By Mo Elleithee
On the morning of Sept. 11, 2015, I arrived at my Georgetown University office, having recently left behind the world of partisan politics to become the first executive director of the new Institute of Politics and Public Service. Like many Americans of a certain age, the memory of Sept. 11 haunts me, and that day, as it does every year, the anniversary left me feeling somber and reflective.
One of the reasons I left electoral politics after 20 years in the trenches was that I had been questioning the way we practiced political engagement. I still believed in the promise of politics. It is, after all, the way democracies settle their differences. When it’s done right, the competition of ideas should create better government.
But it was clear that it wasn’t being done right, and in my new job, I was hoping that young people might show me a better way.
As I walked to my office that day, I was greeted by the powerful image of 3,000 small American flags planted in the ground around the main lawn. But it wasn’t until a few hours later that the full impact of the scene hit me, when I learned that the flags weren’t placed there by Georgetown staff. They were placed as part of a collaboration by students from the College Republicans, College Democrats, and Bipartisan Coalition.
Many veterans of partisan politics could learn something from these students.
The notion of civic virtue is rooted in the qualities of good citizenship – the idea that we all have a role to play in the success of the community, and the dedication of citizens to the common good. One could argue that, by definition, that’s what politics is all about – having a vision for how to change the world for the better, and then working to affect that change. And while there are still many people in politics who are in it for that reason, for too many that ideal becomes corrupted. The game becomes more important than the results.
But for many young people, that’s not the case. Research shows that millennials and Gen Z are more interested in compromise in finding solutions to problems, rather than pushing more polarizing solutions that will be harder to attain. Even when they are partisan, they are willing to recognize shared values with their opponents. They overwhelmingly believe they have the power to affect change toward the common good.
In an effort to co-create change toward the common good, the Georgetown University Student Association organized the GUHereToStay campaign in 2017. Students signed nearly 500 butterflies that were crafted into a chain and delivered to representatives on Capitol Hill. Photo courtesy of The Hoya from Georgetown University.
It’s sad that I was initially surprised by the simple, patriotic act of those students on that Sept. 11. But now, when I arrive to work on that date each year and look out at the sea of flags put out by a new crop of students, I am no longer surprised, but hopeful – hopeful that civic virtue is making a comeback in our politics, hopeful that young people will show us the way.
Mo Elleithee is executive director of the Institute of Politics and Public Service at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy. Previously, he spent 20 years as one of the top communications strategists in the Democratic Party.
The featured cover photo (above) is courtesy of Georgetown University.