>> Good evening and welcome to this W T Tw News special launching the yearlong Multi-platform initiative.

>> Firsthand Democracy.

I'm Brandis Friedman.

As the country prepares to mark the 200 and 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

We'll be documenting how individuals and local organizations are responding to challenges and opportunities around democracy.

You can find the firsthand democracy, documentaries and much more at W T Tw dot com slash firsthand.

For the next 60 Minutes will kick off a series with a conversation about civic attitudes and civic life in Chicago and beyond with our panel and a live studio audience.

This program, as always, is streaming on our website as well as Facebook and YouTube.

The 1st half hour is being broadcast on W T Tw and then we'll continue exclusively online again on our website W T Tw Dot com, Facebook and YouTube.

So let's meet panel us as we get into this discussion.

We're gonna start with Jennifer Benz.

She's senior vice president of public affairs and media research at the National Opinion Research Center known as Norc at the University of Chicago.

Jenny Welcome.

Thank you for joining us.

So you conducted a survey looking at Civic Center says I'm in the U.S.

and you found that lots of Americans are relatively pessimistic about the country's future.

Only about a quarter said that the best days of our country are still ahead.

Only about a quarter think the United States is the greatest country in the world and barely one in 10 Americans.

think that the government represents them well.

And that pessimism, you all found it.

Also it's across party lines.

What does all this tell you?

Yeah, we set out to do a study in the summer ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

>> And we were really trying to just understand the public's mood like their underlying sense of the country's direction where we were headed, their feelings toward one another and and trying to move a take a step back and move a little bit away from some of the research that gets done in presidential election years.

That's really just kind of following the news of the day.

in doing that, we surveyed about 3,000 Americans and we were.

We weren't expecting a rosy picture to come out of it.

But the really deep and widespread sense of pessimism was was pretty per found in this study.

And it just came out in a range of different ways from people's sense of right.

This kind of decline and what is historically been an American kind of eternal optimism.

That statistic you cited that only a quarter of Americans feel like the country's best days are ahead.

And even some concerns about kind of fundamental principles in the country.

idea that there were 7 in 10 Americans were had at least some level of concern that there wasn't going to be a peaceful transition of power and the presidential election.

And so just this really widespread concern about the future and a really, really deep concern about our country's institutions and genuine lack of trust and confidence in our leaders.

What we know about whether those those feelings, those results are measures have have changed over time.

>> And so, yeah, we've been tracking a lot of different measures over time and when it comes to trust in our institutions.

>> Newark has been conducting some called the the General social survey since the 1970's and trust in our institutions that it tends to fluctuate over time largely in response to different issues.

Watergate, you know, 9.11, things like that.

But over the last 20 years, we've really just seen this like steady decline in almost every institution, especially government institutions.

There have been some institutions, the military scientific community that still have relatively high levels of trust.

But we're even starting to see cracks and those like deep polarization growing interest of the scientific community.

For example.

But a lot of these these measures of cynicism have declined dramatically over the last 20 years and especially over the last 10 years.

We know one of those institutions as media.

We're going to talk about that later but next, I want to bring in Alexandra Solyndra.

She's a professor of both political science and psychology.

>> At the University of Illinois, Chicago, her work includes studies related to democracy in Democratic attitudes in the public and again, trust in public institutions.

Alexander, thanks for joining us.

Also from a political psychology perspective, what are some of the factors that cause people to lose trust in institutions?

>> So >> I key factor is a partisan ship.

We see sort of periodic cyclical change interest, an institution based on who's in government.

So if you're partying and you start to feel more confident in your institutions when your party is out of government, your more skeptical.

But we see as Jennifer said, 2 different kinds mistrust and skepticism.

One is this sort of healthy skepticism of government that, hey, they're important.

Institutions are great.

should have them sometimes things that things happen.

And then there is the destructive cynicism about institutions that we should just burn everything to the ground and start all over or we shouldn't have anything.

Nothing works for me there for letting light a match.

And that is very, very counter productive and problematic given where we are and we're seeing increases in this very cynical rather if your skepticism, which is actually American to eat score, it's part of our foundation, our heritage to be skeptical of institutions that goes back to the revolution.

But that's the healthy skepticism.

The negative skepticism.

The mistrust that rooted in grievances very counterproductive in can be very hurtful for democracy.

How much of this current moment would you say is sort of like the natural ebb and flow of distrust sort of like what we heard earlier >> versus, you know what we've seen, you know, and then we've seen that, you know, over centuries over generations, right?

Versus, you know, this is unique in a long-lasting amount of distrust.

>> It fairly unique because we are seeing trust crashing in ways.

