Heffner: I'm Alexander Heffner, your host on the Open Mind.

I'm delighted to welcome to today's broadcast, Raj Vinnakota.

Raj leads the Institute for Citizens and Scholars, formerly the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship Foundation.

He's a national leader on youth civic engagement.

Welcome, Raj.

It's a pleasure to host you today.

Vinnakota: It's great to be here.

Thanks so much.

Heffner: Raj, What is your most pressing priority in rejuvenating the civic bones of this country, uh, right now?

Vinnakota: Um, so, uh, the simple answer is the one that I gave, uh, a few years ago when I was interested in this work at what was then the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, and now the Institute for Citizens and Scholars.

The simple answer is, I think we as a nation have forgotten how to develop citizens.

And if we don't do that well, everything we want around a self-governing constitutional democracy goes away.

Heffner: The development of citizens is the most essential task you are undertaking.

Now, how are you developing these citizens, so they don't operate then in, in silos because there are a lot of folks in your line of work who develop excellent prescriptions, and then these folks who are attempting to execute the revitalization of our democracy either lose faith in their capacity to do so, or are just hamstrung.

They're just paralyzed by the almost intractable incapacity of the system to be rejuvenated.

Vinnakota: Great question.

So let me answer that kind of first about what it is that we try to do in developing citizens, and hopefully that'll also then give, uh, a good set of thoughts about how we answer this question.

So part of that study that you alluded to the white paper in 2019 was an approach to rethinking civic education in this country.

Um, and that work led to a consensus definition of even what are we trying to do?

What are we trying to achieve or said differently?

What is an effective citizen?

And the consensus definition really looked at three categories.

It said, we need citizens to be civically well-informed, right?

They need to understand how their government functions, they need to understand the historical underpinnings.

They then need to be able to assess information that comes at them 24 7 and be able to understand it, and to get that information for multiple and diverse sources.

So that's category one being civically well-informed.

The second category is to be productively engaged.

So that means voting, but it also means associating kind of in the Bob Putnam sense of how do you mentor or volunteer or engage in the Elks Club or the Boys and Girls Club in your community, however, broadly you define that community.

And then finally, in that category is being able to engage in thoughtful civil discourse, right?

Even if you disagree with someone, can you understand them and work together towards common cause.

So productively engage that second category.

And then the third is to be committed to democracy.

And so commitment means not only being optimistic about democracy, but also having trust, trusting your neighbors, trusting your institutions, and trusting your government.

So it's a much broader notion, right?

It's not just civic knowledge or it's not just participation in voting.

Um, it's a much broader notion of what it means to be a citizen.

And if we're successful in that endeavor, right?

Or if even if we're making progress in that endeavor, you start to realize there's multiple points of view.

You have to work through a government that's been set up in a federalist system to be necessarily, I'll use a small c conservative, right?

Uh, you need to make changes over time and that they're very deliberate.

You understand the long arc of history that we actually are working towards a better life, a more perfect union over time.

Some of these things take a long time, but you're working towards that.

So you start to get an understanding that actually we are making, uh, progress.

That that progress at times may be slow.

You understand the levers of power, and you understand how to get people moving together to actually drive this change.

So that's hopefully how you get people to get both engaged and not pessimistic about what's going on.

Heffner: That's a many step process, which you acknowledge, you say, the system in which we live was built to be conservative in, in, in the respect that you describe.

Um, I would say also deliberatively, confrontational and combative to a, to an extent, but we have lost the trust in our ability to activate that trust in these systems.

And so you're taking, aspiring to take a, a new generation to reactivate that trust, understanding there's gonna be some amount of combat, there's some gonna be some amount of confrontation.

Uh, but ultimately overcoming that will be the, the spirit of, of our kind of collective good.

And, and that that collective good is what civics aspires to be, Raj.

Yet we know that civic education has been tainted or stigmatized and marginalized as a function of, of the idea that it is exclusionary a prejudice against civic education for some time.

