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Hoosiers have the opportunity to hear political commentator Michael Smerconish speak outside his normal avenues on network television and radio—and his material won’t be saturated with the day’s political headlines.
Smerconish plans to share what he believes to be the key to dropping the political tension with about 500 Hoosiers this fall as part of the Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site Speaker Series in Indianapolis.
The organization is selling tickets for the event, which is set for 6 p.m. Nov. 14 at the Indiana Roof Ballroom.
This event is another one of the organization’s efforts to teach Hoosiers about history and provide civics education, presidential site President & CEO Charles Hyde said. One focus specific to Harrison’s legacy and Smerconish’s objective, he said, is the attempt to repair political divisions and motivate cross-political collaboration for the common good.
“One of those things that has really impressed us about Michael’s approach to these conversations is that it’s not a divisive approach, that it’s an additive approach,” Hyde said. “How can we find the grace to act in good faith and to recognize good faith in others?”
The Pennsylvania native currently hosts his namesake CNN show on Saturday mornings and a daily radio program on SiriusXM’s POTUS channel. He is a former newspaper columnist and grew his name through his syndicated radio shows where he notably interviewed a slate of presidents and other high-raking publish officials. He is a lawyer by trade and also had a tenure at MSNBC as a contributor.
Smerconish, 62, considers himself an independent after he left the Republican Party in 2010. He prides his programming on “independent viewpoints not tethered to partisan perspective,” according to his website where political news and perspectives are shared.
One of his primary focuses currently is The Mingle Project. The effort involved Smerconish delivering several speeches across the country that he hopes will in part inspire an movement to “restore civility and compromise to our public discourse” amid the heavy polarization he has seen grow over the past three decades.
“It’s a message that is honed from paying very close attention to public events over the span of three decades and coming to the conclusion that this witches brew of political polarization and self-sorting and technology are collectively really harming our ability to get things done and impacting, in a very negative way, the mental health of our kids,” he told IBJ in an interview.
His goal, he says, is to reach audiences through humor, stories and observations to explain why the divisions in this country exist and why a focus on social connection is needed.
“I try in the span of 40 minutes to assemble all those pieces of the puzzle to give people a reason for hope and a prescription for what ails us,” he said.
It’s not an inherently political message, and he said groups of all identities and affiliations have been receptive. Smerconish calls it “social science that has political ramifications.”
The crux of his argument is that current society lacks the socially-binding experiences of the past that have historically brought people together. Worsened with social media and technology, fewer people are interacting with their neighbors, attending community events or joining local clubs, he said.
He especially worries for this generation of children who are growing up in a world where the current political temperature is considered normal and are spending a significant amount of time behind screens instead of connecting with their peers in person.
“We have so few opportunities where we are with people who are different from us in our appearance and in our outlook,” Smerconish said. “When we spend time with one another, we come to realize that we’re not as divided as we thought that we were, and as the media has convinced us that we are.”
All of that has been mounting to an increased polarization spliced into red and blue political parties, he said, and those national divisions continue to boil down to worsening tensions on a granular community level.
It’s important to speak about this issue now, he said, as it transcends even the most “inflamed” campaign seasons.
It’s a fixable predicament, he believes. And, more Americans need to learn how to “change the channel,” he said, and move themselves out of the echo chambers that have become so easy to fall into.
Smerconish encourages the type of conversations the Harrison Presidential Site is attempting to motivate, Hyde said.
Harrison, Indiana’s only president, was known for his “values-driven leadership,” which motivated his practice to reach across the aisle and approve legislation that sometimes ruffled feathers in his party. He signed off on the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, set aside 13 million acres of public domain land for national forest reserves and added the most states to the union of any president.
“Harrison’s personal virtues and political experiences are valuable teaching tools for an understanding of American politics and the presidency,” the presidential site’s website says of its namesake.
In the spirit of his bipartisanship and morals-focused service, Hyde said Smerconish reflects the line of community-focused, nonpartisan conversations they want to promote.
“We feel like that he’ll be able to share his observations at a very important moment immediately following this current presidential election cycle,” Hyde said. “We’re excited for Michael to be able to share his perspectives in a way that I think that all parties will be able to relate to.”
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