By Jack Beery
For The Diamondback
University of Maryland Libraries hosted the Living Democracy Symposium on Thursday, a day-long event consisting of speeches and panels discussing civic engagement and the importance of protecting our democracy.
The symposium, held in Stamp Student Union, marked the official launch of the university libraries’ Living Democracy Initiative. The initiative aims to advance civic education and engagement through library programming and events like the symposium, according to its website.
Attendees began to fill the Colony Ballroom around 8:45 a.m., as the room was flooded with early morning light. University president Darryll Pines introduced the event and its goals for civic discourse in a prerecorded video.
“This is a journey not without discomfort and conflict,” Pines said in the video. “But by talking about the lessons learned from the past and present, and acknowledging both our country’s successes and its failures, I am confident that we can continue to work toward the greater good and ensure a more just and equitable future for all.”
Panelists at the event said the nation’s democracy has been weakened by corruption and religious nationalism over the past five decades. Some stressed the importance of creating real solutions and meaningful change to counteract that trend.
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Charles Blow, a New York Times columnist, gave the opening keynote address. He said that despite often being portrayed as “profound patriotism,” religious nationalism has hurt the country’s democracy.
“It will take every citizen and every voter to confront this moment and to offer the country an opportunity to first, survive, and second, to change, grow and evolve,” Blow told the crowd of about 100 people.
Blow also said the electoral college has become a problem by preventing minorities in urban areas from having the same voting power in presidential elections as rural voters.
He concluded his speech by discussing the importance of protecting democracy, pushing for the empowerment of the majority voice through voting and making it clear that every individual voice needs to be heard.
“We are trying to maintain this empire … in its prime for as long as possible, but the first step is coming to terms with just how close we are coming to losing it,” Blow said.
Douglas McElrath, the university libraries’ special collections and university archives director, said that some of the flaws in our democratic process, such as low voter turnout, will likely take generations to change.
“If we’re going to have any change in this country, people are going to have to come out and vote,” McElrath said.
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Later in the event, speakers came together for the “Watergate @ 50” panel and discussed the history and impacts of the Watergate scandal.
Ilona Hogan, the widow of former Rep. Lawrence Hogan Sr. (R-Md.), spoke of her late husband’s actions as the only Republican to vote for all three impeachment articles against Richard Nixon. This decision served as a blow to his administration and contributed to his loss in his run for governor.
“What he did was put principle over politics,” Hogan told the crowd. “The mantra of that decade was, ‘Question authority.’”
Trevor Parry-Giles, faculty affairs and research associate dean at this university’s arts and humanities college, said there wasn’t total trust in government institutions before the Watergate scandal, either.
“I think that it’s more useful to see Watergate as a progression, or a step in the progression of a long-standing mistrust of government and political institutions in the United States,” Parry-Giles said. “We’re now living with that legacy.”
Several smaller moderated panels also took place throughout the day, focusing on topics such as free press, civil political discussion and the evolution of activism.
“The Fourth Estate” — one of those panels — featured discussions on the importance of a free press.
During the panel, Christoph Mergerson, an assistant professor in this university’s journalism college, spoke on journalistic objectivity and responsibility, and the public’s decreasing trust in the media. When people distrust news outlets, they are more likely to seek their information elsewhere and encounter misinformation, he said.
In fact, Mergerson said, the only news network in the United States that has had a net positive trust rating from every demographic researched over the past few years is The Weather Channel.
Even though some problems the country faces require “a collective response,” politics have reached a point where people are incapable of working together, he said.
“Is our liberal democracy in trouble? Yeah, most definitely,” Mergerson said.