I'm not suggesting it's a fair one, but is that still something you're grappling with, that there is a certain perception of what civic education means, and not everyone has come to the table in understanding that it is a universal good?

Vinnakota: So I, I take on this issue of what is civic education and how we should think about it, uh, uh, in that paper.

And really, I have two separate set of answers, right?

So the first is simply that unfortunately, when we talk about civic education, we too myopically focus on that civics or government class that we took as juniors in high school or maybe what we are learning in high school.

And part of my work, uh, then and continues to be an important part of the work at the Institute for Citizens and Scholars, is to say, we actually learned to be citizens not only in school, but also after school in our community, institutions at home, uh, in our faith-based institutions in higher ed, at our first place of work.

Those are all places that you actually learn and practice and build the muscles, the norms and habits of being a citizen.

So it's really important that we not seed the other places and also get them into the conversation for how this is done.

And I think in doing that, Alex, we actually start to get at your issue, which is, do we somehow or the others start to be view civic education in either too elitist or too much of a knowledge focused approach, or too singular an approach?

And you just have to broaden the way in which you think about developing citizens.

If you don't mind, let me just give you an example, right?

Like, so I, as you noted, I'm an immigrant.

I moved here when I was seven, uh, actually from Switzerland, though I'm, most of my parents are of Indian descent.

Um, and I often talk about the fact that the single most important way that I learned how to be a citizen was by reading the newspaper with my father every night, right?

I read the Milwaukee Journal with my father, and we talk about every single issue, and we debate them and we discuss, and that was, I mean, I learned it in many different ways, but that was the major way in which I learned how our government functioned, what was going on, how to learn, how to debate, and so on and so forth.

So we've gotta get all of those other places into this role.

Heffner: Yeah, the Journal Sentinel, the Argus leader, those local papers were maybe up through the late nineties, early two thousands, they were the water cooler, but not from an entertainment perspective.

I mean, we know there was Seinfeld and the precursors to that.

But from a news and information perspective, um, those papers were readily available if not thriving.

And we understand that the digital transformation has disabled that to some extent, right?

So what, what is the nutrition that fathers and sons, um, and families are exchanging with each other?

It's a much more complicated ecosystem today.

But I wanted to ask you this.

As someone who, before hosting this show, for the past 10 years or so, reported on millennial political thought and engagement starting really in the 2006 midterm campaign all the way through the 2012 campaign.

That was my beat.

Um, and so I, I look at those years as years of great hope and aspiration, much like the mantra of the Obama campaign.

Yes, we can, but understanding, um, um, there, there may have been some policy preferences adopted of millennials since then, but fundamentally, millennials did not alter the status quo when it came to civically engaging and informing and activating that trust.

So how can Gen Z correct what we, millennials, I'm not saying you, but possibly you.

I don't want to age you or, uh, or what, but, but we know.

What, what we millennials failed to accomplish, and I'll take responsibility too.

Vinnakota: So, um, first thing about this generation to understand is they're incredibly engaged, right?

I mean, you know this, right?

You interviewed a number of them who are engaged both politically, but also just socially.

They want to get engaged.

Um, they're digital natives.

Um, and one of the things that's been true, uh, about them is that they are not what I would call, uh, politically affiliated as much as they are about trying to find solutions, right?

So the Rs and the Ds aren't as important to them as like, how do you solve these major issues?

And that has led them to actually be, and in some ways much more optimistic, right?

They, they're, they're looking at these issues and saying, let's go solve them.

The problem and the challenge that we're seeing is they're becoming more and more skeptical about institutions.

Um, and some of that skepticism has to be addressed, right?

So for example, we know that 83% of Gen Z believe that they can go solve the problems, but they need the infrastructure around them in order to be able to go do that.

So, you know, kind of our work is focused around 14 to 18 year old's, so they'd come more knowledgeable and think about how to apply what they learn into their communities.

We then look at 18 to 24 year old's about engaging in very deliberate sort of ways, be they a college, be they in the workforce and workplace, so that they can actually be able to see the, and make the improvements that they want to see.

