Civic Events Series Hits Community Just in Time for Election Season

A promotional image for “Common Ground: Midterm Strategy and Dialogue Across Difference” event scheduled for September 15. The event hosts two prominent political strategists from opposing parties, shown in the image, for a discussion on how to bridge party lines, and “the power of dialoguing across difference.” Photo Credits: Appalachian State University Events.

Andrew Larsen, Podcast Desk Lead for The Powderhorn

A decidedly tumultuous midterm election season is upon us. Two years into President Trump’s second term and the United States’ political climate is tense. For many, it may seem as though having a conversation with a person opposing them politically is off the table. It is out of this environment that Dr. Johnnie Lotesta, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Dr. Phillip Ardoin, Professor of Political Science, decided to work with Appalachian State University’s Civic Literacy program to organize a series of civic engagement events for our community. The events were born out of the university’s increased efforts towards student voter education and voter registration programs, as well as a recognized need to encourage students to think about the coming elections. Dr. Lotesta described each of the planned events.

“We have a series of four events,” said Lotesta, “starting with a common ground conversation with two prominent political strategists, one Republican and one Democrat, where they’ll talk about the upcoming elections and share practical ideas about how to work and converse across party lines. We have a conversation with Kate Davis, who is the director of the Join or Die Documentary, which is inspired by this idea that joining a civic club or civic group is really important to revitalizing our democracy. We have Dr. Nathan Katz’s book talk and campus visit on Thursday, October 15. And then we have that post-election dialogue, that will involve myself and some other faculty facilitating a conversation about the midterms, what happened and what we make of the preliminary results.”

Dr. Nathan Katz’s book is on “American campaign finance and its undemocratic implications.” The varying scope of the events is tied together with a theme of a return to civic participation, aiming to encourage conversation and discussion across party lines despite the tense political environment. Dr. Ardoin is hoping that these events will allow the community to have civil political discussions across partisan lines.

“The idea is that we wanted to try to bring together not just the campus community, but the broader community with a series of events leading up to the midterm elections,” said Ardoin. “Our hope is to bring people from both sides of the partisan or ideological aisle together to talk about some of the things that we have in common, not just what differentiates us, and to have intelligent, well-informed discussions. So, the common ground event with the two campaign strategists. They are both very well informed, but on opposite sides. We hope that will model for our community.” 

Events like these are not debate based, as much political content is now, but are primely focused upon dialogue. Dr. Lotesta believes that a rise in political violence has led to a broad dehumanization of opposing party members, as well as a critical undermining of our democratic system. This was a reason why dialogue and discussion are centered within these events.

“We know that demonizing the other side is a key mechanism through which violence becomes justified and socially acceptable,” said Lotesta. “For me, having these dialogue events is valuable as an exercise in humanizing the other side, of learning how to tolerate difference, and in terms of running a functioning democracy, figuring out ways to find common ground and to move forward together even though we may maintain certain levels of difference and disagreement. It’s a really important way of getting us at this moment of hyperpolarization and simmering violence in American politics to try to build a vibrant democratic core.”

One issue of importance surrounding planning the events was ensuring a broad appeal to all types of voters. Ardoin hopes that this series will encourage people of opposing ideologies to view themselves not for their political differences, but rather for their human qualities.

“Whenever we’re doing campus events like this, we want something that’s going to reach out to the entire campus and represent everyone’s views,” said Dr. Ardoin. “We specifically selected the two campaign leaders of the Democratic and Republican candidates, so that [the event] has broad appeal for everyone. And then with the Join or Die discussion on the importance of civic engagement, one of the ideas is [that] the reason for the political polarization in America is because we started to sort ourselves across so many partisan areas. But bowling league, softball league, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, our church groups, historically, those were civic activities that brought people together across the partisan aisles. So you get to know each other not as a Democrat or a Republican, but as friends.”

An informational flyer for the three events Lotesta and Ardoin are hosting. Photo Credits: Civic Literacy Fellows.

The events are targeted towards college students. But despite the fact that Watauga’s students may not vote until the end of their high school career, their attendance connects to one of the key themes of the series: a revival of youth civic engagement in politics. Whether they can vote or not, high school students continue to participate in political discussions in both the digital and physical realms. Ardoin emphasized the importance of youth developing the skills to discuss and debate current events civilly.

“I would promise this to anyone who attends any of these events: they’re going to have a more enjoyable evening engaging with whoever they sit next to and listening to the speakers in these discussions than they would if they were home sitting on the couch scrolling the internet,” said Ardoin. “It’s one of the reasons we’ve had a decline in civic engagement. It’s much more rewarding and healthy for us to get out of the house and engage with our community.”