordability and boost job creation in the state.

The secretary of state also touted his conservative values, boasting that he had taken on — and won — battles with Democrats like Stacey Abrams and Joe Biden, and promising a “bold conservative agenda” rooted in Republican priorities like parental choice in schools and banning gender-affirming surgeries for minors.

Raffensperger’s entry into the race to succeed Gov. Brian Kemp sets up a potentially competitive contest, as state Attorney General Chris Carr and Lt. Gov. Burt Jones are also vying for the GOP’s nomination. Jones clinched Trump’s endorsement earlier last month.

Democrats were already playing up the “chaos” of the Republican primary on Wednesday.

“Brad Raffensperger’s campaign launch injects a new level of chaos into what was already a messy primary — and is bad news for Burt Jones and Chris Carr,” Democratic Governors Association spokesperson Kevin Donohoe said in a statement, adding that the three Republican candidates were likely to be “locked into a vicious primary.”

Andrew Howard contributed to this report.

​Politics

Many Coloradans may never get an alert that could save their life during a disaster.

And the alerts that go out may not easily be understood by the people who do get them.

We are social scientists who study emergency alerts and warnings, the challenges that exist in getting emergency information to the public, and ways to fix these issues.

Research two of us – Carson MacPherson-Krutsky and Mary Painter – did with researcher Melissa Villarreal shows only 4 in 10 Colorado residents have opted in to receive local emergency alerts. And many alerts may not be written with complete information, translated into the languages residents speak, or put into formats accessible to people with vision or hearing loss. This means some of our most vulnerable neighbors could miss crucial information during a crisis.

A decentralized alert system

Alerts are complex. They can come from a variety of official sources, including 911 centers, weather forecast centers and others. Alerts can also come in many forms, ranging from emails and texts to sirens and radio broadcasts.

Our study, mandated and funded by Colorado House Bill 23-1237, focused on understanding alert systems in Colorado after the Grizzly Creek Fire in 2020 and the Marshall Fire in 2021.

These fires were destructive and highlighted issues related to emergency alerting. Alerts about the fires and calls to evacuate were delayed and inconsistently received. Most were only available in English despite census data that shows 1 in 10 residents of Eagle and Garfield counties speak Spanish at home and only “speak English less than ‘very well.’”

The resulting legislation focused on how to make emergency alerts in Colorado accessible to all, but especially those with disabilities and with limited-English proficiency.

As social scientists who study disasters, we know that hazards, like earthquakes and wildfires, reveal inequities and that certain groups fare worse and take longer to recover. People with disabilities have higher rates of death from disasters. This is not because these populations are inherently less able to respond, but because emergency planning and systems may not account for their specific needs.

Our Colorado study used interviews and a statewide survey of 222 officials that send alerts to better understand the challenges of providing alerts across the state and reaching at-risk populations.

A patchwork system

The state of Colorado does not have a uniform alert system. Local areas determine the alert systems they will use.

Some alerts get sent through systems that require people to opt in. This means that people sign up and choose to receive notifications. Neighboring counties often use different opt-in alert systems, meaning individuals who travel to different counties for work or recreation may need to register for multiple systems. Examples of these systems include Everbridge, used by Boulder County, and CodeRed, used by Adams and Park counties.

The success of these systems in an emergency relies on the community signing up for alerts.

We found that registering for alert systems was a barrier for everyone, but especially those with limited-English proficiency and with disabilities. This is because they may not be aware of the systems that are accessible to them or they are wary of providing personal information, and depending on their location, alerts may only be offered in English.

Another system is “opt out,” meaning people will receive alerts by default unless they turn them off. These include Wireless Emergency Alerts, or WEAs. These messages get broadcast through cellphone towers to phones in a specific geographic area. So if you have a cellphone in a WEA alert boundary, you will get an alert. WEAs are used in Colorado to target specific regions in danger, such as an area that needs to evacuate or for an Amber Alert.

There is no national standard or guidance for opt-in or opt-out systems, which can lead to inconsistencies in how people get alerts.

Lack of resources limits alerting authorities

We found that though authorities often want to provide alerts in other languages and accessible formats, they have significant resource constraints. Time, staff, money or training can all limit the level of accessibility they can provide.

Sixty-four percent of the authorities we surveyed said they lacked funding to make alerts more inclusive.

