Opinion: This election asks more of us

On Sept. 5, I heard the stunning news that conservative "Reagan Republican" Dick Cheney is voting for Kamala Harris. Ever since, I've been pondering the process he must have gone through to make this decision. He must have considered carefully the political landscape, the issues involved in this election and his own values and hopes for our country. Undoubtedly, the road traveled by this icon of conservatism has been painful, honest and at times gut-wrenching.

There's a greater truth here that applies to all of us. If we love our country, value our democracy and are concerned about the issues facing America, then the task of voting this year asks the same thing of us as it did of Dick Cheney. This election asks more of us than passively consuming sound bites and memes from our social media and our single news source. It's time to be, as Thomas Jefferson said, part of a "well-informed citizenry."

I used to teach and coach debate. The formula we used in my beginning debate class is relevant here if we accept the challenge of honestly seeking good information to inform our opinions and our vote. The first thing I would tell students is that there are objective facts we can discover. Every important question has good points on both sides, so we don't understand an issue until we can identify valid reasons for and against it.

The next thing we taught is that understanding an issue requires us to choose our news sources carefully, recognizing media bias when we're collecting "pro" and "con" arguments. We showed them the beauty of a media bias chart, like the one found at Allsides.com , where readers of s determine whether a news outlet is more left, center or right on the political spectrum. Then we'd have the students dive right into a timely political question, with instructions to search for s from sources fairly close to center, choose a side, and pick one strong point with evidence. The final instruction? You have ten minutes, then we debate.

Inevitably, the students panicked, but at ten minutes, we staged a short all-class "debate" with students arranging themselves on "yes" and "no" sides of the classroom, presenting their strongest points and responding to opposing ones. This process trained students to quickly gain a basic understanding of the issue so they could choose and defend a viewpoint. If I were teaching the class today, our question might be, "On balance, does Kamala Harris approve or disapprove of fracking?" Search engines would bring up lots of s from across the spectrum, but students would learn that scanning s from reputable sources yields a greater understanding to bring to the discussion.

I've heard people say, "I don't have time to dig deeply into issues!" To them, I say researching an issue does take time, but not much time with reliable research tools. Good websites like ProCon.org and pewresearch.org have scoured sources for us, offering short s that compare the best points, fully cited, on both sides of an issue. Allsides.com updates their media chart rankings frequently as content is reviewed and rated.

What I learned teaching and coaching debate still informs how I consume news today. When I Google a question, media bias charts still help me to know where news sources lie on the spectrum. I scan several sources from near-left, center and near-right, and I sometimes watch a few minutes from a far-left or far-right source just to know what the fringes are up to.

Last week was momentous. Dick Cheney is revered by some and despised by others, but right now, I'm just grateful to him. He reminded me that the job of being part of a "well-informed citizenry" is the hard work our Founding Fathers told us it would be. This election asks more of us: to open our minds, to use our reasoning, to recognize the inevitable bias in social media "news" and memes and to take a lesson from fledgling debate students and the iconic Dick Cheney. We still have time to dig more deeply and objectively. We can do this. It feels like we must.