We haven't seen it before and we see mistrust and other people other groups in that has turned not just that from general dislike to dehumanize station to hate 2.

I see the other side as my enemies and I they are heart and that is very dangerous in a society.

When you see other members of your community fundamental and Amy's that should be destroyed.

>> Okay.

I want to bring you know, because we laid out want to bring in our next guest because we've laid out sort of like the landscaping where it is right now.

I'd like to have a bit of hope and optimism.

Verna Green.

You are the CEO of make the challenge.

That is, of course, an organization that's been around for almost 30 years and helps the youth to be empowered, informed and active citizens.

One of does, you know, very strong values, as of course, written on your shirt.

Democracy is a verb.

Tell us what that means in about the attitudes of the young people that you work with.

I was so hoping you are coming to me when you said hope because I do believe that young people are be part of the hope that we democracy is a verb.

It means that democracy is action.

Young people should be active, not participants in what's happening in our society.

We have a curriculum that runs through schools nationwide and really encouraging teachers.

>> To set up their classrooms and spaces in a way that young people are able to dialogue even across differences.

People have different philosophies, different beliefs, get a chance to connect with one another.

And think about what's that next step that needs to be taken.

So we're seeing a lot that's happening nationwide and really our job make challenge is to encourage young people to be a part of the solution.

One of the questions that we ask them is what's the most pressing issue and what do you think should be done about it?

So really empowering them to think about the role that they can play in being part of the solution some of our society's greatest seals.

how do you think that early participation in civic engagement, the process has it set them up for a long-term involvement through the rest of their lives.

I'll just give a personal example.

I mean, I was a student who my teachers gave me my chance to speak up and speak out and I never stopped.

And so if you in here everybody really, if you encourage young people early, give them a chance to be heard.

And even if it's just smallest, what needs to change in your classroom, maybe it's the setup.

I had a student who tell me what I was a teacher.

I don't necessarily like the format.

This doesn't help.

When I come that student is a community organizer.

You know, at this point, it's like just really small connections, things that start really barely give you the confidence, the skills, the ability to be able to make longer decisions because you've had that practice.

And you've seen changes happen as a result.

Another really break example in Chicago public schools.

They were asking students about not having police officers in schools and that turned into a task force some of our students were able to be a part of and they were able to say we don't the police, we actually need mental health workers.

They spoke up for what was important to them and changes happen when that change happened.

That tells a young person, my voice matters.

My perspective matters and I will continue to do that throughout life.

And last, but not not least.

We've got Mary Ann Coulter know you are the Illinois coordinator for Braver Angels.

That is an organization that helps people with different political views.

Better understand one another.

>> You're also featured in one of the first hand documentaries that our audience can see online.

We're going to play a bit of that right now.

>> The paper Angels mission is to end the polarization in America getting together and talking to one another monolith to stop treating each other.

As of Denise Hughes.

When we talk about the other side, what we tend to do are we end up stereotyping.

We dismiss them.

The ridicule them.

And we talk with contempt.

We found it helpful to distinguish between one up positions and people don't lump a person because they happen to be on one side to oh, your your your read.

You must think this about this issue.

You know, that's not not necessarily to so separate that person from the position you can huge disagreements with the position doesn't mean that person on that side or even if they hold that position is really an awful person.

>> So Mary and braver Angels who will do a lot to convene conversations between what we what we might call the Blues and the to help bring people together during these polarized times.

Tell us about how people come to the seminars and events that we just saw a little bit of just now and how you work with him to guide guide them to hear one another teach that.

>> Yeah, well, you kind of tale that people walk in the door like very skeptic.

All, you know, I'd late.

They're looking around saying I can't talk to these people.

This is all going to be very confrontational.

And and we take them through.

One of the workshops is about looking at yourself and how you're contributing to polarization.

Another workshop, just those languages listening skills, how important it is to listen and acknowledge what other people say and not just jump right in with your perspective and start talking at them.

Your facts are better than my facts.

Conversations that don't work with the magic really happens when we do things called we have a red Blue workshop.

We get equal parties of each side and just listening.

What is it like to be a red in this country?

What is it like to be a blue and people walk away and there's parts in the film where that this we want to talk some more, you know, and they walk in thinking that they they didn't want to talk to each other at all.

then we also have workshops where we take a single issue.

Immigration czar.

Big issue now.

But I've done them abortion role of policing where people walk in say there's no way we're going to agree on anything and they walk out with, you know, 5 or 10 points that they're not going to take to their their elected officials and say here at this is what we want you to do.

You know, can can we try this?

And they're modeling what we want our elected officials to be doing.

