For the past year, reporter Simon Montlake has been following efforts in a Pennsylvania community to reduce political violence. The federally funded program brings a diverse set of community members together to grapple with polarization, misinformation, and distrust.

Just before publication, a gunman in this state attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump, underscoring the importance of such work in our common lives together.

Inside a studio for News Talk 103.7 FM in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, Michele Jansen is swiveling her chair at a mottled cream desk as the morning sun brightens the storefront window behind her. 

It’s just turned 8 a.m., and Ms. Jansen has been on air for two hours with her co-host, Pat Ryan, the station director who keeps above his desk a salvaged road sign reading “Keep Right.” Their show, “First News With Pat & Michele,” takes the morning slot at this conservative talk radio station.

In the aftermath of the 2020 election, their show had a fierce edge. It helped amplify unproven and false claims of election fraud that led up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by devotees of defeated President Donald Trump. These included a sizable contingent from Pennsylvania.

But since then, Ms. Jansen has been working to change her tenor and tone and find a way to be a “Pennsylvania uniter” – even while maintaining decidedly conservative positions. This morning the “First News” hosts are discussing the Biden administration’s plan to remove cannabis from its current Schedule I status, a government label that marks it as one of the most dangerous drugs. 

Ms. Jansen is debating one of their guests, state Rep. Paul Schemel, a Republican who is unperturbed by the plan. He points out how cannabis is already medically prescribed in Pennsylvania. But the co-host pushes back, pointing out that the long-term effects of high-potency cannabis haven’t been properly studied. 

“It seems to me they’re just ignoring that, Paul,” she tells the lawmaker, ticking off the risks of easing restrictions on the plant. Why is the White House eager to reschedule now? she asks. “I think they’re thinking of voters. I have to be honest.”

Coming from Ms. Jansen, it’s a relatively mild critique of the Democratic president. A medical researcher before making a midlife pivot to political advocacy and then to her perch in conservative talk radio, Ms. Jansen had been a lot more aggressive just a few years ago.

Alfredo Sosa/Staff

“What I love about our group is that we’ve stopped looking at each other as our enemy.” – Michele Jansen, conservative radio host who coordinates a team of volunteers who work to prevent targeted political violence. Ms. Jansen and co-host Pat Ryan discuss local and national politics on their show, “First News With Pat & Michele,” June 4, 2024.

After the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, Ms. Jansen found herself ostracized in local Facebook groups. Some users called for a boycott of her station. She was stung by what she calls the “dehumanizing language” used by all sides. Even worse, the political vitriol was spilling over into everyday civility. “We have groups of people who are so cruel to each other on social media in this town,” she says.

She and others became concerned about rising incidents of political violence, as well as the escalating harassment of public officials, including violent threats. Over 80% of local officials said they had experienced incidents of such harassment in a recent survey by the National League of Cities.  

So the conservative talk show host decided to do something different. Last year she volunteered to be a coordinator for an initiative funded by the Department of Homeland Security called Uniting To Prevent Targeted Violence. The funding doles out $20 million in grants annually for violence prevention and counterterrorism, including to local nonprofits and other organizations trying to find ways to prevent political violence before it germinates within local communities. 

Ms. Jansen began working with the nonprofit Urban Rural Action, which received a federal grant. She helped recruit volunteers in Franklin County, trying to build a team as politically and culturally diverse as possible. Its aim was to develop projects that would build social cohesion amid the United States’ current discord.

The thinkers behind these violence prevention efforts adopt a public-health approach, addressing violence in the way health experts would urge better nutrition and exercise, for example. The long-term goal, experts say, is to safeguard communities against violence and drain the pool of potential perpetrators.

“Political hostility and animosity contributes to a climate of fear and violence,” says Joe Bubman, founder and executive director of Urban Rural Action, who cut his teeth working on violence reduction in conflicts in Africa and Asia. Now he applies these skill sets closer to home.

