Happy Anniversary: Civil Discourse Turns Two

JOYCE VANCE JUN 8

I sent out the first Civil Discourse newsletter on June 7, 2022. The House January 6 committee hearings were about to start, and two days later, they did. Nothing like good timing!

Like so many of you, I was struggling to stay on top of everything that was happening in our country. I was desperately concerned there would be no accountability for the Trump era, no accountability for the events that culminated with the insurrection on January 6, 2021. I was worried about other issues too, ranging from climate change to civil rights to gun violence to protecting the right to vote. It was becoming clear to me that it was essential if we were ever going to find solutions for the issues I cared about that we first fight to save democracy and fight for the rule of law.

That night, I wrote to you about my goals for Civil Discourse: “I’ll help you stay up to date on important developments and what they mean. We’ll track down the facts and make sure we understand more than just the headlines. And I’ll link you to primary sources so you can access information and develop your own analysis on the issues that matter the most to you. We’ll have a community forum where we'll be able to privately discuss our questions and work through some of the complicated issues. We can use what we learn to help combat disinformation.”

I didn’t realize what a big job I was taking on or how many issues would confront us. I can only hope I’ve achieved a small part of what I so naively envisioned doing.

That first email I sent went to the 24 recipients who had signed up in anticipation of the newsletter. Only 75% of them opened it. But as people shared the newsletter and I mentioned it on Twitter, 6,000 people subscribed and it was read 14,400 times. Two years later, there are more than 290,000 subscribers and tens of thousands more who read the newsletter.

Last year I wrote to you on our first anniversary, “We started with a simple question: In an era where it’s essential that we take intentional care of our fragile democratic institutions, how do we deal with all of the issues that are competing for our attention?”

A few days later, on June 8 of last year, Donald Trump was indicted, for the first time, by federal prosecutors who charged him in a 40-count indictment alongside Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira. The proverb says, may you live in interesting times. We certainly do.

In his first inaugural address as Governor of California, Ronald Reagan said, “Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by inheritance, it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation.” Joe Biden issued the challenge more directly this week while commemorating D-Day in France, "When we talk about democracy, American democracy, we often talk about the ideals of life, liberty, pursuit of happiness," he said. "What we don't talk about is how hard it is … The most natural instinct is to walk away — to be selfish, to force our will upon others, to seize power, never give it up. American democracy asks the hardest of things — to believe that we're a part of something bigger than ourselves.”

In the short life of Civil Discourse, we’ve gone from the January 6 hearings, to the first federal indictment of a former president, to his first criminal conviction in state court in New York just over a week ago. It is hard to imagine what the next year will bring or how important it will be for the future of our country.

Thank you for being here with me for all of it. And I get it. I know that many of you are here for the chickens, so I promise they’ll be with us too.

Here’s to another year of Civil Discourse.

We’re in this together,

Joyce