So it sounds then like, you know, because we hear a lot about people who are entrenched on their side.

Like you said, my facts of it and your facts, you're wrong and we can't even have a have a conversation about it.

I can't.

I can't even work with you.

Got your your do not operating with the same set of facts.

>> Does your experiences to give you hope then that, you know, the barriers that so many people have erected, that those can be broken down and we can.

>> Get to a more civil and understanding society.

Yeah, oh, absolutely.

I mean, every day every day I walk into the, you know, workshop.

Every time I walk into workshop.

>> It again walked in with a little bit, the cynicism so that doubt and you what you walk out with hope and you see people walking out with hope and the video starts with in the church that we saw we always asked start with.

Why are you here?

What brought you here today?

What are your concerns?

And the some of the stories are heartbreaking.

Families breaking up.

I'm gonna lose my best friend.

I'm afraid to talk to people anymore.

And when you see them walk out of the workshop now going like, yeah, I can do this.

I can to the can.

I do more and I do more.

And, you know, and first thing I liked bills remember, it takes practice.

It always takes, you know, more practice.

You're not going to get this.

You know, like that.

I'm still I've been doing this for 6 years and I'm still still working on it.

But it does give me hope.

And we're working with younger and younger kids all the time, which really civics high school civics teacher.

So my new superheroes and we were out at a junior high in Rockford, shout out to Missus, and the 7th graders like yeah, we need to listen to each other's perspectives and we really need to acknowledge what they say.

It's OK when we don't agree and that should be fine.

And like, yeah, these kids have nothing to unlearn.

You know, if teach them right the first time.

So we've gotten so entrenched into our silos, but we can't talk to one another and we need to get out of those silos and sit across the table face-to-face.

>> So a high school civics teachers are your new superheroes.

And we we have because another person who was featured in our first hand Democracy Series is a civics teacher at Evanston High School.

Let's take a look at a little bit of that.

>> We got 15.

Yeah says.

>> We have 3 knows and we have 9.

Maybe he's right.

>> This is a great starting point.

When you're in these like small group discussions.

Listen with intention.

believes saying is, look, you ought there's been just second fundamental breakdown from adults to respectful civil dialogue with one another about.

>> Important government level topics and get mean argues Congress like that millions of other people so dangerous as a refusing to address information to turn the news at any given time.

Just like the tone and just hate that adults sometimes present from their side up on the other adults or maybe not the best role models for this younger generation.

>> To sort of have some of those discussions.

>> And our Nic lumbered is out in this audience with that civics teacher need them tell Nick.

>> That's right.

Brandis.

We're here with the man himself.

So, you know, clearly you have a very engaged group of students that you're working with.

We've been talking a lot about, you know, the cynicism that that people feel.

Do you do you feel that from your students to do experience that?

I would say absolutely not.

Like I have the best job enrolled in the Lucky's teacher in the world like.

>> My students come to class and have always come to class.

Ready to do just that like speak.

They're sort of art speak their minds.

But I think the most important thing is to listen to what someone else is going to say and taking what they say not instantly rejected public, absorb it.

Hear it and acknowledge it.

And then, you respond when they feel that they need to.

>> Is that something that you think?

You know, the students are necessarily have a predisposition toward or is that something that kind of a skill that you try to to help teach them that listening, that active listening.

Yeah, I think that active listening.

You know, we want to model that positive ways like in the classroom.

But >> I'm always shocked and pleasantly surprise is how quickly pick up on that.

The click into gear and they're ready to engage and ready to discuss on things that they care about.

And this is what we do every day.

Yeah.

And I think oftentimes folks may have, you know, negative stereotypes of young people that.

>> You know, they can't pick up on these concepts are that they're not interested in that.

But it would seem like the work that you do kind of puts the lie to that idea.

Yeah, I would say that's hogwash.

I mean, these these young adults like they're they're ready to go.

They care about the same things that U.S.

adults care about and they want to see changes and a lot of the same places that we want to see changes.

And they're just excited to again, speak their minds, but also do their part so they can actually have those changes play up.

All right, Ethan Patel, thanks for the work that you do.

>> Nick, thank you, Mary.

And what is your reaction when you hear something like that from?

>> yeah.

You know, again of the kids, they they just soak it up like a sponge.

>> they they get My favorite e-mail I got was from a high school teacher.

Actually my alma mater wrote us back about 6 weeks after we did a workshop with her students and she said the parents are sending me.

I parent teacher conferences and saying what did you do to my child?

They what they want to talk to me again.

They want to talk to where my views came from.

One of my perspective, how did I come to that view?