Simon Montlake/The Christian Science Monitor

Joe Bubman has worked on violence reduction in conflicts in Africa and Asia. His organization, Urban Rural Action in south-central Pennsylvania, is working to build community cohesion through peace-building.

The Monitor has been following several volunteer uniters in the Homeland Security Department-funded initiative in Pennsylvania for the past year. What happens when diverse members of a community try to tackle the drivers of division?

Courtesy of Urban Rural Action

Joe Bubman (not pictured) leads a group discussion at a meeting of volunteers in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, May 4, 2024.

It isn’t an easy path. Some collaborations proved more fruitful than others. This is a story about everyday Americans grappling with polarization, anomie, and distrust, a story of hopes, fears, and a determination to discover what it means to build peace in a democracy under stress.

Bravery in the face of conflict

Chambersburg, like many towns in rural America, is a blue-tinged atoll in a sea of red. It’s part of Franklin County, which hasn’t voted for a Democratic president since 1964. Adams County, its neighbor, has the same voting pattern. Its county seat, Gettysburg, which elected a Black woman as mayor in 2021, is a liberal college town hemmed in by famous Civil War battle sites.  

The area’s demographics are changing, however, particularly in Franklin County. Along the interstate corridor that runs through it, farms are converted to warehouses as new people move in and fill new jobs, sending their children to local schools. 

“Transplants and those that grew up here, sometimes they are two different worlds,” says Mike Sanders, senior pastor at the Open Door Church in Chambersburg. 

Like Ms. Jansen, Chad Collie is a paid coordinator for Urban Rural Action’s participation in the federal initiative to prevent targeted violence. Born in Kentucky, he moved to the area two decades ago after he met his Pennsylvania-born wife. 

Troubled by the character of Donald Trump, Mr. Collie resigned from the GOP county board in 2016. He leans right on most issues, he says. But working as a contractor on historic homes in Gettysburg puts him at the kitchen table with plenty of Democrats who see the world differently. 

“We’re putting together a group of people who would normally not talk to one another,” Mr. Collie says. 

In April 2023, he drove to Harrisburg for a weekend meeting at a community college where his team and others would be brainstorming their collective projects. 

It was a cool, cloudy morning, and thunderheads were gathering overhead. The Adams County team perched on blue sofas in a fluorescent-lit corridor, near two giant chess and Connect 4 sets. Mr. Collie asks what issues the group should be tackling, and what would be a way to effect change. 

Tom Cassara, a college student who is the youngest volunteer, says misinformation about the Civil War stokes political division. Others chime in to suggest that civics education could help. Then, talk turns to who would be receptive to such programs. “You want to influence people who have influence,” says Mr. Collie.

Mr. Bubman, who is listening from the side, interjects. “Don’t get ahead of your audience,” he tells the group. “Focus on the community’s most urgent problem and what resources are available to address it.” Before he worked on international peace-building, the nonprofit’s founder worked on conflict management with U.S. corporations.

But as he designed his proposal to get a grant from the targeted violence initiative, he drew mostly on his work in countries like Kenya and Myanmar, where he served as the director of Mercy Corps’ Peace and Conflict team. In 2016, he saw similar warning signs of social fragility in the United States.

Alfredo Sosa/Staff

A statue of a Union soldier stands in front of the old courthouse in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.

He wasn’t the only American steeped in conflict resolution abroad to feel this. In fact, others have begun to approach domestic political extremism using tools that were developed by international aid agencies. 

“We see how it can get much worse,” says a peace-builder who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of her work. “There’s nothing about the U.S. that makes us uniquely immune to large-scale violence.”

Adams County stood on such a precipice in 2020. Amid nationwide protests over the murder of George Floyd, armed groups of men showed up in droves on Gettysburg’s battlefields on the Fourth of July. An online hoax claimed that antifa would burn flags and desecrate Confederate statues, which prompted a number of these groups to mobilize. 

Tensions rose locally, and they would remain heated for months to come, as protests flared within Gettysburg’s town square nearly every week, pitting Black Lives Matter protesters against right-wing counterprotesters as the 2020 election approached.

