‘Speak out’: Political experts talk shop at annual symposium

Jack Glagola, News Editor

Harshini Kanala, Contributing Writer

Students, faculty, Virginia politicians and more packed the Singleton Center on Sept. 17 for this year’s Wilder Symposium, featuring a panel of top political experts from Virginia and focusing on dialogue between politicians and the electorate.

The panelists discussed their thoughts and predictions about November’s elections, former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaigns, the racial literacy course decision last year and the latest presidential polling. They took questions from the audience afterward.

Larry Sabato, a political analyst at the University of Virginia known for his “Crystal Ball,” said the United States went through similar periods of crisis and questions about the country’s survival, most recently in 1968 amid the Vietnam War and political unrest.

“Things seemed dark and gloomy and people were actually questioning — especially after the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy — they were questioning whether the country could really hang together in the middle of a very unpopular war,” Sabato said.

Sabato said a second Trump term would be very different from his first because the people who could hold him back the first time around, like former Defense Secretary Mark Esper and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, are gone.

“He’s going to bring in some of the most radical people you can imagine,” Sabato said. “He’s already got them around him. Term two will be very different from term one, and most of you won’t like it one little bit.”

Sabato said younger voters restore his faith that things will improve in the future.

“It’s why I love going to the classroom, because they do care, and they do have the energy and enthusiasm for higher turnouts than they’ve had before,” Sabato said.

Bob Holsworth, political analyst and founding director of the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs, asked former Governor Douglas Wilder, the first Black governor in the country, what he thought of Kamala Harris’ decision not to focus on her race.

“I wanted to be certain people understood that I wasn’t running to represent Black people, white people, tan, brown, yellow — whatever. I ran to represent the people of Virginia,” Wilder said.

Virginia was the first state to show that those characteristics did not matter by electing a governor because he was qualified and represented Virginia, not because of his race, according to Wilder.

He was “very disappointed” when the governor requested to review racial literacy curricula, according to Wilder. The requirements were later struck down by the Board of Visitors.

“I said, ‘We are teaching about history, we are talking about going back and making certain that people understand what is and from whence we’ve come,’” Wilder said.

Wilder said the people should advocate for the ability to choose who runs public universities and their boards.

“Speak out,” Wilder said. “If you’re the only voice, let us hear you.”

Robyn McDougle, associate dean of research and outreach at the school and head of the VCU Commonwealth Poll, said the Board of Visitors’ decision to strike down the racial literacy requirement on the orders of Governor Glenn Youngkin was “a poor one.”

“Why did they feel that they could overrule the will of the faculty and the support that teaching these courses had, and where is that legitimacy coming from?” McDougle asked. “I think we have to hold members of our Board of Visitors — I think we have to hold our governor more accountable on these issues.”

The Wilder School included questions about teaching the history of race in K-12 and higher education in its spring 2024 poll. A majority of Virginians supported the teaching in both, according to McDougle.

Aceyonna Watkins, a VCU alum who now works with Safe Harbor, a domestic abuse and trafficking shelter, stated in an email that she learned a lot at the symposium — like how much influence the governor has on VCU’s policies and “how they handle things.”

Generation Z are now the “new adults” and must be mindful in wielding their new political power, according to Watkins.

“Governor Wilder said something that really stuck with me,” Watkins said. “He said, ‘What have you done, what are you going to do and what do you stand for?’”

RaJade Berry-James, the senior associate dean for faculty and academic affairs at the Wilder School, stated in an email that she is always “in awe of the diversity of thought that exists in the Wilder School at VCU.”

“Governor Wilder was and continues to be a champion of the people. Centering the voices of people is critical to a free and fair election,” James said.

James spoke of elections as “the will of the people,” and stated that nothing matters more than to protect democracy.

“As a social equity thought leader, our elections are just one key performance indicator that government works,” James said.