Dear Dr. S,
Thank you for putting together the webinar, Guardrails of Government – Legal and Administrative Resilience in Trump 2.0 Feb 21, 2025. (registration: bit.ly/3WuFqep) It’s very important that we, the people, figure out how to govern ourselves in ways that build wellbeing for future generations of humans. As the holder of a Master of Education degree, I will probably attend and enjoy this event, agreeing with the major points made. It will be an echo chamber for me. I’m already a member of the choir.
My concern is that your target audience for this event is not the people who elected our current president. We are already singing many of the songs I anticipate your panel will present.
What strategies do you have for engaging the voters who are dissatisfied, afraid, and choosing pathways that the academic elite see as dangerous dead ends? My own approach would be a more therapeutic model as compared with another set of talking heads out to persuade the audience.
By this I mean inviting a thorough airing of grievances, deep listening, with plenty of time to process that fear and anger. After the venting has subsided and the issues have surfaced, we academics would encourage these folks to identify their core, mutual values and commonalities, followed by brainstorming (from the voters, not the academics) and examining pathways to solutions.
As you are undoubtedly aware, critique of suggestions is not part of the first phase of the brainstorming process. Telling people that they are wrong and we are right rarely changes minds or actions. Our goal would be to get as many ideas out in the open as possible – from violent revolution and assassination to benevolent dictatorship to theocracy to socratic debate and beyond. After issues, values, and suggested solutions have been generated and listened to, critique and analysis, followed by path choices are in order.
Creating space for people (learners) to examine and refine their own ideas is a soft skill emphasized in every teacher training program in the US. Lecturing or presenting panel discussions to a passive audience is often less effective. Along with events such as your upcoming webinar, do you think using our academic skills to engage more of our voting population in safe, secure, and supportive problem solving might contribute better legal and administrative resilience in the long run?