Tyler Bugg (University of Georgia) on Reengaging Voters in Productive Political Discourse

But in understanding the world, in the comfort of the tiny booth, there’s also so much of the world I miss, so much of the “traffic” that passes me by.

Likewise, politicians and candidates today are missing too much of the traffic. The cozy booths of their own ideas, the political party space to which they must restrict themselves per the rules of ideological acceptance, and the quick-fix campaign messages are isolating them from the very nature of politics, the most primary activity hinged on elections: discourse.

This year’s election season is certainly not immune. We’ve come into a political era where civil and honest conversation has become both immensely easier and challengingly hard. Social media makes the legwork near effortless; how quickly and virally campaign catchphrases can be shared, “liked,” and retweeted is unprecedented.

But speed is almost never substantive. How helpful is the fast spread of campaign headlines when their contents are the dull, shallow, dead ends of dialogue?

Politicians aren’t totally to blame, though. Voters, too, have been missing too much of the traffic. The response to campaigns’ hollow rhetoric, especially among Millennials, has been a rejection in total. They’ve slammed shut the door into the conversation of campaign politics, and more than half have kept it tightly locked, remaining unsure that they’ll even take the time to vote in the November presidential election. Even worse is that not many seem to mind the trends that are continuing to erode campaign confidence.

With candidates keeping behind their teleprompters of one-liners and voters keeping behind their own unconfidence, there’s no one to meet conversation in the middle.

The ongoing challenges facing the year’s election cycle, and ones in the future, is that the citizenry (doesn’t) talk about the election cycle. They’re hearing and accepting and demanding nothing more than the television attack ads, radio spots, and the name bashing saturating both. They stop short the conversations we could be having, and should be having, and not only during the peaks of time when partisan pundits become ferociously interested in gaining chambers seats and shouting a political victory.

Even amongst the ideologically divided Millennial Values Fellows group, themselves reacting to a political climate of hyper-partisanship, one point of consensus could be reached: a new– and better– conversation must be ignited.

That’s an important first step. But I would add that it must start with the voter, the community of voters (and perhaps more importantly, the communities of those not yet compelled to vote). Much of today’s high apathy and low confidence, especially within the messages of political campaigns, could be corrected if the voters were included– and included themselves– in the political discussion. That discussion has become too much of a whisper between candidates, billionaire donors, and celebrity endorsers. Until it starts and ends with the constituents elections most effect, neither the voters nor public officials can empower the political system towards progress.

Meanwhile, an authentic commitment to community must be refueled from the positions of officialdom. The job of public service, especially during election season, isn’t to merely echo the complaints of constituents or offer an affirming head nod to their desires. That only cultivates the myth of a closeness, a connection for what the public needs. It’s a cheap way to secure votes. The job of public service is to help facilitate the conversation that’s missing, to support the positive change towards progress. Political leaders are elected to be just that– leaders, not regurgitations.

In a few words, the best solution to strained discourse is stronger compassion: an reopening of our political minds and public spheres, and reinvestment in the equal voice of all perspectives, and in the mutually constructive dialogue that bridges them all for a brighter tomorrow, regardless of election night results.