And that's one of the things we say like, what's your personal perspective that you bring to that and also be willing its OK to say you disagree even with your parents, but have that conversation.

>> I he's doing what schools are designed to do schools, our civic spaces and they are designed to train young people with the skills to go out and be civic participants and civic leaders.

So the ability.

>> Have that dialogue in class.

It's exactly worst.

What schools are supposed to be doing.

So I was like also So also in the audience, we've got reporter Joanna Hernandez with Priscilla Mims of the Cook County League of Women Voters.

Joanna, thank you, Brandon.

Thank you, Priscilla, for joining us now.

My question here is your grandmother.

>> Didn't have a chance to vote.

How did that shape the work that you do now?

Well, >> it really made me realize how much both I have a right and a privilege to be able to vote.

And so it makes it personal for me.

And I want to make sure that I exercise that right.

That privilege and that responsibility.

>> And Priscilla were seeing the mobilization of of just many more voters heading out to protest 2 rallies.

How do you capture that momentum?

>> Well, that's a great question.

Hopefully we are very active in a lot of the demonstrations, registering people to vote right there.

And then and I think those people who are realize how important it is that voting can impact their daily lives.

And that's a message we try to get across.

Can you share a little bit about what that experience is like when you're there at these protests and rallies?

What is that feeling like the energy?

>> The people that you do get to register to vote?

>> Well, it's very exciting.

Obviously, when you have that many people altogether exercising their right of free speech and trying to make there views known not only those around them, but also thanks to the press awash wider audience and they realize that being actively engage makes all the difference.

So you get to see that people change their minds.

I think I think they do.

I think they get energized and that makes them more committed to making sure that they not only vote, but many of them then wrote decide to run for office or get actively involved in the political process.

Is there a question that you would like to ask one of the panelists?

Yes, I'd love to know any of your ideas further and how to get people engage.

We have ideas, but we're always looking for new ones.

Excellent question.

>> Ok, Mary for I'm gonna take And sometimes people walk into our workshops and they're very hesitant.

And sometimes it's why are you here?

Because my pastor, back to me.

>> and once they find >> Our events are very structured and providing that safe space to talk across the aisle.

And, you know, no shouting, no name calling, you know, having those ground rules in place that we're treating everybody with dignity and respect.

And that seems to be our secret sauce of of how well our workshops go.

>> All right.

Thank you for that question.

And for the I want to talk a little bit more if we can about media, because it's it is something that we just heard.

Ms men's mentioned.

Jennifer, what have you learned about trust in media?

>> media is definitely one of the institution that has seen a deep decline in trust over the years it's that's about equal with Congress and its heart doesn't go much lower than that.

I'm afraid in terms institutions in the country.

But what we've really seen with our new and more complicated information ecosystem is that that's how people respond.

When we asked them about trust in the media or in journalism, generally on a day-to-day basis, though, people most people in this country have news sources that they trust.

And when you ask them about their media, you know, they generally feel that their media is fair and balanced, that it does a good job keeping them informed about current events and that.

>> You know, it's skewed a little bit toward helping as opposed to hurting our democracy.

So we we do find that people are able to to find a media sources that they can believe in.

>> one of the challenges, though, is as the pathway to finding those media sources and for large segments of the country, we find that people have really become passive news.

Consumers like they're they're more likely to bump into news as they're going about other activities.

Mostly online than they are to actively seek out a particular news source.

And so the concern is always what are they bumping into when they're online?

>> We've got just about a minute left here, but obviously we're going to keep this conversation going.

Mariana know you talk a lot about media and news sources in the Blues and the Reds and something that Jenny just mentioned is people trusting their sources but not other sources.

Have you been able to to see change in people's attitudes when they look at the information that the quote other side is getting.

Yeah, one of the things you'll see in the video is we do an exercise called walk a mile in my news.

And we'll get a read in a blue paired up and trade news sources and reading with what here.

What are you reading?

What are you reading?

>> compare, you know, what are commonalities?

And one of the things we discovered is get out of the headlines and get into the details and put on your critical thinking skills really, you know, dive into the issue.

And then the other thing that came up as is just trust because people gravitate towards trust.

And if you get into those, my facts are better than your facts.

know, they but UK.

Exactly.

Who do you trust?

Yeah.

Okay.

We're gonna come back to that in just a minute.

Because as we mentioned at the top, we are continuing this conversation online.

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>> Thank you for joining us on line.

We now continue our conversation kicking off Wt TWC firsthand Democracy Project.

>> Again, you can access the firsthand documentaries, in-depth reporting and much more at W T Tw Dot com slash So we were talking about the media and trust in the media.

