(upbeat music) - [Announcer 1] Funding for The Hinckley Report is made possible in part by the Cleone Peterson Eccles Endowment Fund.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer 2] Tonight on The Hinckley Report, with partisan rancor at historic levels, our panel discusses the need to engage in civil discourse.

What role has social media played in adding to our contentious political climate?

How can we participate in robust political debate with an open mind?

And what are the consequences if we don't find a path out of our current state of incivility.

(upbeat music) - Good evening, and welcome to a special edition of The Hinckley Report.

Tonight, we're going to talk about the need for civil discourse.

I'm Jason Perry, director of the Hinckley Institute of Politics.

Joining our panel tonight, Ronnell Anderson Jones, professor at the SJ Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah, Gary Herbert, former governor of Utah, and Boyd Matheson host of Inside Sources on KSL Newsradio.

Thank you all for being with us this evening, such an important topic.

This is Thanksgiving Holiday.

People are at their homes are gathering with family.

They're gathering with friends and sometimes you talk about how we shouldn't bring up the issue of politics.

And I want to talk about that for a minute tonight, because it's such an important conversation to have, not just about what's happening in politics, but where we go from here, how do we continue to have these important conversations in the places that matter?

I wanna start with you, governor Herbert, as elected official, you've been in the middle of lots of issues on both sides of this.

Talk about civility itself, where you've seen where it is in the past and where it is now, is it getting better?

Is it getting worse?

- Most people tell you it's getting worse.

And I think it kinda rises and falls based on issues and where you're at geographically.

Local government, I don't think there's as much rancor.

And Congress was a lot of rancor.

And I think the stakes seem to be so high in Washington, DC playing who's king of the hill, that it becomes a lot more emotional and this a win at all costs.

And this is an us versus them and them is always the enemy.

- Wow, boy!

That is such an interesting commentary about what might've happened.

I wanna give you a couple kind of polling results from places like the "Washington Post" that kind of sets the stage for exactly what governor Herbert just said.

This Washington post poll, about 15% of adults say they have ended friendships over politics.

Not just we don't talk anymore, we end friendships.

10% of Americans say they do not have a lot of friends on the other side of the political aisle.

And people are also saying, this is part of a pure result of their poll that people don't just say they have differences in political priorities.

There's this discussion whether or not we even share the same core American values.

- Yeah.

And that's the big part of the problem, is we've gone beyond just talking about ideas, principles, and policies.

And now it's about people, it's become weaponized, we're attacking people.

I think more than we have a political polarization problem in the country, we really have a contempt problem in the country, which is if we disagree on something politically, you're worthless, you're no good.

And that way I can blow up your Facebook page, I can melt down your Twitter feed and I can still feel good about myself and go to church on Sunday and feel real good about everything.

And so it's this idea that the people are worthless because they're different than I am.

So I don't have them as friends so I can attack them.

And that actually feeds into something really interesting Jason, in terms of disinformation and misinformation.

So if you're a Ute fan and governor Gary here is a BYU fan and he hates the Utes, he's gonna be much more inclined to believe bad things about you as a Ute.

And so he might get some misinformation.

He might get some disinflation, but because you're not worth it because you disagree 'cause you're a Ute fan and he's a Cougar fan, that's part of the problem.

And we've got to get it back to the people, the principles and the policies we can have great debates about.

- Let me just make sure that everybody knows I'm very ecumenical (all laughing).

- Okay, governor.

(Jason laughing drowns out speaker) - This is how rumors get started.

People will (Jason laughing drowns out speaker) I'm former governor, you know, so it is true.

We in fact, dude, look for something to allows us to feel better or superior than the other side.

And unfortunately that takes it to levels of personality, personal attacks.

And it is, I like what the Boyd said, it's contempt.

We have a contempt for your points of view and justifies whatever I need to do to win the fight in the argument.

- Ronnell, bring a couple of these points back together.

I know you're an expert on first amendment.

You're an expert on what's happening in social media itself.

Talk about that line of contempt as it does relate to, I think it's a important conversation, misinformation versus disinformation because we can find all of that particularly online.

