Alex Hinton, Rutgers University - Newark
“No profanity.”
This is the one rule spelled out on a sign in Lance Walker’s barbershop in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, where political discussion between clients can get heated.
Three weeks before the election, on Oct. 14, 2024, I watched as Walker interviewed Michele Jansen, a conservative local talk show host, and Don Marritz, a liberal legal aid attorney also living in Pennsylvania, in his podcast studio.
Jansen and Marritz discussed the difficulties they had faced in the preceding months as they struggled to draft a document called Declaration Rejecting Political Violence. Eventually, more than 250 community leaders and citizens in Franklin and Adams counties in Pennsylvania signed on.