Many of the militiamen who roamed the battlefields on the Fourth were outsiders, however. They were drawn not only by the rumor of antifa aggression, but also by the national symbolism of Gettysburg. “We’re a magnet,” says Mr. Collie, who recalls when the Ku Klux Klan came to town.

Patti Robinson, a family mediator in Gettysburg, is the community partner for Mr. Collie’s team. In 2021, she worked as a peacemaker during a protest against a Confederate monument on a nearby battlefield. A group of counterprotesters, many of whom were armed and clad in combat gear, stood against them.

Carolyn Kaster/AP/File

Members of a militia walk past a tourist as they patrol the area surrounding the Gettysburg National Cemetery, July 4, 2020, in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

Ms. Robinson and a colleague, who wore bright-green vests labeled “Trust Network Mediator,” introduced themselves to both groups, letting them know their role. Then they stood between them, though at a distance, and kept watch. When confrontations got heated, they’d step in and try to de-escalate the situation. Emotions ran high; speeches ran long. But in the end, they helped keep the peace – there were no violent incidents that day. Some protesters thanked her for being there. “Everyone just wants to be heard,” Ms. Robinson says. 

Her role that day, she later wrote, was to “practice bravery in the face of conflict. We don’t take sides. ... We want everyone to win.” 

Honest, respectful dialogue, even with an edge 

Classic R&B is playing at Lance Walker’s barber shop, a home business the former bodybuilder runs in the tiled basement of his modest ranch-style house here in Chambersburg. 

Mr. Walker, who is Black, grew up in public housing outside Pittsburgh. After he joined the Army, he learned how to buzz-cut the hair of white soldiers while off-duty. He already knew how Black folk liked their hair.  

Today his clientele is mostly white, of all ages and backgrounds.

The barber shop is a public square, a free-speech zone, says Mr. Walker. The hotter the topic the better, he says, so long as the heated dialogue remains civil. “Just pull the pin and roll the grenade,” he jokes.

On a recent Friday, Mr. Walker is running a comb through the hair of Mark Miller, a thrift store employee. He asks how short he wants it. Soon the two men are discussing public transit and housing policy. “I come here for the conversation as much as the haircut,” Mr. Miller says.

Ms. Jansen, the conservative radio host, recruited the work-from-home barber, asking him to join the effort to build social cohesion and help prevent targeted political violence. Mr. Walker wanted in. 

Other members of the Franklin County team include Allison Stephens, a history teacher at Mercersburg Academy, a private boarding school that she calls “a little blue dot” in town. 

Ms. Stephens leans left politically, and this puts her in the minority on the team. (Since it was formed, two team members ran unsuccessful campaigns for elected office, both as Republicans.) Another member, Doug Dobbs, is a retired historian and Civil War reenactor. 

Other Urban Rural Action teams in Pennsylvania work with suicide prevention organizations, veterans outreach, and other kinds of social services. But the Franklin County team had a number of setbacks.

Team members wanted to prioritize outreach to people facing personal crises – like those who don’t know how to access public services like housing assistance, a lack of knowledge that can potentially drive some people to radicalize.

But both of the nonprofits they tried to work with backed out of their proposed projects for various reasons. Ms. Jansen felt frustrated, even though she was encouraged by their meetings with local law enforcement about how to assess potential threats of violence.

Despite the team’s setbacks, Mr. Bubman says the collaborative process brings its own rewards. “If you’re working together to achieve something, even if it’s modest, you’re building trust,” he says.

One example is the relationship between Ms. Jansen and the sharp-tongued, bald-pated barber, Mr. Walker, who are often miles apart when it comes to politics.

For Mr. Walker, trust begins with honest, respectful dialogue, even with an edge. From the start, he made a point of steering team talks to topics that raised the temperature in the room, including systemic racism and the personal slights he and his family experience while living in a majority-white community.

