I Want to Meet With Moms for Liberty

I’ve been dwelling on an idea since I posted a reflection following the recent Moms for Liberty summit in Philadelphia. What I shared sparked conversation and some dissension. My intention in that post, and here, is to lay out what I believe is essential for communities and our society to move forward given current divisiveness and controversies.?

If we are to move forward—if we are to address what really matters to people—then we must commit ourselves to finding our shared aspirations and focusing on taking actionable, doable, and achievable steps forward. This is especially true when it comes to education and other contentious issues.?

Make no mistake, political leaders and groups like Moms for Liberty have every right to express their views. Free speech is an essential part of America. I also believe deeply in American pluralism. Indeed, societal change often comes from different groups, with competing views, pushing hard.

Still, I also hold that in this fractured, divided time, we need to figure out how communities can come together and learn to make shared progress. Otherwise, we will remain stuck. It is possible to productively struggle through contentious and nuanced issues. I’ve witnessed it time and time again in my 35 years doing this work.?

But let’s be clear. We need a real discussion instead of a shouting match that only leaves room for false choices. And we need to get building together—talk alone is not enough. I know we can build civic faith through robust, honest, and even heated engagement.?

To that end, I want to meet with Moms for Liberty.?

In 2020, we released a report called A Tent Open on All Sides. In it, I offered a framework to develop spaces in communities that welcome all people who are willing to work together on shared problems.?

Our report was framed around a crucial question that is just as relevant today: How can we pitch a tent that is truly open on all sides? In other words, how can we make room for one another in a pluralistic society??

Right now, media coverage of Moms for Liberty reminds me of when the Tea Party movement swept through parts of the country in the early years of the Obama presidency. At the movement’s height, I found myself on a flight from Dayton to DC, sitting next to Susan, who led an independent Tea Party chapter in southern Ohio.?

We talked non-stop during the flight. Over and over again, we returned to the common theme of “trust.” In fact, we held the exact same views about the state of trust in America. It was, and is, fractured.?

Susan was not the caricature the national media made Tea Party members out to be. Susan, and the group she led, was trying to get everyday people to come together to work for what they believed in.?

So how do we make sure we hear different voices and perspectives, and search for ways to make real progress, not just inflame debate? This is relevant for people on the so-called right and left. We need a decidedly different path forward.

Real fault lines in our society exist. That’s why an inflammatory approach frustrates me so deeply. The win-at-all-costs approach is a dead-end, only a strategy for ginning up anger, not for forging a productive path forward in light of real concerns about what is going on in education and on other issues today.

If we care about our community, we must approach issues with care, even—or rather especially—those issues that lend themselves to controversy and heated rhetoric. So, I’d welcome the opportunity to sit down with Moms for Liberty or any other group.

I’m not interested in silencing people or dismissing their concerns. But I am unwavering on this: how we do our shared work is just as important as what we seek to achieve. We must hold ourselves to a higher standard of making communities work for all.

So I’d love to talk with them, or you, or anyone else. I want to find out what aspirations we share. I want to figure out how we can all build something productive together, not simply tear each other down.