Opinion: Town hall conversations showcase desire to find common ground across Wisconsin

"It's OK to have a difference of opinion and still agree on the fact that we want a better Wisconsin," according to George Brooks of Sussex.

Brooks was one of more than 400 Wisconsinites who participated in the La Follette School of Public Affairs' Main Street Agenda Community Conversation project this fall in partnership with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He shared this sentiment with my colleague after our event in Pewaukee on Sept. 18.

Brooks succinctly captured the overarching idea that animated this sweeping project that took us to six Wisconsin communities and involved more than two dozen La Follette faculty members, staff, and students.

Recipe for civility? Breaking bread and sticking to the issues Sandwiched between two engaging town halls in La Crosse and Milwaukee, the most ambitious part of our project involved four dinner conversations focused on practicing and promoting civil dialogue. Using K-12 education as the issue of concern, we brought people with diverse perspectives together in Pewaukee, Green Bay, Eau Claire, and Madison. Nearly 350 Wisconsinites joined us for these events, the first of their kind organized by the La Follette School.

At tables of roughly eight, our trained facilitators walked the participants through a semi-structured conversation over dinner that encouraged openness and honesty, but also respect for differences. The conversations separated politics from policies and focused on the issues, a desire shared by more than three-in-four Americans according to the Pew Research Center .

Each table had a centerpiece with the rules for the evening:

First, listen: Give others the benefit of the doubt. Listen with curiosity first, rather than judgment.

Second, speak: Speak for yourself and share your experiences. Try to use "I" statements.

Third, respect: Let's chat respectfully. And approach these conversations with humility—after all, none of us have all the answers.

Fourth, disagree agreeably: Our goal tonight is not to persuade each other of our ideas, but, instead, to see and be seen for our own views.

Fifth, be present: We invite your full attention. Please don't use your phones, cameras, or other technology because it may distract your tablemates.

The participants didn't know what to expect coming in. Many wondered if the environment would end up hostile and combative. We all had plenty of reasons to be skeptical of this effort. Some 84% of Americans say political debate has become less respectful over the last several years, according to a 2023 report by the Pew Research Center .

The same survey found that more than six-in-ten Americans find having political conversations with people they disagree with stressful and frustrating. We knew we had our work cut out for us, but we also knew that these types of efforts are more necessary than ever.

Participants appreciated chance to discuss important topics So, how'd we do? This was the question I posed at the start of my closing comments at the end of each event. But to be honest, I didn't need to ask this question. Walking around the rooms in each of the communities, feeling the energy, listening in on the engaged conversations, hearing the laughter bouncing off the walls of our tightly packed conference halls, I knew.

I could not have been happier with how each of the four events played out. Conversations were constructive and geared toward finding common ground. Disagreements were acknowledged but respected. Many people wanted more. Several participants said that the two-hour event wasn't long enough. In that short amount of time, some tablemates became so close that they hugged at the end or even shared contact information. The feedback we received after the events through surveys and interviews was overwhelmingly positive.

More: Journal Sentinel's Main Street Agenda town hall meeting discusses inflation. Here's what we learned.

In retrospect, it wasn't hard to see why it played out this way despite our uncertainty going into the project. As Joshua Aspenson from La Crosse said after our Eau Claire event, "I think people are starved to give their input, you know. People feel, I think, that they don't have an outlet to do this outside of their own little circles, which these days are smaller than ever."

What's next? Last year, I coauthored an op-ed with Curt Culver , who sits on our Board of Visitors. In the piece, we talked about the urgency of the La Follette School using its platform to promote civil discourse. We both feel strongly that this is critically important for our country and the democratic ideals that Americans aspire to. Most people agree that things have gotten ugly, and voters continue to become increasingly pessimistic about the level of political division in the country.

As a school focused on promoting evidence-based policymaking, we understand that our goal depends on good-faith, civil discourse on policy issues that matter to people. The public agrees, as 94% of voters believe that, "respect for each other is the first step in having a government that works," according to Georgetown University's Institute of Politics and Public Service .

Our community conversations were the first major step toward what we view as our responsibility to be part of the solution. Next up, we hope to make civil discourse a centerpiece of the school's undergraduate major in public policy that we are currently developing. It would be the first of its kind for the Universities of Wisconsin and for American public policy schools. In addition to the data analytics and policy analysis methods we already teach, it would emphasize skills in political negotiation and compromise.

Additionally, we hope some of the findings from the community conversations can yield important information for researchers studying polarization or seeking strategies to counter its harmful effects.

Despite the challenges of this project, I think it's clear that this type of event must live on in some form. While we don't know what that would look like quite yet, the stakes of polarization are just too high to stop now.

As Marie Martini from Middleton said after the Madison event, "I think that this is critically important. I think that people need to find a way to get along with one another. I'm very, very worried about what's going to happen after the election regardless of which way it goes. And part of that is because we can't talk to each other anymore."

Let's talk.

Susan Webb Yackee is a professor of public affairs and director of the La Follette School of Public Affairs at UW-Madison .