- Yeah.

A big piece of what's happening in the social media sphere is that social media platforms and their algorithms are designed to generate interaction and engagement.

And often that engagement they found most likely to come about when people are in a state of fear or are in a state of anger.

And so algorithmically we're being programmed to click and like, and engage with material that is extreme.

And so part of what's happening here that both of these folks were just mentioning is that our tendency to vilify folks on the other side of the political spectrum maybe amplified by the fact that our exposure to folks on the other side of the political spectrum is being curated through this very strange lens, a lens that suggests to us that serves up to us some of the most extreme examples from that other side of the spectrum.

So if you're a Republican and the only Democrats that you ever see in your feed are sort of curated to anger you, or if you are a a Democrat and all of the Republicans that show up on your Twitter feed are people who are the most extreme, who are saying the most offensive most outrageous principles and you generalize from that, then suddenly your sense of what all of those folks are alike is quite skewed and that sort of vilification gets compounded.

- Yeah, I think it's so interesting.

I love what Ronnell has said in terms of that algorithm and how we just kind of get deeper and deeper into our own echo chambers and our own things.

But there's also in the algorithms, a rewarding of the extreme behavior, because you will get more clicks, you will get more hits, you will get more campaign donations if you go to the extreme.

Senator Ben Sasse from from Nebraska described some of his colleagues as spending their days in what he called performative jackassery.

Just to make sure they could get one more click, one more like one more hit on a cable news network.

And so that's part of the problem as well.

So part of it is the algorithm problem.

Part of it is what we keep clicking and digging deeper into our echo chambers.

- Well, I would add to that cable television, the rise of cable television, this last generation, 24/7 advocating whatever their position may be.

And so that reinforces for the overgeneralization and the stereotypical aspect of whether you're Republican or Democrat, whatever your party persuasion is.

And they do it, why?

Because it increases ratings.

They get more people to watch, when you watch the cable shows, they are controversial.

They'll bring in somebody who's loud and extreme because that's what people wanna watch.

That little kind of fight that goes on there, and they might be outnumbered, Republicans go to Fox Network, Democrats go to MSNBC and they, and they continually attack the other side unfairly.

- Ronnell, it's interesting cause I know you've seen this cause most of us in these circles have, every once in a while you see a immediate chart and it'll have all the media stations on it.

And instead of just about them, it says, where are they on the political spectrum?

And you can just identify where they're going to come from their reporting based on their either ideology and maybe even exactly what you all are talking about.

Talk about what kind of impact that has, because that's not necessarily always been the case.

- You're right.

Although it isn't the first time in American history in which we've had a distinctly partisan media but it certainly marks a stark difference from what we had in say the 1960s and 1970s in which journalistic norms were different.

And in which sort of the goal of being the Walter Cronkite, who was speaking to the whole nation on shared facts, might not continue to exist.

Part of the problem, I think that we need to identify is that, that chart that you've described as sort of an endeavor to be produced by a sort of neutral objective observers who are trying to chart where the media is, isn't a chart that everyone would agree with.

We're sort of now at a point in which if you ask an average American, what they think is sort of the median trustworthy journalistic organization, the organization that's playing it straight, the organization that's telling the truth and engaging, in fact checking might well align with their own political priors.

And so, as a matter of a media literacy, I think we have some gaps where folks sense of what neutral reporting on the facts looks like as compared to a reporting that you feel comfortable with, that you not along with and say, "Yeah, you know that was a really good report because it aligned with my own political priors."

I think we're at a place now where there's a fairly significant divide amongst American media viewers on that front.

- So, Boyd, I remember the media, you got a rebuttal of any sort here.

- No, I'm just gonna give him a big amen to what Ronnell just said, because we wanna hear a fair, unbiased opinion, as long as it validates my own.

And that's part of the problem.

We have to be... One of the things that I fear most in our democracy is if we stop being curious, I know we never equate curiosity and freedom in the Republic, I think curiosity is everything.

