Why Should Delaware Care?
Emotional polarization has grown rapidly in the U.S. in recent years, leading to intensifying animosity between people with opposing views. An initiative at the University of Delaware is training the next generation of leaders to navigate the polarized environment through civic engagement.
Community-Powered Journalism
This story came from a Spotlight Delaware reader survey about story ideas that readers would like to see. If you receive our newsletter, keep an eye on your inbox for our next reader survey soon.
Jenna DeMaio was relegated to watching one of three channels in the doctor’s office waiting room.
Only ESPN, The Food Network or Home and Garden Television could be shown on the TV. No streaming services or news channels, such as MSNBC or FOX, could be left on.
A sign taped to the check-in desk forbade it.
“That’s kind of sad in society if we can’t watch anything more controversial,” DeMaio said.
Political polarization has been steadily increasing in the U.S. over the past several decades, seeping into communities, college campuses and family conversations around the dinner table.
Specifically, affective polarization, or the gap between people’s positive feelings toward their own political party and negative feelings toward the opposing party, has rapidly increased in recent years.
Affective polarization is a significant issue that comes with a real intensity and animosity that leads people to view other sides or people with opposing viewpoints as the enemy, according to Timothy Shaffer, director of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Ithaca Initiative at the University of Delaware.
A sense that the other side needs to be defeated, removed or decimated accompanies affective polarization, Shaffer explained.
While many perceive social media as the inciting cause of affective polarization, the growth of it predates the internet – it is more closely tied to the rise of cable news and radio talk shows, studies show.
The phenomenon is also growing most rapidly with people over 65 years old.
“Polarization isn’t, in and of itself, inherently bad,” Shaffer said. “It is this more kind of intense framing and approach to it that really is detrimental.”
The waiting room experience made DeMaio realize the real-life implications of civil discourse and polarization in her everyday happenings. DeMaio, a UD undergraduate student leader with the SNF Ithaca Initiative, was studying those very topics in her classes.
The initiative is training the next generation of leaders to become versed in civic engagement as they navigate an increasingly polarized environment. The program is leading efforts at UD to foster conversations and interactions around divisive issues and topics.
“It’s really opened my eyes to things that were always around me, but I just didn’t realize it,” DeMaio said.
Polarization in Delaware
Delaware is often perceived to be less polarized than the rest of the country.
The First State’s small land size and roughly 1 million-person population has decreased the six degrees of separation between people closer to two. The state fosters a sense of proximity between its residents, state agencies and elected officials.
“It’s harder to vilify a group of people, or it’s harder to ‘other’ people when you know them, or you know people that know them,” DeMaio said.
“The Delaware Way,” has often been used to describe a relationship-centric form of politics where lawmakers work across the aisle to compromise on legislation, despite their disagreements and differences. In more recent years, the term has also derived a more derisive meaning that major decisions are often decided behind closed doors and out of the public eye.
Delaware politicians regularly participate in Return Day, a historical tradition that signifies unity two days after Election Day. The Georgetown event features a parade where contestants for races up and down the ballot ride in a carriage together and literally bury a ceremonial hatchet following the election.
Still, the First State is not exempt from encroaching polarization.
In 2022, the tradition was thrown into controversy when the Delaware Democratic Party Executive Committee urged its candidates not to ride in some of the carriages in the parade. The move was an effort by party leadership to boycott the museum that provides the carriages, given that a Confederate flag flew on the museum’s lawn as part of a monument to Confederate Delaware soldiers during the Civil War.
Delaware could fall prey to the larger national trend of affective polarization if there aren’t people willing to engage with one another to bridge those differences, according to Shaffer. Delaware would fall into line with many other places that have been nationalized in their way of speaking and thinking, which has led to repercussions in productive policymaking.
The state is already shaped in many ways by national politics, which presents a real issue, Shaffer said.
“This kind of polarization and this effect of partisanship potentially has the ability to disrupt the broader kind of social fabric in a place like this,” Shaffer added.
The SNF Ithaca Initiative within the University of Delaware Biden School of Public Policy and Administration, aims to foster civil discourse and bipartisan collaboration. Its National Student Dialogue program, seen here, brings together a diverse group of college students from across the country to discuss, debate, and develop policy solutions. | PHOTO COURTESY OF EVAN KRAPE/UD
Where does the initiative fit in?
The SNF Ithaca Initiative was launched as a civil discourse pilot program at UD in 2021. The program brings together students and fellows from across the country to work together to revitalize civic life and develop policy solutions.
The program consists of new programs, course offerings and seminar series focused on civil discourse.
For Simon Brand, a former SNF Ithaca student leader, the initiative helped him discuss robust issues with his brother, despite them being on opposite sides of the political spectrum.
“I can just go above and just discuss politics with my brother without being personally affected by it or trying to prove him wrong,” Brand said.
The initiative held its annual National Student Dialogue in March, gathering college students from across the nation to debate and develop bipartisan policy solutions to controversial topics surrounding the national dialogue.
This year’s event focused on the tensions between diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) programs and free speech and expression on college campuses. A case study was conducted on the Israel-Hamas War repercussions felt at the University of Pennsylvania, which ranged from student protests to the resignation of the university’s president.
The dialogue transpired before UD students organized pro-Palestinian protests, walkouts and encampments as a show of solidarity with Palestinian people in Gaza.
In February, the initiative organized a conversation between Joe Walsh, a former Republican Illinois congressman and gun rights advocate, and Fred Guttenberg, a gun safety activist whose daughter was killed in the 2018 Parkland school shooting.
The pair initially traded barbs on social media before speaking in-person, finding common ground despite their differences. The event launched a speaking tour that models how two people can disagree about substantive issues and still have meaningful conversation around them.
Find Out More
If you’d like to learn more about the SNF Ithaca Initiative, contact bidenschool@udel.edu or follow the Joseph R. Biden, Jr. School of Public Policy and Administration on Facebook for updates: https://www.facebook.com/UDBidenSchool
The post University of Delaware initiative combats rising national polarization appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.