Dear Editor:

America’s experiment in democratic self-government has been an inspiration and a model to the world.  However, it is needing some serious tending, just as a healthy garden needs tending.

For too long, we have been cultivating the weeds and ignoring the vegetables. The weeds of fear, hatred, and division are smothering the trust, tolerance, virtue, and cooperation upon which our democratic republic depends.

A bedrock principle of democracy is competition among ideas, but free expression is being chilled by intimidation, blatant and subtle; by cancellation; by incivility; and even by violence. We are seduced by echo chambers where viewpoints are simply reinforced, not challenged. Radicalized individuals plan violence at public events, with the desired result that citizens stay home. Fewer qualified people choose to run for office because of this incivility, and many people disengage altogether.

Now more than ever, each and every one us needs to pull the weeds, and cultivate the fruits and vegetables of a healthy republic. We need to nurture skills to respond with curiosity to promote dialog and put aside our fear-based defensiveness regarding those with different views. Let’s demand that our news sources do less cherry-picking for division in reporting. Let’s forge relationships with our countrymen, rely on persuasion rather than bullying, and work together to build a more perfect union. Let’s call for an end to the culture wars. Above all, let us get involved.

We, the people, will all lose if our cultural landscape becomes a battleground rather than a fruited plain, and our political landscape a cratered no-man’s land. We all want to picture our future as a lush, nutritious, life-supporting garden, not as a dry, weed-infested, vacant lot.

A successful garden requires labor, and a democratic republic similarly must be tended to by its citizens. To gain more skills in cultivating understanding and civil discourse, check out Braverangels.org. 

The three of us (Thomas Brantley and Kris Korfanta, Wyoming State Braver Angels Coordinators; Janet Sedgley, Montana State Braver Angels Coordinator) volunteer our time to support this organization because of the effectiveness of its free workshops, debates, and other activities in bringing people together where people’s attitudes toward “the other” are transformed and participants rediscover the joys of civil discourse and cooperative exploration of issues from different perspectives instead of in echo chambers. 

Consider growing an alliance in your community.

Kris Korfanta

Ranchester