Because if I'm so locked into what hearing only what I wanna hear about whatever the issue is, and I stopped listening to anything outside of that, we have a real problem in our constitutional Republic.

And so that willingness to be curious to listen, even if you disagree, to be able to listen and not have to argue it, not have to have a tit for tat talking points kind of thing.

But actually just listen.

I had a guy on my radio program this week that was a socialist.

Now we disagreed on a lot of the policy issues for sure, but we didn't debate it.

We listened, we talked and we actually found, as we always find that in things that really matter, they really mattered to all Americans.

They really do.

And we can have that conversation.

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks is a great example of this.

He passed away about a year ago in great Britain.

He once had a series of conversations with Amos Oz, world renowned atheist.

And people said, "Why would you do that?

He attacks everything you hold dear, every principle you believe in, he attacks it."

So they asked the Rabbi, they said, "Rabbi, what are you gotta do?

Go down there and convert him?"

And he said, "No, I'm gonna do something far more important.

I'm gonna listen to him."

And they had a series of conversations around great Britain that were absolutely fascinating and fabulous because it was a listening experience, not an agreeing, but it was a real model in terms of how do you elevate that conversation?

- Governor, it's such an interesting point, and I don't wanna take a little aside of that too, is that it's the listening part and understanding, but sometimes what happens because of what we just described is we stopped talking about those key issues altogether.

It's one thing to be listening, it's another thing when we feel like we can't even talk about the issues for fear of what might happen because we do.

- Sometimes we're so ready to put the argument out and we don't listen and hear what the opposition or the other side point of view is going to be.

I made it a point to meet with the Democrats once a week when we're in legislative session to hear what their ideas were.

Nobody is got a pipeline the almighty is always right on every issue and on every occasion.

And again, we found out that we're friends and guess what, we found out, we're all Utahns and we're all Americans.

And that's the common thread we have.

We probably have almost exactly the same goals and desired outcomes.

We may differ on how we get there.

What's the pathway to get from this point to that point to get the desired outcome.

And that's okay, that's healthy debate and discussion, but the fact that you have a different point of view or a different way to get there, does not mean you're a bad person.

And we forget, again, we're all on the same team.

And we also forget that the original founding fathers never envisioned political parties.

That's kind of tended to polarize.

We found out surely if you can get a group of people to see your point of view, and we all glommed together, we had a little more power and so parties were born.

but the founding fathers envisioned us to be independent thinkers, to represent the people at best.

We have to have our own ideas and what we'd put forward.

But now we've polarized so much.

There's very little overlap.

Boyd's been back in Congress.

And if we had the house of representatives about 435 members that are there, we used to have about 125 overlap, meaning that the most liberal Republican was to the left of the most far right Democrat about 125.

So compromises part of the effort, Senate the same way.

Today, it's about seven in the house and probably zero, Joe mansion, maybe the zero point and the opposition, if you, so we don't have the overlap and we forget the founding fathers, by the way, you use compromise to get good results.

- Ronnell.

Did you have a controversial question?

- I do.

I think one of the things that we have to actually sort of squarely tussle with and tether our conversations to is the fact that I'm not withstanding the really admirable efforts on the part of folks like governor Herbert to have that sort of one team mentality.

The data today makes very clear that that is not the way that politics are operating.

And in fact, that most voters are motivated by loading and hatred more than they are motivated by loyalty to a particular party, or even to a loyalty to broader policy preferences or principles.

That is, most people align themselves politically on the basis of some others.

They're looking out at a sort of shared hatred for an out-group rather than commitment to an affirmative agenda for an in-group.

And there are massive consequences to a democracy for that kind of shift.

And there are consequences that I think we probably should have some serious conversation about.

I mean, one of the most significant of them is that what this means is that the tone with which we speak about the others stops to matter.

We stop holding our own in party representatives responsible for the tone that they take.

And we also stop holding them responsible for sort of general principles of governmental accountability that we ordinarily presuppose in a democracy at the ballot box.