Alexandra, I want to get you in here because want to know what your research your overall scholarship says about sources of news and information and how that informs trust.

And, you know, interactions with institutions.

>> So people tend to >> segregating to their own political space is safe and within the media and receive their sources.

As Jennifer said from those media that are considered partisan media from their side.

What we've seen from experimental work is that if you switch people's media diet, their attitudes change their views, change.

So if you take them out of watching the same program day in and day out and put them in to watch something that is different like PBS.

Their attitudes start to move away from the partisan extreme towards the center.

So we we have firsthand experimental information about the rule that media plays in in shaping people's opinions.

And Ian actually sort validating their prior beliefs about what the world looks like and what they should be believing.

So that is a very important part of how media both can generate trust.

We've the party sphere and also create mistrust by belief eyeing these beliefs that the other side does not to be trusted.

>> For NE you work with a lot of young people, they are often on social media.

How do you work with them to learn to, you know, you sources that are trustworthy and to vets those sources before believing anything that they may have seen, especially in an age I sure.

Sure.

One of the skills that we really >> press upon for young people is to be curious and to look for multiple sources.

So it's really easy to grab the information that falls into your social media feed, for example, with that kind of put you in eco chamber of just experiences that are like your own.

So really challenging young people to think if you keep hearing the same message over and over again, maybe switch, switch your and ask different questions and look for both sides of the issue were not necessarily a debate organization.

We do encourage young people to look at multiple perspectives and multiple sides of the same issue.

We also can't do it all as an organization.

And so we encourage teachers and young people to look at organizations like News Literacy Project or other groups that have curricular that are focused really trying to understand in and pick apart information information as it was.

Stories a wild right now.

And sometimes if they are super wild, that that's a trigger for someone to say, hey, maybe this isn't true.

Maybe I need to do to dig deeper.

But really the answer for us is be curious and inquire more.

>> Coming back to a loss of trust in institutions over all Alexander, your work as a political psychologist, you've examined, you know how and why people lose trust in institutions.

What is going on at the individual level when someone loses trust in an institution, not just the media.

>> So a variety of things can happen.

One is you can develop apathy because institutions don't work for you.

And therefore, what's the point?

And you may be just.

Basically not pay any attention to what's happening around you.

Not vote, become a very distant and apathetic citizen.

And that is problematic.

>> Or another.

>> I think you could do is that you may become one of those people who are like I don't nothing works for me and therefore, I wanted to burned out.

You can become and extremist activist there is a need for chaos person.

That's what we call it in political psychology.

They've developed a term for it so that you want to create chaos.

You're so angry that literally want to burn it down.

Those people who have developed that kind of attitude very, very dangerous for democracy because they can goaded to act upon these attitudes.

Social media can make easier for you to overcome psychological limits to engagement with violence or with really other behaviors that are unacceptable.

And because you think that its worst burning everything to the ground, it's easier to behaving those ways that are consistent with this.

So we need to build up the trust in order to insulate and inoculate ourselves as a community from these very dangerous tendencies.

We're going to get to audience questions in just a second, but because you mentioned, you know, sort of like the chaos thrower.

I wanted to come back to Jenny because your survey.

>> Identified 5 groups of Americans outside of the traditional categories, right?

Like race, age, gender, by which we can sort of understand civic cynicism and where those folks fall.

What can you tell us about those categories?

>> Yeah, exactly.

So we were trying to take the population in sort of move beyond the kind of classic cuts and understand this level of public mood and cynicism.

And we found that there are about 5 groups that emerged and only 2 of those groups kind of fall in the traditional left or right political partisan camps.

We found about 22% of the population was in like a classically liberal sort of group, very Democratic leaning.

You know, you can very clearly placed them on the left.

There was another group about the same size.

We called the mostly MAGA Trump supporters, very conservative on a lot of social issues.

And you can very clearly placed them on the right in today's kind of dialogue around political partisanship.

But that left like 60% of the country that isn't really seen or talked in that left or right dialogue that we have in so many situations and of those we found a fairly large group about half of them.

We considered and we called them the ambivalent.

And they're just very middle of the road on issues on their feelings about the country.

They're not necessarily optimistic or pessimistic.

They tend to bump into the news, especially and then we had a small group, 13% that we called the believers there.

The standard bearers of just about everything in this country still have a deep belief in the American dream really foundational support for things like diversity and the country.

A lot of hope about the future.

And then there was another group that was about 15%.

And these were who we called the disillusioned and they're the ones that a majority of them.

We asked the question, do you think what is going to take to get the country back on track?