More than a third of our respondents didn’t know if their systems could provide alerts in languages other than English or for people with disabilities. This speaks to a need for better training on how these systems work and how to use them effectively.

An alert is complete if it includes information about the source, hazard, location and time. Recently, researchers found that fewer than 10% of all Nationwide Wireless Emergency Alerts issued from 2012 to 2022 were complete.

One of us – Micki Olson – worked with the federal government to develop the Message Design Dashboard to help alerting authorities craft clear and comprehensive emergency messages.

Fifty-six out of 64 counties in Colorado are an Integrated Public Alert and Warning System authority, which means they can send alerts across multiple platforms at once. This can improve alert access since it broadens who alerts reach.

Not all counties have this option, and even the ones who do, don’t always use it. In our study, authorities noted limited staff capacity, funds and lack of time prevents them from getting or using the IPAWS system.

“We simply do not have the resources, both financial and people, to deploy all of these systems,” a survey respondent from Gunnison County said.

Alert systems were not built to be accessible

The final issue we identified is that alert systems were not developed with accessible options and functionality like video or image options. For example, people who are blind or have low vision won’t have access to a message unless they enable text-speech features on their phone in advance.

The WEA system only allows alerts to be sent in English or Spanish. Characters like accents and tildes cannot be included. Expansion of language options was planned but is now on hold for unclear reasons. Some counties have the resources to make alerts available in additional languages, but most do not.

Almost 900,000 Coloradans speak a language other than English. According to the Migration Policy Institute, more than 230,000 Coloradans have difficulty comprehending and communicating in English.

Where do we go from here?

Recent events, including the Palisades and Eaton fires in California and the devastating floods in Kerr County, Texas, demonstrate how critical it is that timely and accessible emergency alerts reach everyone, but especially the most vulnerable individuals.

However, these systems are complex, and everyone from individuals to local government can play a part in improving them.

• Federal and local governments can allocate funds to update and standardize systems. They can also implement training and procedures to ensure alerts are effective and inclusive.

• Authorities that send alerts can partner more closely with trusted community organizations and networks to reach diverse audiences.

• Researchers can identify how to better tailor systems to meet community needs.

• Individuals can learn about and sign up for alerts. To do so, visit local government websites or enter “emergency alerts” and the name of your county or city in an online search.

Carson MacPherson-Krutsky works for the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado Boulder. Through the Center, she receives funding from the State of Colorado, NSF, USACE, USGS and others.

Mary Angelica Painter works for the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado Boulder. Through the Center, she receives funding from agencies including NSF, USACE, USGS and others.

Micki Olson has received funding from FEMA and NOAA.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

Shortly following the fatal shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, many politicians and pundits were quick to highlight the importance of civil discourse.

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox called for an “off-ramp” to political hostilities, while California Gov. Gavin Newsom released a statement condemning political violence. He lauded Kirk’s “commitment to debate,” adding, “The best way to honor Charlie’s memory is to continue his work: engage with each other, across ideology, through spirited discourse.” Political commentator Ezra Klein wrote, “You can dislike much of what Kirk believed and the following statement is still true: Kirk was practicing politics in exactly the right way.”

With so many Americans consuming political content via siloed social media feeds and awash in algorithms that stoke outrage, these ideals may seem quaint, if not impossible.

Clearly, murder is a no-go. But what does it mean to practice politics “the right way?” How can people engage “across ideology” in a “spirited” way?

Well, one way to not practice politics the right way is to limit the other side from having a voice of authority. Since 2016, the organization Kirk co-founded, Turning Point USA, has hosted the Professor Watchlist. The online database generated harassment campaigns against professors, leading to calls for firings, hate mail and death threats. To be sure, the left has not been without its own excesses of harassment in recent years.

Kirk was also known for going to college campuses and speaking to students: entering the lion’s den and affably challenging audiences to “change my mind.”

To me, the impulse to shut down the other side, combined with the “change my mind approach” to debate, has only exacerbated political polarization and entrenchment. Instead, I propose a few different ways of thinking about conversations with people whose views differ from your own.

The fantasy of swiftly changing minds

In my forthcoming book, “Rules for Reactionaries: How to Maintain Inequality and Stop Social Justice,” I explore the language strategies used to advance white supremacy and anti-feminism across U.S. politics and culture.

