conservative influencerng
conservative influencer Charlie Kirk. Dozens of
people across the country have lost their jobs over
social media comments they made in reaction. In Eau
Claire, Republican Congressman Derrick Van
Orden threatened to pull federal funding going to
the city over comments to council members made online
saying they celebrated Kirk's death. The council
members reject that accusation. Political
discourse, especially online and in social media,
even before Kirk's assassination, has been
beyond toxic. But how to agree to disagree and talk
about it? BridgeEauClaire is a chapter of bridge USA,
which brings college students of different
persuasions together to discuss polarizing topics.
U.A.W. Eau Claire, political science professor
Adam Kuntz is the group's faculty advisor.
>> Thanks for having me. >> So do you suppose that
your next session you will be discussing Charlie Kirk?
>> I believe the students actually already have.
They've had their first session, and they have
discussed openly about what their views are on the on
the event. And I believe the students are going to
have an ongoing probably throughout the
year. >> What kinds of other
topics has BridgeEauClaire engaged on?
>> So BridgeEauClaire is basically what I would
describe as the anti debate club. The goal of the club
is basically to be a conversation club. It's
less about winning an argument, it's more about
trying to discuss and understand one another in
terms of our perspectives on politics, culture,
religious backgrounds, etcetera. And so the topics
can be far reaching. It can be anything from is a hot
dog a sandwich all the way up to should the United
States disassociate from Israel. So those, those
kinds of topics can be rife with lots of different
opinions. And the goal behind any bridge meeting
is basically to bring people from all different
perspectives into a room, feel empowered to be able
to share your opinions and to try to understand one
another. The goal is not to convince. The goal is not
to win. The goal is to basically try to get
students listening to one another, understanding in a
very sincere and genuine way, and then going away
and kind of processing that for your own beliefs.
>> So what are the ground rules? What are the
mechanics of these discussions? How do you
start. >> Yeah, so that's been a
learning experience. This took off a couple years ago
when we decided after an event that was run by the
center for Constitutional Studies, which is what I'm
affiliated with on campus, that we wanted to found a
club like this. This is less about free speech,
which is certainly a right that every American citizen
has. This is more about how do I exercise my free
speech and responsible ways, and to allow other people
to express those free speech rights. And so the
ground rules are very much, first of all, guided by the
national organization. It's there's there's a whole
handbook that the students go through to kind of
figure out how they would bring up a topic. There's
moderating time. There is a club president, there are
people that are in charge for picking the topics
themselves. But then within the local organizations,
there's a lot of adaptability and Eau Claire
students are very polite students. They've got, you
know, Wisconsin nice. And so I think that they they
add this extra layer of kind of wanting to build a
community despite political to admire the Gen Z
students because I think they are looking for ways
to build that kind of social connection in a
world that's mostly driven by algorithms.
have you found students to engage in actual civil
discussion with this generation, possibly
craving real connections? >> Yeah, I think so. I've
I've watched I've been teaching for about ten
years in different capacities, and I've
watched as the Gen Z population has started to
mature. And it's interesting. We're about
three years away from having our first gen Alpha
student in college, which makes me feel so old. But
the Gen Z students are absolutely looking for ways
to connect. But there's this feeling among them
that they don't really know how to connect. There's
this kind of catch 22. They want a social situation.
They want to find a community, but they're so
used to being targeted or trolled online, they're
scared to be able to express their opinions. And
so clubs like bridge are a great way for them to learn.
You know, those social skills in a real way, and
to do so in a closed environment where they
going to get piled on or misunderstood, or have
something screenshotted and taken out of context.
>> Circling back to Charlie Kirk in the aftermath of
his assassination, do you sense a chilling effect on
freedom of expression with people across the country
right now? >> I think that there is a
huge divide right now over the terms of free speech. I
think that for many Americans, if you ask them
on Pew Research questions, for instance, it's it's
over a 90% threshold that Americans cherish the value
of free speech. I think the challenge that we always
have, though, is what does that mean when it's the
other person expressing it? Everybody wants free speech
for themselves. Query as to to allow free speech for
others. There are, of course, categories of
speech that are not protected. We know what
those are incitement, obscenity, etc. but for the
most part, our First Amendment protects us. It
gives us the chance to be able to express ourselves,
and especially on university campuses. That
means both Republican as well as Democratic students.
And so I think that universities have a real
opportunity right now to show that, you know, in a
pluralist society where people come with multiple
beliefs, the university can be a place where people
express themselves and do so in ways that are not
going to be silencing to them, to them. I wish that
we could replicate that in the rest of the public
sphere. I wish that we could help other Americans
after college or in other areas of life, recognize
that that is really the lifeblood of what we're
doing in our American doing in our American