So if I voted for someone up purely because they have a shared hatred for the other party, they share my enemy and they're angry in the same ways that I am then there's some decent chance that I will not be motivated to hold them accountable if they are dishonest or incapable or inappropriate down the line, because their honesty and their capability were not the reasons that I selected them.

I selected them because they wanted to own this other side.

And that's a real problem for the sort of core principles that we think of it as being in operation in a democracy.

- I think where Ronnell is headed is so important.

I refer to it as the Dennis Rodman syndrome, Dennis Rodman was wild, crazy, played for the Detroit Pistons, the bad boys, everybody hated Dennis Rodman.

And no one hated him more than the Chicago Bulls.

They detested his hair, his antics, his dirty play, and they hated him right up to the point he became their Dennis Rodman.

And then even though they didn't like his honesty, integrity, or a lot of the things that Ronnell is pointing to, they knew they were going to get rebound steals and wins as a result.

And the same thing is happening in our politics.

Is that, yeah, they're horrible, they're terrible, they're awful.

But they're my horrible, terrible, awful.

And that's part of the problem.

And then the other issue I think that Ronnell is pointing out that's so important is that it's, as long as Congress can convince us that we're too divided to deal with healthcare or immigration, that keeps those in power in power.

Dictators, thugs, and bad guys have used division as a way to maintain power for centuries.

It gives Congress an excuse to do nothing.

It gives presidents of either political party, the excuse to do things by executive order.

And then we end up with all this turmoil in the middle.

Most of the divides in Washington are those in power and those who are not left and right.

Those in power against everyone else.

And so we have, as Ronnell pointed out, we have the fake fights, the false choice, and everything leads to what fundraising for political campaigns, wedge issues to run campaigns on and gain more power.

And ultimately that's what we, the people problem.

- And I think that creates a downward spiral.

We continue to be more separated and more distance and lack of respect and contempt for the other side.

I think part of it too, is as human beings, we're emotional people.

We have a whole spectrum of emotions we go through each and every day.

This is a way to I guess, direct those emotions in a negative way against the opposition.

Clearly as we see taking place, and I think it's not as bad at the local level, not as bad at the state level and a lot worse on the national level and with people being anonymous anymore, social media, look at the comments section, the newspapers, if you dare- - [Jason] You don't read those, do you?

- No, I don't.

In fact, my staff kept 'em away from me, but thank you, Jason.

- Good staffing, that's good staffing.

- But it was just, I mean, even the newspapers, I remember talking to Dean Singleton of the Salt Lake Tribune and he had no idea what the comments were being said.

And they were making comments about him.

Some actually used his name as if he was making the comments.

There was no ability to track.

People are very mean when they're anonymous.

So social media is another aspect of this that I think is hard for us to understand.

- Ronnell, this is an area of your expertise and what you studied as well.

So get to this idea that we've all just been talking about here and what happens in these social media groups.

And some of them are even private.

We don't even know all of that, just people that think the same way, talking to other people that think the same way.

As you've surveyed what's happened in this space, is there any light that you've seen here?

Some recommendations or thoughts that you've had about how you kind of break out of those areas where you're kind of just in a position where you need to hear the other side a little bit?

- Yeah, I suppose I have a platform level recommendation and a people level recommendation.

So people level recommendation mirrors the sorts of things that Boyd's been saying to us that people need to make an individual self assessment about whether they are exploring ideas and principles and policies outside their own initial preferences.

The brain chemistry data tells us really clearly that we are all susceptible to it.

Everybody's really eager to say that the other folks are susceptible to it, and it's more difficult to acknowledge that you yourself might be susceptible to it and should try to expose yourself to a wider array of media inputs than you currently are exposed to.

On the platform level, I actually think the very first most important step towards solutions here is to get more transparency from some of the largest social media platforms about what actually is happening there.

The ways in which their human and algorithmic content decisions impact us.

I think a lot of folks don't know exactly why things show up in their feeds, why the sort of pattern of engagement that they have online produces them the information that it produces and pushes them towards extremes that they might not otherwise have engaged in.

