Polarization may be one of the most significant threats to democracy. As political divisions and outrage feel like an inescapable fervent fog, groups across the country are attempting to defuse the moment by addressing it with young people.
Manu Meel, CEO of BridgeUSA, believes that young people and college campuses are essential in turning the tide towards constructive dialogue.
“Young people are very impressionable. More importantly, with the very disaggregated media environment, they’re heavily echo chambered. There’s a unique opportunity to … grow people’s perspective of what is possible,” Meel says.
“I think a lot of people have, frankly, just given up on the idea that someone that thinks differently than themselves is capable of a conversation with them. Our goal is to change that.”
Meel will speak to Kansans about that change when he delivers the keynote address at the Kansas State Finals of the National Civics Bee at the Kansas Leadership Center on June 5. The event is open to the public and prospective attendees can RSVP to attend the bee and special programming on civic life by registering on the KLC website.
BridgeUSA equips and empowers young people to build their skills in constructing healthy dialogue and navigating tough conversations with opposing views. As of May, they have 82 college chapters across the country, including one at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, which is the closest one to Kansas.
Meel and his organization aim to disrupt people’s instincts to listen just to respond, instead encouraging them to actively listen. A temperament scale created by Meel measures how willing someone is to engage across differences – which BridgeUSA considers essential in their fight against political division.
Meel became involved with the movement as a student after violent protests broke out on the campus of University of California, Berkeley in 2017 over a scheduled visit by alt-right personality Milo Yiannopoulos. He saw firsthand the threats of polarization and stoking of such fires.
BridgeUSA looks at college campuses as key institutions of American society and democracy – homes for intellectual diversity and dialogue. These same campuses are mired in headlines as colleges struggle to maintain institutional independence as they are now political targets – partly because of mounting student protests.
Despite what feels like a Mount Everest peak in polarization, Meel says that more people are drawn by BridgeUSA’s work on productive dialogues than ever.
“People say, ‘Oh, my god, you get people to talk to each other? Please tell me more,’” Meel says. “I think that appetite, the desire and willingness within the average everyday American has substantially increased.”
“When you go on a campus and you’re building a BridgeUSA chapter, the real problem that we’re seeing isn’t that people are incredibly divided. It’s that you have allowed minority voices across the political spectrum to sort of dominate the conversation and everyone else is quiet. Our job is to give those people an outlet.”While BridgeUSA has yet to establish chapters on Kansas campuses, similar work is ongoing in Kansas and Missouri.
Tricia Maxfield, the program director for American Public Square, a Kansas City-based organization working in civic engagement and education often with high school as well as college students, says that young people are generally more curious and optimistic.
“Having these experiences of civic engagement are really important to get into the hands of young people before they can vote or run for office, so they can have an appreciation,” Maxfield says. “Taking advantage of the natural curiosity that young people have to explore civics and being able to embrace the fact that you don’t know everything you think you know.”
Of course, there are going to be teens or youth with a natural inclination toward this world of speech, politics and ideological conflict. Programs wanting to appeal to youth civic engagement efforts must be flexible, creative.
Meel describes placing college students into two buckets: apathetic, like the majority of people. Those who either don’t care to get involved or skirt around politics. Then there’s the second bucket, which includes the hyper-engaged, passionate students. Sometimes, Meel says, these students can be ideologically intolerant of others, though.
“BridgeUSA school is twofold. First, empower the majority of people that have views but don’t want to engage. Second, give them the tools and capacity to respond positively to difference,” he says.
College chapters survey students before and after discussions and events, measuring what they call “intellectual humility,” what they consider a student’s capacity in pluralism and listening to people different from themselves.
That work is intimidating. And, to some, it could be demoralizing. How can young people from marginalized communities safely engage with someone with opposing views? What if the opposition’s view denies that person’s identity, existence?
Meel says that “somebody’s gotta do it.” Then he argues that the goal of a conversation should be to tickle curiosity, not change minds. It’s unrealistic, he says, to think one conversation would immediately shift someone’s opinions.
“The goal is to actually understand, not change minds. Understand why people believe what they believe. When you can operate with that level of curiosity … what that does is, even if I still disagree with you, I can now humanize your viewpoint,” he says. “Even if you think that someone’s view is incredibly pernicious, almost all of us come up with our ideas through personal experiences. Being able to crack the nut on who someone is can allow you to build the capacity to find those bridges.”
Part of building that bridge is by making the literal space for these conversations “incredibly welcoming and fun.” People may not care for hard conversations, but they enjoy a good time.
College BridgeUSA chapters have gotten creative: there’s been events where students come to paint planters (then ease in the Bridge talk), political speed dating (exactly what it sounds like) and watch parties (like election night).
When recruiting high school students for American Public Square, Maxfield and her team encourage teachers to not just consider students already active in debate or natural public speakers, but kids that are looking for a way to find purpose in their community, too.
“If you don’t have an affinity for this kind of work, talking about politics, it can feel like a very risky proposition,” Maxfield says. “Today’s young generation has a unique appreciation for what we call cancel culture. … They know the social cost of taking a position on a very polarizing topic. But I think that’s what fuels many of the young people we have. They want to learn how to build that civic muscle and engage in conversations in a way that’s really productive.”
Meel wants others to walk away with this: if you believe in the need for dialogue and constructive conversation, you are in the majority.
“What we’ve seen with our chapters is that there’s a genuine desire from students to engage when they see these events happening,” he said. “Last semester, our Columbia chapter hosted an Israel-Palestine event, something that I would consider like the Mount Everest of dialogue.
“There was a lot of trepidation. A lot of people were concerned. There were boycott threats. The room was incredibly filled. People of all across the political spectrum and identities showed up. A testimony afterwards – and I hear this time and time again – ‘I literally did not think this was possible.’ And that’s because social media has geared the way in which we perceive the other. Our job is to ground people in concrete interactions and create separation between perception and reality.”