I mean, we've got 42 million, 14 to 24 year old's who are entering the public square right now.

And so if we do a good job of this, they are going to tip this country towards democracy versus autocracy towards understanding freedom, expression, points of views, and trying to get to the best solutions.

That's our job.

We gotta move quickly.

Heffner: So when you were describing Gen Z, it seemed to me you were describing millennials too, at least they were built with the same composition.

And so where is, is it in, in Gen Z's capacity to overcome the institutionalization of dysfunction, the incentive structure that again, paralyzes, disables.

Um, we know that even in the, more, even in the most optimistic analysis of American politics today, it's still a sufficiently cynical affair, um, with motivations and, uh, ulterior motives that do not inspire the hope that you just espoused or wished upon us.

Um, so what are, what is Gen Z going to do quite deliberately, quite tangibly, differently than millennials to accomplish what you, what you said they, they're capable of accomplishing?

Vinnakota: So Gen Z are actually much more digital natives, right?

Than millennials.

I mean, just as a function of what their age was and what they grew up, right?

So that allows them to be able to move at faster speeds, more at scale, um, than other generations.

The other part of this is that, um, as I said, because we're in this really, uh, interesting balancing point, gen Z believes in themselves, right?

And so being able to move themselves, and we have to make sure that they do it in a way that's actually productive rather than actually troubling.

Um, but being able to move themselves as a cohort and realize that both you and I are overgeneralizing, right?

But I understand, right?

But being able to move themselves actually will allow them to be successful and be able to take on some of this cynicism to be able to take on some of this institutional challenges.

They can't do it on their own, right?

Part of our responsibility, millennials, uh, generation X, uh, and so on, is to be able to create the structure to be able to share with them what we learned, uh, so that they don't make the same mistakes.

Um, one of the things I often say is everyone is a civics teacher, right?

It's not just that social studies or American history teacher, it's all of us mentors, coaches, uh, faith-based leaders, all of us who engage with young people and say, here's the things you need to know.

Here's the things we tried and didn't work.

Maybe you can try them in a different way.

And so on.

So there's that, there's the scale effect of the way in which that they can engage, which is different than any other generation before us, Heffner: Raj, I don't mean to be the Debbie Downer, but I'll assume that mantle if only to say that on this broadcast I've been talking about how our current politics is anti-children.

Um, it's, it's anti Gen Z in effect.

Um, we know the realities about, uh, unaffordability housing college, even if you, uh, develop a skill or a trade, being able to live off of that skill or trade in a, in a gig economy where you might need to develop three skills or trades and still not have enough to, to make ends meet or to have a family or to live a life that you find decent.

And when I did interview two Gen Z activists, advocates that I think in episode you alluded to, um, they acknowledged this too.

It didn't dampen their spirits, to your point and to your credit.

But I do think it's, it's worth acknowledging that even more so than when President Obama ran for office, uh, in 2008.

We, we live in a climate when young people are paying in every, every check of, uh, compensation they get for a job into a social security system that's going to be depleted, uh, based on current analysis.

By the early 2030s, I think 2032 or 2033, we're living in a climate where housing prices, you know, are just inaccessible for, for the vast majority of people to live in, in safe communities with loved ones.

Um, and you know, that those are just some of the facts.

And I wonder how we respond to those basic facts, which I don't think were as extreme and disproportionately, um, you know, askew in 2008, you know, now looking at this from 2023 perspective.

Vinnakota: So you look, young people are, some of them are energized by this, others are skeptical by this.

I mean, the situation, uh, is challenging.

Um, yet at the same time, they're all are largely seeking to engage to try to actually make the change.

And so you can get young people motivated by the issues, but then you have to actually get them to be knowledgeable, to be productively engaged, to be committed to not burning it all down as a way of actually functioning effectively.