Alfredo Sosa/Staff

“We’ve built a bond within our group.” – Lance Walker, a local barber whose shop is located in the basement of his house in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. The conservative radio host Michele Jansen, with whom he often disagrees on political issues, recruited him to be a part of the Franklin County team of Urban Rural Action.

His own politics have shifted left. Because of his opposition to abortion rights, he wouldn’t vote for Barack Obama. In 2016, he voted for Donald Trump – though he came to regret it. By 2020, however, he got involved in racial justice campaigns. That year he also became the town of Chambersburg’s first nonwhite school board member. He locked horns with his colleagues almost immediately as he brought up the lack of diversity among the school system’s leadership and its teachers. 

Mr. Walker remains a registered Republican, and he votes in GOP primaries. But he chafes at party labels. “I’m so sick of being put in a box,” he says.

He’s clashed with Ms. Jansen, too. In 2021, Chambersburg passed an antidiscrimination ordinance that Ms. Jansen opposed. She said it created special protections for certain groups and not for others. Four months later, Republicans on the Town Council repealed the ordinance, to the frustration of Mr. Walker, who had supported it. 

Ms. Jansen is critical of diversity, equity, and inclusion policies in government. Mr. Walker served as a diversity adviser to Franklin County’s then-District Attorney Matt Fogal, a Republican who quit the party in 2020. He later condemned the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol as “treasonous violence incited by the President of the United States.”

But Ms. Jansen and Mr. Walker both say their collaboration has built a protective layer of mutual trust that didn’t exist before. “We’ve built a bond within our group,” says Mr. Walker. 

That bond was tested last December when Ms. Jansen announced she would be working for state Sen. Doug Mastriano, an outspoken hard-line Republican who was the party’s nominee for governor in 2022. His office is right next to the News Talk 103.7 FM studio, in fact, and it shares the same storefront entrance.

Had she joined Senator Mastriano’s staff earlier, before the group had jelled, it might have been a deal-breaker, given the senator’s politics, she says. But everyone took the news in stride, including Mr. Walker.

“What I love about our group is that we’ve stopped looking at each other as our enemy,” Ms. Jansen says. 

Building a healthy, resilient community

When the conservative radio host began recruiting volunteers for Urban Rural Action, however, there was pushback within her social circles.

For many of them, any initiative by the Biden administration’s Department of Homeland Security to “prevent targeted violence” would be a weapon wielded against conservatives. Others asked her if progressives would be in charge, making it a total waste of their time. She tried to convince them otherwise.

Many worried, too, that federal law enforcement’s focus on white supremacist and anti-government extremists – whom the FBI considers the nation’s greatest domestic security threat – is just cover for an attack on conservative ideology. 

Targeted violence covers a range of offenses, from school and workplace shootings to attacks on power stations and abortion clinics, as well as other politically motivated violence. Grassroots prevention efforts can both reduce the risk of violence and provide off-ramps for individuals drawn to extremism, say experts working on terrorism prevention.

“Ideally, nobody will be an extremist once you build a healthy, resilient community,” says Jordan Reimer, a project manager at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a think tank in Washington. 

Half of all individuals involved in mass killings were motivated by a personal or workplace grievance, found a 2018 study by the Secret Service’s National Threat Assessment Center. Most of these had experienced major stress in the past five years, and over half were in financial trouble. 

Violent extremists offer a sense of purpose and engaged community to such people, says Mr. Reimer, a former intelligence analyst at the New York Police Department. “It gives them an understanding of the world that makes sense to them.” 

At the same time, nearly a quarter of Americans say violence may be necessary to achieve political goals, a Public Religion Research Institute study found. The proportion is even higher among Republicans.

That could be just gut-level talk. But some will be “vulnerable to an extremist coming along and saying, ‘Now’s the time. Now’s the time you need to move to violence,’” says Elizabeth Neumann, a former assistant secretary for counterterrorism and threat prevention at the Department of Homeland Security.

