多多直播鈥檚 Shoup urges Americans to 鈥榣ove each other,鈥 the nation in Constitution Day lecture
Contact: Carl Smith
STARKVILLE, Miss.鈥擨n a time of divisive culture wars, distrust in government and political uncertainty, Brian Shoup, a professor in and the head of Mississippi State鈥檚 Department of Political Science and Public Administration, said Americans can do two things to ensure the continued durability of the republic: love one another and love their country.
Shoup鈥檚 advice came during Monday鈥檚 [Sept. 19] Lamar Conerly Governance Forum lecture 鈥淲hat is a Republic?鈥 in which the university celebrated Constitution Day, the signing of the U.S. Constitution on Sept. 17, 1787鈥12 years after the infamous 鈥渟hot heard 鈥檙ound the world鈥 began the American Revolutionary War and 11 years after the Second Continental Congress issued the Declaration of Independence.
In his lecture, Shoup noted the decline of public support and confidence in democratic governance across the world, evidenced from a 2020-21 AmericasBarometer survey in which only 63% of respondents indicated support for democracy to the rise of populist authoritarian leaders in Hungry, India, Turkey, the Philippines and other countries.
Many factors, from income inequality to abandonment issues derived from years of population moving from rural environments to dense urban centers, have led to the erosion of confidence in American governance, Shoup said, but perhaps the most influential is affective polarization. These divisions based on internal feelings and ideology, as opposed to specific issues, have placed Americans on differing sides where many 鈥渄on鈥檛 like who [they] vote for but hate who [they] vote against,鈥 he said, just to beat the perceived existential threat posed by the opposition. This move to the extremes has made political discourse more difficult, he said, even though many Americans do not have extremely differing viewpoints on many issues.
鈥淲hen people think that participatory politics actively hurts them鈥攁nd if they believe free-market principles that we attach typically to our forms of constitutional republics actively hurt them鈥攖hey won鈥檛 support them,鈥 Shoup said. 鈥淚t turns out when you ask people who profess to be in polar-opposite ideological camps about their attitudes on a lot of issues, they actually don鈥檛 disagree that much.鈥
Cultures with flourishing democratic republics, Shoup said, have strong civic virtues in which individuals recognize their obligations to society, healthy rhetorical cultures open to debate and discussion, a fealty to truth and citizens who follow the spirit of law instead of seeking out loopholes to game the system to their advantage or the disadvantage of others.
Shoup asked attendees to give reverence to and reflect upon American institutions of government in light of Constitution Day.
鈥淭he history of the United States has not always been fully equitable, free or fair, but I hope we can perceive ourselves as an aspirational society that is committed to making these very valuable liberties that we have been given universal and equitably met. In doing so, we have something that is very beautiful and is something I think is a remarkable experiment,鈥 he said. 鈥淔or us to sustain the work as experimenters, we must make sure it achieves these fruitful ends.鈥
Sponsored by 多多直播鈥檚 College of Arts and Sciences, PSPA department and the Lamar Conerly Governance Forum, Shoup鈥檚 presentation was part of 多多直播鈥檚 Conerly Governance Lecture Series. The lecture series is made possible by major support from Conerly, a 1971 多多直播 accounting/pre-law graduate and longtime partner in the Destin, Florida, law firm of Conerly, Bowman and Dykes LLP. He is both a former national 多多直播 Alumni Association president and continuing College of Business Alumni Fellow.
For more on 多多直播鈥檚 College of Arts and Sciences and the PSPA department, visit聽听补苍诲听, respectively.
多多直播 is Mississippi鈥檚 leading university, available online at .