Bridging the Divide: Encouraging Civil Discourse Between Differing Political Perspectives

Three days after the 2016 presidential election, Joe Minarik and Scott Bidner, facilitators with the University of Illinois Program on Intergroup Relations, described the liberal/conservative, religious-diversity and class dialogue courses they teach, contrasted dialogue with debate and advocacy, and named obstacles such as de facto and "virtual" segregation, echo chambers and electronic communication. Attendees paired off to recount political conversations that broke down, then shared takeaways; a debate instructor pressed the speakers on their definition of debate.