Study Group Details

US history has had many periods of sharp, even violent, disagreement. The Civil War was the worst, but the recent election and its aftermath are also examples, with racial and cultural resentments rising, facts disputed, and autocrats winning power. Can these trends be moderated, with a better dialogue among all sides? As Rodney King said in 1992, "Can we all get along?" Do some parts of our political system promote division? What parts should change? Beyond the extremists, can the rest of us have a conversation and work to heal the wounds? Is that possible after the January 6, 2021, riots? This course will focus on those questions and on various proposals for change. Expert guest speakers will include journalist Bill Bishop, author of The Big Short: How the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart; Whitney Kimball Coe of the Rural Assembly; and the Brookings Institution's Darrell West, author of Divided Politics, Divided Nation: Hyperconflict in the Trump Era. This study group has a high class size capacity.