Deliberative democracy is the idea that decision-making and governance are arrived at through thoughtful, reasoned and respectful dialogue. This may take the shape of debates in Congress or robust questioning in town halls. But deliberative democracy also shapes the way all neighbors or citizens treat each other, whether on the street or at the dinner table.

I contend that a big stumbling block that prevents the U.S. from tackling its biggest problems is how Americans conceptualize deliberative democracy: There’s a fantasy that people’s minds can be easily changed, if only they’re given certain information or hear certain arguments.

In the 1990s, this was epitomized through former President Bill Clinton’s Initiative on Race, a program that he framed as a vehicle for social and political transformation. Clinton believed that an advisory board of experts could foster a meaningful national dialogue and produce necessary healing.

In response, conservative political figures objected both to the need for a conversation in the first place and to the makeup of the committee leading it.

By the time Clinton’s second term ended, the initiative quietly disappeared, only to be mentioned in passing in Clinton’s memoir. Yet with each subsequent racial flash point, from the arrest of Henry Louis Gates in 2009 to the murder of George Floyd, calls resurfaced for the national conversation. But race remains a politically and culturally salient issue.

Similarly, many Americans view friends, relatives and colleagues as targets for conversion. Because of the nature of my research, I often get a version of this question from my students: “How do you change someone’s mind if they say they’re a socialist?” Or they may frame it as, “I’ve got Thanksgiving with my family coming up, and my Uncle Johnny is so transphobic. How do I convince him to support trans rights?”

Cultural theorist Lauren Berlant would describe these encounters as moments of cruel optimism. There’s the belief that what you’re about to do is good and worthy. But time and again, you’re met with feelings of futility and frustration.

When debating politics, many people crave a chance to engage with someone they disagree with. There’s the hope of changing hearts and minds. But few minds – if any – change that quickly, and approaching these conversations as small windows of opportunity ends up being their downfall.

Opening minds instead of changing them

There are more fruitful approaches to conversation than merely trying to best someone in an argument by deploying buzzwords or “gotcha!” moments.

Rather than trying to immediately change someone’s mind, what if you entered a conversation with the goal of simply planting seeds? This approach transforms the dialogue from an attempted conversion into a legitimate conversation, wherein you’re merely offering your partner something to consider after the fact.

Another strategy involves remembering that conversations often have multiple audiences.

Consider the Thanksgiving dinner with Uncle Johnny. What if, instead of focusing on trying to convert him, the speaker recognized that there were other listeners at the table? Perhaps they could rethink their encounter not as converting an opponent, but as modeling to relatives how to have a conversation about one’s values with a loved one whom they vehemently disagree with. Or perhaps the speaker could recognize that a cousin at the table may be closeted, and take it upon themselves to model how to push back against transphobia.

In both cases, the conversion of Uncle Johnny ceases to be the objective. Civic dialogue and persuasion remain.

Change is slow but never futile

If the U.S. is going to heal its civic life through dialogue, I think it will require Americans to not just speak with those they disagree with, but to listen to them as well.

Krista Ratcliffe, a scholar of rhetoric at Arizona State University, has written about her concept of “rhetorical listening.” Listeners, she argues, must not simply be attuned to the words a speakers says, but also to the life experiences and ideologies that shape those words.

Rhetorical listening means avoiding the urge to one-up the opponent or convert the unwashed masses. Instead, you’re entering into dialogue from a position of curiosity, with a willingness to learn and grow.

Many people believe that the U.S. is at an inflection point. Will families and friendships continue to be torn apart? Will greater political polarization lead to more violence? Often it feels hopeless.

Like Sisyphus, many Americans probably feel like they continue to push a boulder up a hill, only for it to roll down the other side. The error would be for Americans to be surprised when the boulder rolls back down – shocked that there was no progress and that everyone has to start over again.

While the Sisyphean task of deliberative democracy requires that citizens push the boulder day in and day out, they should also recognize that as they push, the weight of the boulder as it’s collectively pushed will gradually and imperceptibly alter the terrain.

Moreover, as the French philosopher Albert Camus once wrote, it’s important to “imagine Sisyphus happy” – to continue to seize what joy can be had as this hard work plods along.

Lee Bebout does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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