So I'm not actually denying what you're saying, rather I'm saying that when I work with young people is that they want to actually make the changes to have, uh, you know, a society that functions better for them and for others, in order to do that, they need to have this basis of understanding, right?

And they need to have the capacities and the skills that they're still just starting to develop, right?

And to the point that's implicit here is they need to build an optimism and a hope that in by investing their knowledge and their skills, that it'll actually get somewhere.

That's our work.

I'm not suggesting it's easy, but that is the work itself.

Heffner: Raj, are you still imploring young people to start local?

Because you can be more effective in solving a local municipal problem before you are reforming the filibuster, for example.

Vinnakota: So I'm, uh, saying that I'm imp employing young people to do local stuff, but also think about national, right?

These are not mutually exclusive, it's just that the local stuff you can start to see change more quickly, right?

And that starts to build both your muscle, but also back to your, what we, we were talking earlier, your commitment, right?

So I live in a small town of 8,000 people.

My daughter's 17.

If she wants to see things change, she can do that there.

It builds up her muscle, she gets more engaged, and she also starts to think about like, what is it that I can do in the state of Maine, in New England, in the country and in the globe?

So, um, both of them should be happening.

Not, they're not mutually exclusive, it's just that one can build your hope and commitment and skills faster.

Heffner: And there are ways to track and monitor progress that's being made on the local level.

The Solutions Journalism Project in, in our cohort, in the media world, you know, they attempt to do that, pointing out how local, state, and even federal reporting can lead to changes.

So we're not, we're not suggesting that it's impossible.

Vinnakota: Alex, if I could jump in for a moment.

I mean, like you brought up just an interesting issue, which is measurement.

This is the third part of our work, which is how do you build out this field, this space of, of civic learning?

And, you know, uh, I'm a scientist, right?

I'm a molecular biologist.

Uh, and so I do bring that lens and I go, wait, how do we know whether or not we're making progress, right?

Like, we're thinking about all of these interventions, yet we don't even know how to measure it.

And so part of our work with many other people in the field is to actually develop a, a, a measurement construct and the tools.

So in February, we came out with the first ever measurement map of like, how do you even start to take on the challenge of determining whether or not someone is civically prepared and whether or not their community provides them with the opportunities to be civically prepared.

And then we identified over 180 tools that exist already out there that we can actually put against this map.

And so we're slowly starting to develop and identify how do we actually know whether or not we're making progress?

Heffner: That's such a tricky one too.

Because of the collective good question.

And those who would even deny that there is such a thing as a collective good, and those people are Americans and they exist.

And I don't think you have to be terribly extreme to have developed a point of view that my good is my, my household or my good is my neighborhood.

Um, that may sound egotistical or, or narcissistic at first glance, but we know that people live out their experiences and if their experiences were not productive in a public education setting or in a neighborhood that they live in, then that is something we have to grapple with.

Vinnakota: Well, and so this is one of the reasons why we're working with Gen Z. I think it's an easier case to make for though for young people who are coming into the system, right?

Than someone who's been in the system for a long time and could be more cynical.

I mean, if the data seems to suggest that that's the case, here's a population with whom we can get ahead of it, right?

And hopefully be able to get them to invest in wanting to see the change.

Heffner: Well, here's a project as we anticipate the 2024 presidential election.

Um, I was recently driving, um, to, uh, to a rural college, um, in Washington, um, right near the border of Oregon.

Um, and, um, we saw some signs in this particular instance, they were signs favorable to former President Trump, um, and, uh, and opposing, um, president Biden.

Uh, but if you were in other neighborhoods in this country, you would, you may see signs to the opposite effect.

Bottom line is, I genuinely had the urge.

Um, you know, perhaps because we have lived in a more normalized environment as it relates to, you know, pandemic recovery, to just knock on that person's door, their farmhouse or their home and say, you know, what is the most salient- Vinnakota: Reason?

Heffner: To your mind?

Right.

Reason.

Yeah.

What is, what, what is, um, in, in as much of a friendly and loving way as one could ask that question.