The current funding level at $20 million a year in local grants, however, is too small to be effective, Ms. Neumann says. That’s just a fraction of what countries such as Germany and Australia spend to combat extremism, and just a minuscule amount of total U.S. spending on domestic security. “We’re not even close to actually testing whether this could have a measurable effect on reducing violence,” she says. 

Alfredo Sosa/Staff

“We’re putting together a group of people who would normally not talk to one another.” – Chad Collie, a co-coordinator for the Franklin County team of Urban Rural Action, a nonprofit that received a federal grant to prevent targeted political violence

Question starters for thorny topics

Last summer, the Adams County team landed on a project that would focus on community mediation practices. They developed a set of cards to be used as conversation starters for thorny topics, and planned to hand them out at “talk tents” at various community events. The project included color-coded pinwheels to add a random element to conversation topics. People could take cards home and use them to engage family and friends in conversations. 

Card 1: What’s one thing you wish you could change about the world? 

The cards are aimed at adults and teenagers, including high schoolers served by Betsy Hower, a volunteer and retired schoolteacher who continues working as a substitute. Ms. Hower loved the project. But she objected strongly when the group wanted to print cards in English and Spanish. No, she said. We’re not doing that. 

Card 2: Why is it hard for people to talk about politics?

Ms. Hower, a former GOP county chair, also dismissed a proposal by Maria Banks, another volunteer, for pinwheels that listed microaggressions. Ms. Banks, who is Black, says she was stung by Ms. Hower’s refusals – as well as by the divisions they opened in the group. Eventually, a compromise was reached to print a separate set of cards in Spanish. 

Card 3: When discussing politics, what are your “nonnegotiable” issues?

Mr. Collie, the contractor who was also a Republican member of the county board, says his group worked through its disagreements and didn’t give up. Even when tempers frayed, they all wanted to produce something tangible in their community that could outlast their program. “It’s been hard,” Mr. Collie admits. “That’s who we are: We’re all very passionate about particular things.” 

Ms. Hower teaches Hispanic students who may prefer cards in Spanish, she says. But that isn’t a reason to print bilingual cards that would be a distraction for the majority who don’t. “This is America. You should speak English,” she says. 

Card 4: What are the biggest issues in Adams County that divide our community? 

In May, the Adams County team presented its talk tents at a program meeting at Gettysburg College. It was another rainy day outside on the campus, which had served as a field hospital in 1863 for Union and Confederate soldiers during the battle that became a turning point in the Civil War.

Inside, Ms. Jansen sat at a conference table with Mr. Walker and other Franklin County members, looking over the cards. “No one has respectful dialogue anymore,” Ms. Jansen says. “It’s red versus blue. It’s left versus right. It’s woke versus traditional.”

Still, if constructive dialogue offers a way to reduce polarization and potentially tamp down extremism, the question is, Whom can these efforts reach? Bridge-building initiatives usually attract political moderates like Mr. Collie and Mr. Walker, not hard-liners who are contemptuous of compromise and rhetorically endorse violence.

But the federally funded program isn’t designed to bring these people to the table, advocates say. The strength of building a diverse group of volunteers is its network and the credibility it brings to its projects, says Mr. Bubman. And by raising awareness of targeted violence and its risk factors, it also spreads the message that prevention is possible. 

Mr. Cassara, the college student in the Adams County team, volunteered after seeing relatives embrace QAnon, the far-right conspiracy that labels Democrats satanic child abusers. Ideally, he says, talk tents would be a forum for engaging people “in the deep end” and offering a path out. But he also knows how hard it is to counter conspiracy theories within his own family. 

“I’ve not been able to pull them out, but my relationships with them have gotten better,” he says of his relatives. “We can conduct these initiatives and we can try, but that’s all we can do. We can’t make people like that show up.”

By naming Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance as his running mate, former President Donald Trump has picked an articulate young firebrand whose politics align closely with his own. It’s a ticket that reinforces Mr. Trump’s root-and-branch makeover of the Republican Party in his own image, one that Senator Vance, a self-described “Never Trump guy”-turned-archloyalist, has come to embrace and embody: pugnacious, populist, and nationalist. 