Basically and a majority of them said a complete and people.

whereas for the country as a whole, about 60% said we need substantial change and the way the country's around.

But only 25% said a complete and people.

So this this is the chaos group.

The Bernadette still quarter.

Yeah, it's still a lot, right.

All right.

Thanks for sharing that.

Nick Weinberg, you have an audience question for us.

That's right.

Grant us.

I am here with and respond.

Who is not only a member of our audience.

He's also a village trustee in River Woods.

Thank you for being here.

What would you like to ask?

Sure, I want to ask my friend Mariana question since we don't have enough positivity and our >> political and civic life as we've documented here tonight, is there a free favorite briefs story that you have from your work with braver Angels gives you a lot of hope and inspiration for the future.

Is there something that, you know really stood out it in terms of your work in terms of, you know, just gave you a lot of hope.

>> Yeah, can to short story.

And when it went in Andy's also with the principles.

First until I went, I'm a blue.

I went to the principles first dinner one night and I was sitting with the sea of conservatives and I've never felt so welcome, done at home.

And that's what a lovely group of people in my life.

And that second one was when we got a group of Blue Braver Angels together with a group of young Republicans.

And we found so much in common.

And think that's the that's the hope part is getting people together in the same room and every time we can do that, it changes.

Ok?

Thank you.

And thanks for that question.

gonna go back to Joanna Hernandez.

Also in the audience with a question from an audience member.

>> Hey Brad, this?

Yes, we have a local here for mild.

The same as a doc.

What your question?

>> It's a question that sort of for group we've been talking a lot about the grassroots of being able to get civic engagement and get people to kind of look each other in the eye.

yeah, both care about our kids in our schools.

Things like that.

And then you go and turn on FOX News, CNN any number of networks and its like know everybody wants to kill each other.

Everybody hates each other.

So I realized that that's advertising revenue and clicks.

But how do you suppress that?

>> How do you suppress that?

I can see it yet because each of you kind of think.

Jenny, do you feel like you can?

don't know, Lucian, but I mean, I know we definitely see in the data exactly what you're saying.

The I've been talking a lot about some of the national studies we've done.

>> Newark also runs survey called Chicago speaks of residents in the city of Chicago.

>> And we do see, I mean, there is still pessimism about a lot of things on the local level, too.

But it is greatly reduced.

And that's a pretty longstanding trend, a trend in all of the political science literature one interesting thing as you were talking about with one thing that is just universal in cuts across every demographic, every political party group.

And is this just massive disappointment and our elected officials these days really pervasive sense of some of the root causes of that.

People really are concerned about the role of money in politics.

They really don't feel seen or understood by their elected officials.

They're deeply concerned that the incentive structure for politicians these days is to be self-serving or to serve the party and not the people.

And so, you know, potentially one solution to all of this is kind of leveraging this.

This, you know, one area for agreement and one, you know, common concern that is cross cutting across everybody.

Zandra.

>> Even after that.

Yeah.

What we know in political signs in political psychology is that leaders are enormously important for humans, for heat, for human groups because they define what the groups identity and values are supposed to be like.

So we behave and we follow our leaders because we want to feel good standing members of the group and the best way to do that is by mirroring our leaders.

So there's huge responsibility our leaders, whether at the local level, the state level or the national level to model behavior.

And that.

We want our communities to follow our people to follow.

And then at think I think vigil level and at the grassroots level, we need to have a conversation too about whether our leaders match our vision of cool a true American is like an should be like and what our values are.

And is it worse?

It to have people who don't match those values just because they have right path, party's standard with them.

So we have to have this conversation and whether it is more important to have to maintain our values or our parties and Alexander.

You've also identified redistricting as a way to sort of bring the temperature down in decrease and polarization.

Tell us how redistricting could help.

>> So right now, the way that a lot of states do redistricting is the legislature basically tinkers with lines of districts in ways that advantage the party control and with contemporary all Greer them, you can do it in ways that are super super refined basically gerrymandering, which is what we're talking about has existed literally since the beginning of the country's history.

Not new, but the difference is 17, 90, they did it with simple math and on paper and with approximations today, you have computers that tell you exactly who is going to vote, where they're going to vote and what to expect so they can.

have basically predict district ing very, very well.

The result has been that both at the national level, our national legislature and our state legislatures have become.

safe to the party that controls them.

And right now, yeah, at the federal level, I think there are 36 competitive districts, maybe fewer than that where it's really a toss-up.

Everything else is safe.

There are numerous districts where there is no opponent because it doesn't pay for the other party to try to win and spend the money and the resources when the partisan difference is 40 or 50%.

How you're going to win there.