And part of this is because big platforms like Facebook, haven't made that kind of data available to journalists and researchers who are interested in exploring those consequences and being able, just to have the information a first step, a good first step would be learning how this new media landscape does in fact, impact our public discourse, how decisions are being made that impact us in ways that aren't perfectly transparent to us could be a really important first step to solving some of the problems or at least having the right kinds of conversations about how to solve the problems in public communications today.

- Governor, these are just such an interesting points, and it makes me wonder a little bit, as we say, you need to expand the net and you need to start looking at other places and try to make us so there are ways for us not to just get fed what I want the ultimate and confirmation bias that I already have, but it makes me wonder whether or not the system right now is the way it's the way it's working.

There's even a benefit like for you to be that person that's doing that, as elected official, was there any reward?

I mean, if it's really just fear and anger that drives people like Ronnell was talking about a second ago, and that's what we're being fed, can you be the the elected official that wins if you don't engage in it?

- Well, I think you can.

I think the old adage, birds of a feather flock together, as pertains here was people kind of find their little groups and somebody emerges as a leader and they liked that and say, "Hey, come one, come all."

I think it's a lot easier than having to think if we can get to an emotional charge that you're the enemy, it's us versus them, and we're gonna win at all costs.

We justify what we do, and justifies the means.

And that's a lot easier than having to debate on the intellectual side and actually wreak thinking reason on pros and cons of what actually would be good policy.

That's good for everybody, all Americans, not just for our side to win and plant the flag of triumph.

So I think it is possible.

I think I actually in Utah, we do probably a much better job than other parts of the country, but we're following the trend and we need to be careful.

And by the way, the division is not left or right.

Is left, left, left.

It's right, right, right.

Then we have people say that there's three or four Republican parties now in Utah, maybe two or three Democrats are not as many Democrats, but the divisions are subtle, but are real.

And somebody picks up the flag and says, "Follow me.

", and we just get more and more divided.

- In our last couple of minutes we have, I really want people to watch this show and they go to have their dinners.

and they're hanging out with family to have some kind of guide, some ideas about how they can have these very difficult conversations, because it's clear from this conversation, we need to keep having them.

And it might not be the easiest thing to have them.

Boyd, a couple of thoughts for people about how to model civic dialogue.

- I think one of the first things you have to do is avoid instant certainty.

Once I decided I'm right and you're wrong, the conversation is essentially over.

You should also keep in mind just because you can say something does not mean you should say something.

So we do want our freedom of speech to be sure, but just because you can doesn't mean you should.

And you don't have to argue every point, let it go.

And another great rule is if you must speak, ask a question.

Not a sarcastic question, a real question, and then be willing to listen to the response.

And it changes the tone, it changes it and what we have to realize the governor pointed this out so well, we have so much in common.

The vast majority of people have so much in common.

We waste so much time on extreme issues by extreme people on extreme measures where the vast majority of the country really wanna have a different kind of conversation.

They don't quite know how to ask for it or where to look for it.

It's not gonna show up in a pew research poll, but when they experience it, it's like oxygen.

And it's like, yeah, I wanna be part of that.

And I think the vast majority of people around your dinner table around your Thanksgiving table you can find it.

You have to look a little harder and you gotta be a little more open to, "Am I willing to question my own ideas?

Am I willing to consider for a minute?

I might be wrong, heaven forbid.

If you're willing to do that, ask questions, listen, not have that instant certainty.

It creates a completely different dynamic for an elevated dialogue.

- If we have some of these principles in mind when they were together this weekend, it allows not just for us to understand the issues better, understand our families and our friends a little bit- - I believe we re... it's Thanksgiving.

Let's think about all the things we're thankful for.

- That's right, governor.

- We have some common ground there.

And I say, talk about things we're thankful for.

And really we've got a lot of great things to be in fact grateful for.

And we're blessed - As always, you get the last word.

(all laughing) Thank you all for your comments tonight.

And thank you for watching The Hinckley Report.

This show is also available as a podcast on pbsutah.org/hinckleyreport or wherever you get your podcasts.

Thank you for being with us.

We'll see you next week.

(upbeat music)