Christopher Schroeder

Category: local

  • A Less Divisible Indivisible

    The progressive organization Indivisible, which started in 2016 as a response to Trump’s first election, persuaded more than 7 million people to march against the authoritarian actions of his current administration. However, it is risking this success with its recent response to the votes about reopening the federal government.

    This organization claims that those who marched “have been failed by the Democratic leadership again” and that the Senate minority leader has “surrender[ed].” It also argues that its members “must ensure” that this “failed leadership” doesn’t “doom a future Democratic majority” by participating in its latest primary election initiative.

    Democrats can, and should, do more to oppose this “authoritarian regime,” but Indivisible in this instance is promoting an incomplete perspective. For example, it assumes that Democratic leaders could control the outcome, which is unclear, and that such votes were mistakes.

    Reasonable liberals could have a different explanation. Some for instance might think that the Democrats tried “to protect the American people” from MAGA and the Republicans who refused to negotiate, and these politicians rejected “minor concessions,” which actually don’t address the underlying health care problem, and that they accepted the political realities and agreed to reopen the Republicans’ government (Gorn 2025).

    The reality is that options available to Democrats are limited at least until they are the majority in at least one house, including the White House, or until they can convince their Republican colleagues to prioritize principles over party, which is actually the same mistake Indivisible seems to be making.

    Indivisible web site screenshot

    The problem in other words is that Indivisible is using unrealistic and unresponsive language, and in so doing seems to have switched its focus from principles to parties.

    Indivisible and other progressive organizations must remember the realities of limited attention and air time, and in so doing select issues that have the widest appeal. The issue isn’t that representation doesn’t matter, which it obviously does, but that success cannot come from identity politics, especially the kind that appeals to small segments of society.

    These organizations would be smarter in other words to focus on the issues and principles that cross current divides and speak to the most people. In doing so, these organizations need to make such arguments, and to explain why caring for communities is always better in both practical and philosophical terms for everyone.

    Such frames and arguments might differ from one part of the country. What works in New York City for example might not work in New Jersey or Virginia. Regardless, the underlying (progressive) principles would remain the same concerns for community, which exist in foundational American texts.

    This approach increases the appeal to voters while continuing to expand coalitions, and actually is why these organizations must support competitive elections and fair maps once the recent gerrymandering surge has subsided (see, e.g., these or these).

    These together increase the chance that organizations are less likely to get lost in litmus-tests, which are often a proxy for party over principle, and more likely to have repeated and regular success. These moreover could encourage candidates to connect with their constituents through progressive principles rather than political party.

    Indivisible has brought hope to many of us, which was actually the best part of the recent No Kings marches. Standing among the thousands in Grant Park, I was reassured that so many people shared these concerns and aspirations and care about Chicago and our country.

    Perhaps that explains why I’m concerned about its seemingly unrealistic and unresponsive language. Instead, I urge it to avoid criticizing political parties, and risk reinforcing existing divisions, and instead refocus on creating the largest coalition, one of we the people that was central to who some imagined we could be, a people who were in this fight together, still trying to form a more perfect union.

    That is what Indivisible has done so well, and what it does best.

  • No Kings Chicago

    No Kings Chicago
    No Kings Chicago
    No Kings Chicago
    No Kings Chicago

  • From Bad to Worse

    Current educational challenges are bad enough without the Chicago Tribune making these worse, which it did with its recent editorial.

    In it, its editorial board admonishes “emboldened” teachers who are pressuring students to accept teachers’ politics or be excluded from classroom communities, which it argues deprives these students of their rights. It argues that such teachers are doing a “disservice” to their students’ learning, that schools must consider how their employees “present” present themselves, and that classrooms cannot become “perfect captive audience[s]” for teachers or anyone considers “politics as the highest social calling.”

    The editorial board is right to remind educators to remember the power that they hold but wrong to ignore pre-existing pressure beyond classrooms, which existed long before Charlie Kirk was assassinated. For example, I stopped challenging college students and started self-censoring classroom comments upon learning that he had been encouraging them to record and report professors.

    I wondered if I were overreacting but was later relieved to have done so. Campus colleagues were cited in a 2023 Fox News report, and others across Chicago have been threatened after appearing on Kirk’s watch list.

    I discovered that this pressure could be institutional when for example my hapa, or mixed, kid was excluded from a high school assembling that was restricted to African-American students. I similarly had an August Wilson new course proposal returned because it insufficiently explained I was informed how this course would serve diversity, equity, and inclusion goals as if any explanation could be necessary.

    The bigger problem however is that the Tribune constructs a caricature of teachers. Some teachers I’m sure suggest to students that their political opponents are “bad, evil and wrong,” but not all do, and none would consider such statements as smart pedagogical strategies.

    Such a caricature in other words misunderstands the essence of education, at least in the humanities where I spent my academic career. In contrast, I considered my obligation to be challenging students to develop their thinking abilities in addition to imparting whatever knowledge central to each course.

    As a result, I would deliberately describe the best challenge to students’ arguments regardless of whether it was liberal, conservative, or something else, and regardless of whether I personally believed it. In fact, I often reminded students that they shouldn’t assume every argument I offered reflected my professional or personal beliefs, and that I had done my job if they were unsure of these at the end of the semester.

    I’m not suggesting that such an approach is apolitical. I unlike the Tribune editorial board believe that politics are inescapable and that choices reflect these. At the same time, it and I seem to agree on the purpose of education, which is perhaps more central than ever.

    Nonetheless, I concede that such an approach has to be used within the context of intellectual freedom. Moreover, I would define that not as the ability to articulate any thought but rather as I learned from another Chicago colleague a balance of freedom of thought and expression and a right of inclusion, or a space where students can both offer their observations and are welcome to do so.

    I wasn’t trying to reinforce some students’ preconceived perspectives and changing others’ minds but rather trying to push every student’s ability to think, and to do so for all students, or at least as many as I could convince to respond. I hoped even those whose perspectives hadn’t shifted at least learned to develop rebuttals, and an ability to consider the limitations of any position they might advocate.

    At least I did until I learned about Kirk’s professor-watch list, and would have continued doing if I had greater confidence in campus administrators and professional and social support, including from the Tribune editorial board.

    I agree that classrooms offer “captive” audiences, that students needn’t know their teachers’ politics, and that schools should be “the freest places” for curiosity and critical thinking. I just think that these insights aren’t news to good teachers, who are already aware of these.

    I experienced educational challenges from liberals. I just was, and am, much more concerned about conservative challenges, which seemed emboldened in the current president’s first term and even more so in his second one.