From Annabel Park and Eric Byler:
Since I began my journey advocating for civil and informed dialogue, many people have made dismissive comments about the idea of dialogue and deliberation. I want to state again why dialogue is so important.
So much of what we do in politics is about communication. Think about the place of the First Amendment in our Constitution and our understanding of freedom. Think about how we use the money we raise for campaigns: candidates buy ads to communicate. They use the money to influence how we think, talk and vote.
We can’t have a functioning democracy if we hate each other and refuse to talk to each other. We need to create opportunities where we can think together and reinforce "We the People" as a civic identity.
If We the People remain alienated, fearful, and hateful, we will become vulnerable to manipulation and misinformation. We make room for plutocracy and other non-democratic forms of government to take hold.