If we have what some states have is a redistricting commissions, California had that recent events change But basically it's independent redistricting commission that is made up of scientists bipartisan people and the district and is Don based on the Congress, all of the district's, not like little snakes that go around, but actually organized where populations are and this way you can have competitive districts which where people actually are 50, 50 and that represents all of us better because that means we're bringing politics to the middle.

There is a better chance.

2 have and general election that is competitive right now.

addition themselves, I imagine would also have to come to the middle instead of playing what we often shortly because today, the only election that matters is the primary, which is in a few weeks.

>> So everybody goes out everybody Nick Bromberg in the audience again with another audience member.

>> Brandis I'm here with Curtis who has a question for the panel.

How doing?

So my question is around engage in folks who >> Incarcerated at the moment and those family incomes.

Really?

Because what I understand is that from you know, I'm from cross with myself.

lot of folks don't know that they can vote when they get it right.

So we just started have been situations where folks will be tow civics in prison just about maybe 5 or 6 years ago.

Right?

And so there's a lot of folks who reiterating that want to be engaged.

what can work you guys don't want to engage.

Folks want formerly incarcerated.

What kind of work that you do want make sure that folks inside know that you know, they have avenues to vote to register and things like that.

>> Rene, Marion, either of you.

>> Because I do want to point out that we also have some really great reporting about that very issue on our website.

Again, W t Tw dot com slash firsthand.

And I think that might provide a little bit more of like the color and the information that he's looking for.

And I think it also comes up in one of the documentaries as well where it is.

It's an issue that that hits home for some of our characters.

There.

>> I would say there's people who incarcerated would like me to come and do a workshop with them about what it's like and how to get along with those we get out.

I'm there.

Renee, I want to come back to you because you say about 90% of Nicolette Nye who are eligible to vote.

They actually do vote in elections.

They stay involved their communities.

Some may run for school boards.

Others may be for elected office.

Obviously not all of them are going to do this.

But how does mix to get young people involved at such a young age and engaged in our public institutions?

Sure, sure.

I mean, some of it is just that simple, you know, education of >> voting is sort of the end and goal that we want people to be engaged, you know, voters but also just be involved in decision-making classroom based decision-making decision-making here in Chicago.

We actually have a council, the sort of addresses because the question that was brought up around issues of safety and just is so we bring young people too decision makers who are deciding juvenile justice policy and young people get to be in for you to inform the decisions that are being made, the policy decisions being made.

We also have a council that works with Chicago Public schools and has decisions and policies are being made.

Their students who are directly impacted by those decisions go straight to the decision-maker.

The elected official, the appointed official, the school board official and so really trying to help them to see that again, the voting is the end, but it is if you are able to influence a policy while you are in school, he could be a classroom base.

It could be talking to your principal about a change that's made that leads to that longer-term civic engagement because students get a chance to see and understand that direct connection between decisions that are made today and the role that they've been able to play as a student even before they've been able to vote.

We also for years, a partner with the Board of Elections, for example, and students have been able to serve as election judges even before they're eligible to vote.

So for us a big part of our tag line is democracy is a number is that we help young people learn democracy by doing it and being involved in being able to see things happen before they're able to even formally directly participate as a as an elected voter as real voter.

So polling often find that young people milennials gincy well, younger millennials.

>> We're getting are the most disillusioned about politics and democracy.

What do you attribute that to?

>> I mean, it's.

>> If it doesn't feel real, if it doesn't feel relevant to a student, then you can be disillusioned by it.

I mean, somebody brought up the example.

You're turning on the news and you're seeing something that seems really far away or you're seeing adults behave badly or you're seeing a disconnect between what you've learned about the Constitution and what actually is truly unfolding in government that makes it really, really hard to trust the institution to trust the system because what we're seeing now, what we really learned is that under the sea is that when we bring issues very local to students like keep going back to school, what's the institution that impacts young people directly in this moment when they have the chance to engage it builds confidence.

Also, we try our best to introduce them to elected officials and other civic leaders.

So they get a chance to see these folks may look like me.

They may live in my neighborhood or when I go to their office because I'm a constituent I can answer, ask questions and get those questions answer.

So our goal is to bring them as close as we can to government and do that really locally.

At first because that's more what they can touch and see.

And I will say in this day and age, it feels more actionable, then thinking about things that the federal level, right?

Thank you for that Joyner Hernandez in the audience with another audience member question.

>> Your brain is I have a student at the University of Chicago.

Can you tell me your name and what you're studying?

My name is Molina.

And I'm studying public policy, sociology and human rights.

That's also Mitt sidelining to what we're talking about.

