Center for Political Participation

CPP fellows Emma Victorelli and Alex Sproveri, CPP Director Daniel M. Shea, New York Times columnist David Brooks, Allegheny College President James H. Mullen Jr., syndicated columnist Mark Shields, CPP fellows Katie McHugh and Chris Plano, and Allegheny junior Annamarie Morino

“Public service is at risk of losing a generation and our democracy will suffer. As a liberal arts college nearly as old as America itself, Allegheny cannot abide that outcome.” –Allegheny College President James H. Mullen Jr.

 “As someone who works with young Americans…I am so pleased that our honorees, David Brooks and Mark Shields, share an abiding belief in democratic deliberations. They are passionate about their positions, but they recognize that we all have to work together.  They are both proud partisans, but their convictions do not stop them from critiquing their own positions or the positions of their fellow partisans.” –Daniel M. Shea, Director of the Center for Political Participation

 “I don’t know in a nation as big and brawling and as wonderfully diverse as ours how we resolve our differences except through the political process and the care, the commitment, the passion, the creativity of those who can craft compromise and forge consensus.” –Syndicated columnist Mark Shields, recipient of first Allegheny College Prize for Civility in Public Life

 “Many great colleges teach subjects; they don’t always teach character.” –New York Times columnist David Brooks, recipient of first Allegheny College Prize for Civility in Public Life

Allegheny President James H. Mullen Jr., New York Times columnist David Brooks, syndicated columnist Mark Shields, and CPP Director Daniel M. Shea

By Mary Solberg

      The inaugural Allegheny College Prize for Civility in Public Life was awarded Feb. 21 to two nationally recognized journalists who “represent the best instincts of American public life.”

     In presenting the award to syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks, Allegheny President James H. Mullen called on youth across the country to follow their example.

     “That is the hope of today, that through this award and our college’s focus on civility we might empower young people across the nation, that we might help them—help all of us—find the faith and the courage to engage in the public arena with civility and respect and to honor those who by their example show us the way,” President Mullen told those gathered at the National Press Club in downtown Washington, D.C.

         The civility prize will be given each year to two winners, one from each side of the ideological spectrum, who show noteworthy civility while continuing to fight passionately for their beliefs. An awards panel—made up of such luminaries as former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne, and American Council on Education President Molly Corbett Broad—reviewed many nominees in politics and journalism before selecting Shields and Brooks.

     Corbett Broad attended the morning ceremony in the Holeman Lounge of the National Press Club along with student fellows and staff of the Center for Political Participation, Allegheny alumni, and members of the college’s board of trustees. Said Corbett Broad: “The values undergirding this award—the free, vigorous, and respectful pursuit of ideas—align perfectly with those of American higher education. I extend sincere congratulations to David Brooks and Mark Shields on this honor, and applaud Allegheny College for shining a spotlight on the need for civility in our public discourse.”

     In accepting the civility honor, both Brooks and Shields, who debate the issues of the day once a week on PBS NewsHour, recognized the influence of PBS NewsHour executive editor Jim Lehrer and Robert MacNeil, anchors of the former MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, later known as PBS NewsHour. MacNeil and Lehrer, they said, taught them the fine art of civility in public discourse despite the difficulties of disparate viewpoints.

     “I stand here today, and I think David would agree, as proxies and surrogates for Robert MacNeil and Jim Lehrer, who started the NewsHour, who started with a very simple premise and that is that in every discussion that one’s involved, the person on the other side probably loves the country as much as you love our country, that they care about their children’s and grandchildren’s future as much as you do, they treasure the truth as much as you do. You don’t demonize somebody on the other side,” Shields said.

     Brooks, a conservative, said he and Shields had “serious disagreements” over the years on the Iraq War. Several years ago, during the Florida presidential election recount, Brooks jousted with his liberal friend, E.J. Dionne, on a weekly NPR broadcast.

     “I think that while we went at each other sometimes, it never damaged or diminished our friendships during that whole period,” Brooks explained. “To go through that with someone strengthens you, as it should political rivals.”

     Center for Political Participation Director Daniel Shea joined President Mullen in honoring Brooks and Shields, saying the journalists “share an abiding belief in democratic deliberations.” Added Shea, “They are passionate about their positions, but they recognize that we all have to work together. They are both proud partisans but their convictions do not stop them from critiquing their own positions and the positions of their fellow partisans.”

     Shea also told the National Press Club gathering that the CPP is working diligently on its upcoming conference on civility, which is expected to draw in about 200 college students from throughout the country. Pathway to Civility: National Conference of College Leaders will be held at Allegheny May 15-17, focusing on young people’s commitment to causes and candidates, as well as “the necessity for respectful dialogue.”

     To see the full coverage of the National Press Club award presentation, go to this link:  Civility Prize

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Silas Russell, a 2007 graduate of Allegheny, discussed his experiences with Occupy Wall Street in Pittsburgh.

By Mary Solberg

  For Silas Russell, a 2007 graduate of Allegheny College, the Occupy Wall Street movement is personal. It is, he says, “a movement of ordinary people” like him and the 20,000 Pennsylvanians for whom he works as a political organizer for SEIU PA, Pennsylvania’s largest union for health care workers.

     “People need to take back power,” Russell told a luncheon gathering Nov. 10 at Quigley Hall on the Allegheny College campus. “We cannot have an economy that is controlled from the top.”

