{"id":89622,"date":"2023-10-19T15:19:20","date_gmt":"2023-10-19T15:19:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/?p=89622"},"modified":"2023-10-19T15:21:37","modified_gmt":"2023-10-19T15:21:37","slug":"partisans-cross-deep-political-divide-during-langevin-symposium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2023\/10\/partisans-cross-deep-political-divide-during-langevin-symposium\/","title":{"rendered":"Partisans cross deep political divide during Langevin Symposium"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

KINGSTON, R.I.<\/strong> \u2014 Oct. 19, 2023 \u2014 An event at which two stalwart leaders from opposing political parties take the stage to talk about political polarization might sound like a recipe for rancor and division. But this week in the 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Edwards Hall, former U.S. Rep. Steve Israel and former White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus did what few in Washington seem to be able to do these days: They found common ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Israel and Priebus were the featured speakers at the second Langevin Symposium at 溏心vlog免费B站<\/a>, a biannual series that explores topics related to national security, U.S. civics, and democracy. In the series\u2019 latest installment titled \u201cPolarization of Politics in America: Finding the Center,\u201d former U.S. Rep. James Langevin, now a visiting professor at 溏心vlog免费B站, led his guests through a wide-ranging discussion of how we arrived at our current state of political division, and what we can do to get out of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his opening remarks, Langevin pointed out that the nation has seen division before\u2014including a bloody civil war and a deeply turbulent period in the 1960s\u2014but has always found ways to come together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cIn the end, a healthy democracy depends on the collective capacity to hash things out,\u201d Langevin. \u201cAnd to get there, we need to figure out what\u2019s going on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Langevin then turned to the panelists for their opinions how Americans came to be so divided. Israel and Priebus agreed on two major drivers of division. First, congressional gerrymandering has pushed members of Congress to ever-increasing partisan extremes, taking the electorate with them. Meanwhile, modern media\u2014particularly cable news and social media\u2014make money from division while pushing people into ever more isolated bubbles of thought and opinion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s a little depressing but I think I\u2019m right: Unity is a loser, and division is pure profit,\u201d said Priebus, who served as chair of the Republican National Committee from 2011 to 2017. \u201cThere\u2019s no money in unity. There [are] no book sales in unity. There [are] no [ratings] on cable networks, and there are no clicks in unity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the problem of congressional gerrymandering, Israel pointed out just how much things have changed since he and Langevin were first elected to Congress in 2001. Back then, he said, there were around 150 congressional districts nationwide considered to be moderate and competitive for both parties. But as maps have been redrawn to create safer seats for each party, the number of competitive districts has dwindled dramatically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are 30 districts out of 435 where bipartisanship, moderation, and coming to the center is a political value,\u201d said Israel, who served as Chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee from 2011 to 2015. \u201cMost members of Congress these days do not wake up\u2026in the morning fearing that they\u2019re going to be defeated by the other party. They fear that they\u2019re going to be defeated in a primary by someone further to the left or further to the right. So, what do they do? They pursue those extremes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s needed, Israel continued, is bipartisan redistricting reform that creates balanced districts rather than ones designed to keep incumbents in office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two also agreed that Americans\u2019 growing disaffection with government and economic institutions contributed to the rise of a divisive figure like Donald Trump. \u201cTrump,\u201d Priebus said, \u201cwas the biggest middle finger that the American people could find.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Israel underscored just how serious he believes this situation is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI do not fear the collapse of the United States due to a foreign attack,\u201d he said. \u201cI fear the collapse of the United States due to the divisions we have now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the conversation turned to how to move forward from the present state of division, Israel and Priebus expressed confidence that the next generation, including some of the students sitting in the audience, are the answer. Israel, who currently teaches at Cornell University, says conversations with his students fill him with optimism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think that my generation\u2014Reince\u2019s generation, Jim\u2019s generation\u2014I\u2019m not sure we have the solutions anymore,\u201d Israel said. \u201cBut I am so confident when I listen to my students\u2014when I observe their critical thinking skills, when I witness their intolerance of intolerance. Those are my most optimistic moments.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Priebus echoed Israel\u2019s optimism and urged students not to turn away from the public discourse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA lot of college kids are really turned off by modern politics,\u201d Priebus said. \u201cThey like the issues of what we\u2019re talking about, but they don\u2019t like the politics of it. In fact, they hate it and a lot of them want nothing to do with it. But I need to encourage you, that if you don\u2019t like the politics part of politics, to get involved in it\u2014fix it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two didn\u2019t agree on everything, of course. Priebus said he was confident that if the presidential election were held today, Donald Trump would very likely win. Israel disagreed, contending that swing voters would ultimately break for Biden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But both said they hoped the conversation could serve as an example of how two people with different views can still get along.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI want college kids to see that you can have two partisan people that actually like each other,\u201d Priebus said. \u201cWe don\u2019t agree on some things, of course. But you can actually have fun in having a conversation, disagreeing, and talking about the issues that matter to all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2014 Oct. 19, 2023 \u2014 An event at which two stalwart leaders from opposing political parties take the stage to talk about political polarization might sound like a recipe for rancor and division. But this week in the 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Edwards Hall, former U.S. Rep. Steve Israel and former White House […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":89623,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89622"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89622\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89636,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89622\/revisions\/89636"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}