Tell me a little bit about Your question is about.

Yeah.

So given kind of the cultivation of >> distrust in our democratic institutions that has been happening with many government officials and elected officials.

I was just kind of curious, like what your guys the spots were on, how this trust can be restored and like how we can make these institutions like set back up in a way that they can continue to function with trust.

Jenny, can I come to you first on Yeah, sure.

So, I mean, I think.

>> One thing that we we see out of this study that we did where we sort of identify these 5 different groups.

Is on the one hand, maybe we need to segment our approach a little bit and we need take advantage of some groups like the believers group that we talked about and use them as role models for how to be engage civically for how to talk to one another and for how to tolerate different beliefs.

But on the other hand, there are these kinds of cross-cutting themes that we can leverage too.

And one thing that we did really see is that when when break it down to the fundamentals and a lot of ways the country still has deep, deep agreement.

You know, we are.

Broadly broadly in agreement on the importance of a democratically elected government as part of our country's identity.

But majority of people in the country think that the democracy is operating pour le.

So it's really about this disconnect between our fundamental principles and how they're actually being executed by our government and office today.

And so I think, you know, to the extent that we can really help people see that, that we do have some fundamental agreements.

We just disagree on the execution.

That can be a stepping stone to more conversation.

looks like everybody's got something.

Mary Ann go on.

>> I just want to point out we deportation for him for beverages.

That's an hour and a half long.

You can find it on YouTube and it was just those kinds of conversations we had to ordinary citizens.

We had 2 members of Congress and for people in policy, you know, all talking about what, what?

What about the whole system of deportation rate goes?

Well, what are you concerned about?

You know, what are your values around?

It well, things down to values and concerns.

We find a lot of agreement.

And at the end there was, you know, somebody we know what your key take away.

And it was like this is great.

This is great in the last person even said, exasperated because we're the only ones doing this, right.

So it people a group of believers and growing that group that's willing to sit down talk across the aisle hash You know, the difference is and talk about what solutions look like rather than who gets the best job her right front.

And then I want to get to a question from the audience I mean, think we're training ground.

I think those institutions and new blood and the young people who are in our schools, the young people in our programs.

>> As they leave us as they go to law school.

>> As they look into what their future careers are.

We are training changemakers.

So those institutions in need the students that we have make that challenge of the students that are coming from the various teachers in the audience or classrooms and young people need to be encouraged to say take this passion that you have go to law school become a, you know, elected official work in government and be a part of the change that you're looking for because we need new blood and we need new people who are passion.

It and also think critically and have the ability to talk across to be in those positions to make those changes at the system's All right.

Thank you, Nick Lambert in the audience.

Thanks Brandis.

I am here with ends our U.S.

who has a question for the panel.

What would you like to ask?

>> Senator Nash on a student from the Dominican Republic.

I can't vote so I would like to know what actions can we take as part of a minority in a community who can do both that boat itself?

But like we want to just something we want to continue to grow in this democracy because we leave work and we start here, but we can the voting.

So what can we do and what actions are you taking for these type of communities?

>> 75 seconds.

This is the Lightning round.

Alexandra, we haven't heard from you in a little bit.

>> So one of the things that you can do talk 2 other students, American students about your experiences get them to understand.

Your side of things and how issues are affecting you and your life and do the community that you represent.

So even though you're not voting your representative, you are actual representative of the community and you have voice use your voice and you can do so very effectively in your community.

>> 30 seconds left and top tips.

listener.

When you're meeting someone you don't agree made of.

>> Turn off that inner debate or don't be planning what you're going to say.

Not I'm not gonna get my perspective in.

Listen.

Absorb be able to acknowledge and understand.

Look for the underlying values be able to connect with that person.

>> My thanks to our panelists to our audience.

Thank you all for sharing your insights.

Your expertise.

And that is our show for this Monday night.

Thank you to our panelists and our audience again and for of course, those of you who are at home for joining again.

You can head to our Web site to check out the first hand documentaries, in-depth reporting on the challenges and the opportunities facing democracy and much more.

That is all it W t tw dot com slash firsthand.

And speaking of civic engagement, the W T Tw News online voter Guide for next month's primary election is up and running.

Learn about the candidates.

The offices where when and how you can vote and much more.

You can find it at W T Tw dot com slash news and join us tomorrow night at 5, 30 10 now for all of us here at Chicago tonight.

I'm Brandis Friedman, thank you for watching.

Stay healthy and safe.

>> And have a good night.

>> Closed captioning is made possible by Robert a cliff and Clifford law offices, a Chicago personal injury and wrongful death and sponsor program.

offers continuing