     In his work, Russell sees firsthand the effects of an unstable economy and how the average worker struggles to maintain financial security.  Little wonder that the Occupy Wall Street movement appealed to him; he was intrigued with its call to equalize the financial playing field in America. In the early fall of 2011, he started working as an organizer for Occupy Pittsburgh, camping out the first week in a park on Grant Street in the Steel City.

     “At this point,” he added, “the movement is too big to fail.”

     By the looks of the packed audience at Quigley’s Henderson Auditorium, the movement is too big to be ignored, too. Fittingly titled “Occupy Quigley,” the panel discussion included Russell, who came from Pittsburgh for the day, and Political Science Professor Bruce Smith, and Economics Professor Russell Ormiston. While attentive to the two professors, students were clearly intrigued by Silas Russell and his activism. Several stayed afterward to talk to Russell about Occupy activities in Pittsburgh.

     During a question-and-answer segment, Kimberly Langin ’13 asked Russell if he thought the Occupy movement was anti-capitalist.

     “Occupy is a movement that wants to have capitalism work for everybody,” Russell said.

     For Professor Smith, Occupy Wall Street makes him sentimental for his own days of activism. “It’s in the American gene,” he explained. “It’s radical, it’s democratic. It’s Jeffersonian.”

     For any movement to be successful, Smith added, it needs three things: skilled organizers, meetings that continue on a regular basis after the initial weeks, and promotion of public policies that address the majority of people, in Occupy’s case, the 99 percent of Americans for whom it claims to speak for.

     “Absence of leadership is not good, and actions like stomping on the flag can sully the movement,” Smith said.

     Professor Ormiston views the Occupy movement “through the lens of the American worker.” From 1979 to 1990, union membership in the United States fell by one-third, creating the issue of income inequality that Occupy is protesting.

     “From 1945 to 1979, the social contract was that if workers worked hard they’d be rewarded,” Ormiston explained. “From 1979 to 1981, a new mode of thinking came to the fore [with more imports from Asia and with the firing of striking air traffic controllers].”

     The gradual decay of unions has affected the power of the American worker, but no one—even the Democrats—haven’t addressed the tough questions on how to help. In the past couple decades, there haven’t even been any significant protests of this decline. As Ormiston said, “We don’t protest erosion.”

     That erosion, combined with the recent economic recession, has created the perfect environment for a movement such as Occupy to appear. The Occupy movement, Ormiston explained, “has changed the conversation.”

Vanessa Williamson discusses her forthcoming book on the Tea Party and her many interviews with Tea Party activists across the country.

By Mary Solberg

Does the Tea Party matter? If you ask Vanessa Williamson, she’d say yes and no. OK, so maybe that’s not as definitive an answer as political pundits would hope for, but it pretty much sums up the complexity of the movement.

Williamson, co-author of the forthcoming book The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism (Oxford University Press), told a packed audience at Quigley Hall, Allegheny College, that while the Tea Party’s popularity is declining now, it has had a lasting impact on American politics.

“The Tea Party motivated older conservatives to vote, it helped move the Republican Party to the right, and it reinvigorated the Republican Party at a time of crisis,” Williamson said at the Sept. 22 lecture.

Conversely, though, the Tea Party’s popularity has declined from September 2009 when 70,000 activists converged on Washington, D.C., Williamson added, saying, “That was really the peak of Tea Party activism. But as more people have become aware of what the Tea Party is, its popularity began to decline.”

In 2010, the Tea Party did not elect conservatives in moderate areas, and may not even have increased the Republican landslide in the midterms, Williamson said. Nevertheless, the movement has had an impact, particularly in light of the emergence of Tea Party candidates, ongoing news coverage and its prevalence in major polls and surveys. Perhaps the most significant acknowledgement of its impact was this fall when CNN joined the Tea Party in hosting a Republican primary debate in California.

Williamson, a doctoral candidate in government and social policy at Harvard University, captivated her audience—ironically—with her straightforward discussion of the Tea Party. Instead of presenting a pro or con presentation on the controversial organization, Williamson’s viewpoint as an academic came off as refreshing. She discussed what it was like to interview Tea Party members throughout the country.

Audience members asked Williamson about the makeup of Tea Party activists and what she thought of them. The people she interviewed reminded her of kindly grandparents.

“The Tea Party is made up of mostly older white people who own their own homes and have pensions. They weren’t hit hardest by the Great Recession, but there’s a real element that the American dream was betrayed for some of them,” Williamson said.

Unfortunately, she maintains that many Tea Party members, while educated, are misinformed on issues. Williamson blamed an intense polarization of values in America today, where people seek like-minded people and groups that espouse only what they believe in. No one has to prove a point, in other words.

“They believe in things that are just not facts,” Williamson said, adding, “There is no accountability.”

Herb Klions, a retired psychology professor from Allegheny, was in the audience and asked Williamson if she thought the Tea Party would have taken a different direction had Hillary Clinton, now secretary of state, beat Obama in the 2008 presidential election.

“I think the Tea Party would have been a little different. The symbolism would not have been as potent, but conservatives still would have been upset,” Williamson said.

Williamson, whose primary research interest is the politics of taxation, co-wrote her Tea Party book with Theda Skocpol of Harvard. Before studying at Harvard, she served as the policy director for Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. She received her bachelor’s degree in French language and literature from New York University, and her master’s from NYU’s Institute of French Studies.

To pre-order The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism, go online to Oxford University Press or Amazon.com.

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