Mr. Vance, a first-term senator just shy of his 40th birthday, is one of the youngest vice presidential candidates in U.S. history. Should he be elected in November, he would become a next-generation leader of Mr. Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement and his presumed successor, given Mr. Trump’s advanced age and presidential term limits.  

As the author of “Hillbilly Elegy,” his popular memoir about growing up in Ohio in a working-class family struggling with poverty and addiction, Mr. Vance could also help the GOP ticket in key Midwestern states that Mr. Trump lost in 2020. On his social media platform, Mr. Trump wrote Monday that his vice presidential pick would “be strongly focused on the people he fought so brilliantly for, the American Workers and Farmers in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Minnesota, and far beyond.” Of these, only Senator Vance’s home state of Ohio was carried by Mr. Trump in 2020. 

Whether vice presidential candidates in the modern era can deliver home states or regions or have much of an electoral impact overall is debatable, says Matt Grossmann, a political science professor at Michigan State University. What is clear, however, is that candidates who have little or no experience in government have become increasingly attractive to voters, who distrust the compromises involved in governing and prefer neophytes who haven’t blemished their records with hard choices.

“Across all elections, but especially in Republican primaries, there’s less of a premium, or almost a negative premium, for having political experience,” says Professor Grossmann, who directs the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research. 

From the Rust Belt to venture capitalism 

James David Vance came to prominence with the success of his 2016 bestseller, “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis,” about growing up in the Rust Belt town of Middletown, Ohio. Reviewers praised the book as a window into the distress experienced by deindustrialized regions in an era of bipartisan support in Washington for free-trade deals. Mr. Trump’s surprise election win and his evocation of communities that had been “left behind” boosted the well-timed book, which was later turned into a film by director Ron Howard. 

HarperCollins Publishers/AP/File

This book cover image released by HarperCollins Publishers shows "Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis" by J.D. Vance. Mr. Vance's book provides a vivid tour of the stark world he grew up in, set mainly in the Ohio city of Middletown that was hit hard by its dominant steelmaking company's decline, but also set in his family's home in the eastern Kentucky hills region.

Senator Vance served in the Marine Corps and then attended Ohio State University and Yale Law School, where a professor encouraged him to write a memoir. He worked for a venture capital firm in San Francisco, investing in tech companies, before moving back to Ohio, where he started a nonprofit working to tackle addiction and other issues. The nonprofit shut down after two years. Mr. Vance pivoted to politics after Ohio Sen. Rob Portman announced his retirement, creating an open seat in 2022.

In a crowded 2022 GOP Senate primary, Mr. Vance had the backing of Mr. Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., as well as Peter Thiel, a Silicon Valley billionaire known for his libertarian politics. Mr. Vance won the primary after Mr. Trump endorsed him toward the end over more experienced Ohio politicians, and the first-time candidate went on to a solid general election victory over his Democratic rival, Rep. Tim Ryan.

The endorsement came after Mr. Vance apologized for his past criticisms of Mr. Trump, including comparing him in 2016 to Adolf Hitler. He said Mr. Trump turned out to be a “great president” who had proved him and other doubters wrong. He has indicated that he would have made a different decision on Jan. 6, 2021, than then-Vice President Mike Pence, whose refusal to bend to Mr. Trump’s pressure to challenge the certification of the election was part of what fueled the riot at the U.S. Capitol.

“If I had been vice president, I would have told the states like Pennsylvania, Georgia, and so many others that we needed to have multiple slates of electors, and I think the U.S. Congress should have fought over it from there,” Senator Vance told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos earlier this year.

What Vance brings to the ticket

To Mr. Trump, who never held public office before he became president, Senator Vance’s relative lack of experience in government was not disqualifying. Unlike in 2016, when Mr. Trump chose former Indiana Governor Pence as his running mate to bolster his standing with evangelical conservatives, Mr. Trump isn’t trying to win over skeptical GOP constituencies. 

