Can the Center Hold?
Where people are getting their information and the lack of civics education in this country is a crisis in our democracy
Setup
Partisanship has been a hallmark of American democracy since the Hamiltonians and Jeffersonians first squared off. But many political thought leaders have begun to worry that this period — with partisans gravitating toward distant poles and the energy of each party coming from their extreme wings — is different. Especially in Congress, where compromise has become a dirty word, the ability to govern on a basic level is in question. Yet a wide majority of Americans hold views that put them somewhere in a broad political center. How did we get here? What would it take to make our politics reflect us more accurately? Underwritten by the Walton Family Foundation.
- 2019 Festival
- USA
Explore More
USA
Most Americans today would agree that the dream of supporting a family and living a good life on one full time salary is not available to vast numbers of people. Wages have no...
Climate change catastrophes are already happening with increasing regularity, and it’s clear we need to take action. The Biden administration has set a target of zero carbon e...
Even when the economy is booming and unemployment is low, millions of Americans still face economic hardship. And in the last few years the United States has dealt with supply...
Almost everyone agrees that immigration policy in the United States is lacking, but despite decades of debate, Congress has not been able to pass comprehensive reform on the i...
Americans seem more culturally and ideologically divided than at any point in most of our lifetimes, with no prospect of bridging those divides any time soon. The only thing w...
It’s a fact: In communities where voting rates are higher, health outcomes are better. That’s why ER physician Alister Martin, the Founder of Vot-ER and CEO of A Healthier Dem...
Populations around the world have been electing more and more autocratic leaders in the past couple decades, via supposedly free, fair, and democratic elections. The freedom o...
Merely defining gun violence is difficult, and coming to agreement on what to do about it often seems near-impossible in the United States. But people on all sides of the deba...
The U.S. Supreme Court continues to issue major decisions that have profound impacts on the lives of Americans and the political future of the country. During the term that ju...
At the 2023 Aspen Ideas Festival, we dug into some of the most important and fascinating issues of our time, from rebuilding trust in our institutions and the promise and peri...
If one dives deeply into the statistics, the American Dream is actually quite alive and well. In his provocative book, The Myth of American Inequality, former U.S. senator Phi...
How do we describe the Republican Party today, and what are the dynamics that will shape its future?
Join John Hamre, CEO of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, for a dynamic exploration of the transformational forces that will shape the global community throu...
In their new book, co-authors and Stanford professors Rob Reich and Mehran Sahami argue that big tech’s obsession with optimization and efficiency has sacrificed fundamental h...
Journalist Tom Friedman reflects on 28 years of reporting, and renowned architect David Adjaye shares how he approaches the design of physical spaces — and how those spaces ha...
With the dream of the Oslo Accords long in the rear-view mirror and no prospect of an agreement between Israelis and Palestinians ahead, is it time to give up on the two-state...
In this new Aspen Ideas format, all attendees gather each morning to kick off the day by exploring a current issue of deep complexity. For decades, American policy regardin...
From Washington to Biden, presidents have changed America — and the world — for both better and worse. If the American presidency is the ultimate test of leadership, what does...
Even at a time of intense partisan polarization, it is still possible to get things done in Washington. Hear from Representative Jason Crow (D-CO) and Representative Tony Gonz...
The generative artificial intelligence genie is out of the bottle. When we look back 30 years from now, what will we be able to point to that we got right?