Um, look, we didn't have those conversations for the past three years, and we're still not having them to the degree we should because we have respiratory illnesses.

Still, the pandemic is not a un or us, um, emergency, at least in the way the government defines it.

But people still wear masks to protect themselves.

But I think a lot of people who might have had the desire to knock on that door and say, Hey, I'm just curious what, why, what was the top reason for you to put that sign up?

And I think that the young people that you're working with Gen Z, um, along with being very prescriptive, have to do that soul searching in, in the history too, to learn about the people who have been part of the system.

When we're talking the system, we're talking about the civic system, we're talking about the country, we're talking about the populace.

So I think that, that, that is a necessary assignment still.

Um, regardless of what the sign might be, it might be advocating for legalizing cannabis.

It might be for, um, you know, legalizing reproductive rights or abortion access in states where that's now banned and outlawed.

But whatever it is, I want us to keep having those conversations.

And, and I'm, I, I guess I'm proposing to you will this be something that you would encourage Gen Z leaders to do as we anticipate this next presidential election, basically?

Go ahead.

Vinnakota: I couldn't agree with you more.

I, I think you're absolutely right.

And, and some of the work that we're doing, uh, on college campuses and in the workplace is exactly intending to do this, which is how do you start to discuss and start to understand other people's points of views who are not like yours, right?

Like being able to both have the skill to discuss contentious issues and being able to have the empathy to understand other points of view.

I mean, they're incredibly important in this, uh, time and place.

One of the things that worries me the most is when I see the data about people not trusting their neighbor, right?

Or thinking that if you voted for the other side and the previous election, that makes you evil, right?

I mean, those kinds of things are especially worrisome because it then means that you dehumanize everybody on the other side when in fact they, they're all humans.

They, they have motivations and they have information sets.

And this is one of the places where you hope that you can start to look and share information and experiences.

Because if you don't do that, this thing doesn't, doesn't work.

And being able to teach those skills as early as possible is really important.

Heffner: And when do you call out autocracy or fascism or threats to Republican discourse?

Uh, free and open humane society.

Uh, when a political party or a candidate is deemed to be an autocrat or a fascist?

Vinnakota: This is the, this is the really important part where we need to make sure that we're complicating the narrative, right?

Amanda Ripley's commentary, right?

Which is, um, we can't view, uh, everyone who supports, uh, the pro former president to having the same reason for supporting him.

Uh, there are many people who actually vote against someone more than they vote for somebody, right?

And so trying to understand other people's point of view and what motivates them becomes really important.

Because I would argue that there's a very small percentage of people who voted for the last president who actually voted because of autocratic tendencies, right?

But rather concerns about certain things that are valid concerns where you have a choice of one or two and you don't have any other choices.

So, um, being able to actually understand human beings for what motivates them on an individual level is really critical.

Heffner: That's music to my ears.

I think that's a project that we ought to embark on with, with the vigor and resilience of Gen Z. Um, so I hope the next time you and I meet, it's not over Zoom, but it's outside of some person's farmhouse or gymnasium or something where there's some signage or literature and, and we can kind of tackle this together.

And I'm oh, so serious about this.

And I, and I hope you might be too.

Vinnakota: Alex, I look forward to inviting you to actually one of our sessions when we actually take this on sometime in the next year.

It's a deal.

Heffner: That sounds great.

That sounds great.

Raj, I appreciate the spirit that you bring to this, uh, as a scientist and a citizen.

And I'm curious what the results can look like, uh, from the micro to the macro.

Um, because as you said, the old days of judging something maybe by, um, the how it's reported in the local paper, um, or you know, how the op-ed or letter to the editor reverberates in the community that that isn't today.

Those things still matter and they get traction on social media.

But I think our problems are so intractable, or at least seemingly intractable, that we need a new found imagination.

And I'm really delighted you are bringing that, um, to the young people who you work with every day.

So thanks for doing that.

Vinnakota: Thank you very much.

Thank you for having me on the show.

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