Dialogue, like free speech, is not free; it requires responsibility. It asks each of us to make choices about how we show up for one another. It requires grace for others and for ourselves as we navigate uncomfortable or challenging conversations. Dialogue demands that we see the humanity in each other and resist the pull of dehumanizing language.

Anyone who decides that the best way to honor Charlie Kirk’s life is to misconstrue his advocacy and forget what he stood for is likely deeply misguided about what it means to honor the dead. Either that, or they are painfully aware that Kirk’s true beliefs would not be heralded as the gleaming examples of civil advocacy that many sources might have you believe. People scrubbing his reputation evidently don’t care about making their remembrances accurate, just more easily digestible for the general public. In this case, being honest about Kirk’s character would only reveal how much hate and divisiveness he infused into U.S. political discourse.

In the quest for a broadened perspective, we cannot treat dialogue like a boxing match. Otherwise, each opponent, after taking a brutal hit, will return to their corners, itching to hit harder in the next round. And if one boxer knocks the other out, the defeated boxer doesn’t immediately yield to the victor, but instead leaves the ring with burning resentment. Democratic ideals have never called for the subjugation of our enemy’s view and the exaltation of our own; to do so would be to debase ourselves to the level of tyrants and autocrats.

Do we as Americans really want to see a nation where everyone from all points on the political spectrum can come together and join hands, or do we just want our political enemies not to attack us? It seems to me that it’s the latter.

It doesn’t have to be this way. We can be better. We can have civil conversations about our perspectives and how they are informed by our individual lived experiences.

One key change — a differentiation with dangerous implications for the future of our democracy — is not being thoroughly scrutinized: no live audience. 

WashU College Republicans (WUCR) and WashU College Democrats co-hosted their Campus Crossfire Debate in Tisch Commons, which led to discussion over immigration, free speech, the economy, and the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, Tuesday, Nov. 14. 

The 2020 Campus Crossfire debate featured a fast-paced discussion with few areas of overlap between representatives from the College Democrats and College Republicans.

I’m sorry, but that’s just way too many people for how late in the game it is. We’re now about a year away from the election, and anyone who believes that the nomination is still a 12-person race is fooling themselves.

It was a powerful and much-needed bravado from a candidate in the face of an epidemic of gun violence and gave Beto the best night of his candidacy thus far—at the cost of a second Trump term.