Looking For America
Why I love the First Amendment
Speaking truth to power and fighting for what you believe
I met Patty Rhule, VP of Content Innovation at the Freedom Forum, outside an elementary school in Lancaster, PA, on election day when we were helping to protect one of our most sacred rights in a democracy: the right to vote. Turns out, Patty was also an advocate for another one of my favorite rights, the First Amendment right to free speech. She asked me to share some tips with her on how to get through Thanksgiving dinner on the Freedom Forum blog and then we met again on the Freedom Forum’s program First Five Now to talk about why the First Amendment is important to the conversations I’ve been organizing to bridge divides and depolarize our country.
On Election Day, my primary task as a poll observer was to help folks exercise their right to vote and to ensure that nobody who was eligible to vote left without doing so. Most problems were easy to resolve. Several people had come to the wrong place so I helped them look up the correct location. One guy realized he’d forgotten his identification card as he was walking up to the schoolhouse. He said he would come back later, but I was afraid he wouldn’t return so I asked him a couple questions and discovered that he had voted at that precinct previously, which meant he didn’t need his ID to vote there again. I couldn’t solve a few problems on the spot so I encouraged those folks to fill out provisional ballots.
The precinct we were monitoring was surrounded by a predominantly Latino community. I don’t speak Spanish fluently, but well enough to muddle my way through with just enough to be helpful. I overheard one Latino man trying to convince his friend to vote for Trump. I could not fully understand the reasons, but his intent was clear. Another burst through the school doors after he finished voting and shouted, “Go Biden!” A couple in a convertible drove through the parking lot waving a very large Biden flag. A group of young people cycled by to cheer on voters and sing fun songs to folks waiting in line. All these forms of speech were protected by the First Amendment!
The main reason I love the First Amendment, though, is that it gives us Americans the right to petition and criticize our government and to protest. These freedoms make me feel powerful because they allow me to speak out when I see injustice, and empower me to make a difference in our country. I can love my country for guaranteeing these rights, while also exercising those very same rights to criticize my government and its policies when I disagree.
I stumbled a little when Patty asked me whether “cancel culture” made people feel limited in their ability to speak freely during the depolarization conversations I’ve been organizing. I’ve always had difficulty recruiting folks to attend these dinners. Mostly it’s right-leaning folks who have been reluctant to attend because they thought left-leaning folks would yell at them and call them stupid. Their fears were not entirely ungrounded.
After the first dinner in my home exactly four years ago, I posted on Facebook a picture of the folks who’d attended. A few of the comments went something like this: “These people will continue to operate on knee jerk, hate-based, simplistic thinking. It’s never compassionate and they deserve to be thrown in prison.” I’ve heard various versions of that sentiment over the years. I disagree with these accusations when they are applied so broadly. Any person, regardless of who they voted for, who accepts an invitation to dinner has taken the first step toward bridging the divide with their political opposites and therefore has shown their compassion and willingness to examine the complexities of our disagreements.
What I have tried to do is create space in which folks have felt they could speak the truth and be met with respect, curiosity, and a desire to learn and understand. We might not find common ground, but we can find a deeper and humanizing understanding of one another. I know this is possible because I have experienced it first hand. It’s hard work and can be emotionally draining, but it becomes easier over time as we learn and practice the skills necessary to having depolarizing conversations.
Outside of these spaces, though, canceling, shaming, and calling out leads to unhealthy censorship by our fellow citizenry. And social media has been weaponized by this citizen-led suppression of speech where the canceling and calling out can be performed publicly, loudly, and vigorously. Sometimes it feels like a contest to see who can be wokest, without any positive results to show for it. It’s not our government that censors us, but ourselves. The threat of being shamed stifles the free exchange of ideas and hinders our ability to learn and grow in our thinking from those who can offer different perspectives, and therefore inhibits the possibility of finding solutions for the problems our country faces.
Our American democracy was founded on the ideal of principled discourse and the exchange of ideas. When we don’t speak to each other, we become even more polarized and our democracy suffers.
That said, I believe we should speak out vigorously when we disagree with those in power, with those who are in a position to make decisions that affect our lives and especially the lives of those who are most vulnerable in our society. I distinguish between agitators who speak truth to power, which is necessary, as opposed to punching down or even sideways, which can feel good in the short-term but doesn’t result in long-term progress.
I don’t always know exactly where and how those lines should be drawn. I will always be a proponent of speaking the truth and not remaining silent, though. And I believe we can do so with a desire to learn together, aimed at improving the lives of all Americans and not only the ones who agree with us.
In the words of the great Ruth Bader Ginsburg, “Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that leads others to join you.”
