CLP 2010: Day 17, Tuesday, June 15

College Leaders Program Class of 2010
Day 17—Tuesday, June 15
Reported by: Ramon Gamble, Virginia Commonwealth University

“The default setting of American politics is conflict.” This is the message our class was left to think about as our session ended yesterday, and it is the one thought that has been running through my head since then.

Over the last two weeks, my classmates and I have been asked to keep in mind the creed of this program, and to continually contemplate the “core” values of the Sorensen Institute: trust, respect, and civility. And upon graduation, exercise these values to make an attempt to move beyond partisanship. I’ve sat through a little over 40 speakers (It’s incredible how many speakers we’ve been able to hear in only 19 days.), and not one has openly talked about the necessity of conflict in politics. In fact, I can’t recall even one who hasn’t insisted that he or she has persistently aligned themselves with the core values we are being taught to manifest in Sorensen. This is interesting. To echo some of the talk I overheard on our bus, as we were leaving the capital this afternoon, “Isn’t it a little weird that every single speaker we’ve had so far fully supports ‘bi-partisanship,’ yet as soon as you turn on a TV, or read a newspaper, or bring up a blog all you will ever hear is how much these guys are fighting with each other?” Yes. It is weird indeed.

I asked Senator Warner what he thought about the confrontational overtones Madison wove into his contributions to the Federalist Papers, particularly No. 51. His response was typical of our speakers thus far. He verbalized that there must continue to be some kind of combative discourse—for opposition is a healthy and necessary part of legislating. The real problem, he said, “is the 24/7 coverage of the media.” He argued that the media was doing our nation a disservice by solely focusing its lens on cases of inter-party strife, effectively demonically distorting day-to-day politics.

There seems to be a consensus among the politicians we have hosted: “the media is bad,” specifically the “24/7” media—referring primarily to TV. Now, I rarely watch TV, so the blatant anti-TV trolling I’ve experienced has been quite shocking. It generally goes like this: “The availability of an incessant news stream forces media outlets to continually one-up themselves. And the only way to continually catch the attention of viewers is to become increasingly provocative. The increased provocativeness consequently transforms political news into entertainment news. And because politics is reduced to entertainment it is viewed as trivial by the masses.” 

But is it really the media’s fault that our generation can’t seem to be concerned with politics? Who knows? This week we start our “Media 101” class modules. Hopefully Coy can impart some substantial information on this subject.