In fact, the choice of Senator Vance indicates the opposite. “It’s not about outreach,” says Joel Goldstein, professor emeritus of law at St. Louis University and an expert on the vice presidency. “It’s totally reinforcing.” 

This reflects Mr. Trump’s current strength – both within his party and in the race against President Joe Biden. Other candidates vetted for vice president included Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, another Trump-critic-turned-ally, and Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, who ran in the GOP presidential primary. 

“For a candidate that’s winning this race and seems to have already unified the party, that’s a smart strategy,” says GOP pollster Robert Blizzard in a text message, calling it a “safe” choice. “Vance will not help Trump win over new voters, but he also will not alienate any part of his winning coalition.” 

Charles Rex Arbogast/AP

A sign adds in handwriting the name of the Republican vice presidential candidate, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, during the Republican National Convention, Monday, July 15, 2024, in Milwaukee.

Presidential nominees often pick running mates who help balance out the ticket in some way. But as a former president, Mr. Trump had more leeway to name a vice president based on loyalty and personal chemistry. Senator Vance appears to have won him over, in part, by being a deft political communicator, as well as a channel to wealthy tech donors, a constituency that often leans Democratic. 

But his main calling card may have been his willingness to play attack dog against Mr. Trump’s enemies. After Saturday’s assassination attempt against Mr. Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, and before any information about the shooter was known, Mr. Vance wrote on social media: “The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.”

That reaction to the shooting put him at the outer edge of responses by Republican politicians, who mostly called for calm and refuted political violence, says Professor Goldstein. Mr. Trump’s decision to pick Mr. Vance as his running mate “runs strongly counter to any talk of unity or dialing down the rhetoric. Vance is the one who most clearly mirrors Trump’s MAGA approach.” 

Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters

Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump and Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance point to the stage during Day 1 of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, July 15, 2024.

Foreign policy contrasts with old-guard GOP

Perhaps the starkest contrast with other potential vice presidents is in foreign policy: Senator Vance is broadly skeptical about U.S. military interventions abroad, unlike the older guard of internationalists in his caucus, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. 

During his brief spell in Congress, Mr. Vance has not passed any significant legislation, but has focused on foreign policy and the Trump agenda of economic protectionism and restrictions on immigration. He has opposed U.S. aid to Ukraine and has said Ukraine should cede territory seized by Russian troops in 2022 in order to end the war. He argues that an open-ended U.S. commitment to Ukraine, a smaller military power than Russia, is a recipe for prolonged war, not peace. 

Opposition to military commitments with foreign allies is a political stance with a long history in the Republican Party, says Edward Miller, a political historian at Northeastern University. Its standard-bearer in the 1940s was another Ohio senator, Robert Taft, who opposed U.S. involvement in NATO. 

“Vance is a throwback to that Robert Taft, ‘America First’ anti-internationalism,” says Professor Miller, who studies far-right political movements. In 1952, Taft sought the GOP presidential nomination, but lost out to Dwight Eisenhower.

In interviews, Senator Vance has praised Mr. Trump for rejecting the economic orthodoxy on free trade and immigration that has mostly benefited elites at the expense of working families. He told The New York Times’ Ross Douthat that “center-left liberals who are doing very well, and center-right conservatives who are doing very well, have an incredible blind spot about how much their success is built on a system that is not serving people who they should be serving.”

As was made abundantly clear at the opening of the Republican National Convention on Monday night, as vice president Mr. Vance would play second fiddle to the main act, a politician who has perhaps the world’s greatest brand recognition, for better or worse. The success of presidential tickets rarely turns on the running mate, says Professor Goldstein – but it could matter in a close contest. “The impact tends to be marginal, but many of our elections are decided at the margins.”

Leah Millis/Reuters/File

Special counsel Jack Smith speaks to reporters at his offices in Washington June 9, 2023. He says he will appeal Monday’s dismissal of the Trump documents case by Judge Aileen Cannon.

Could the age of the special prosecutor be nearing its end?

In a potentially far-reaching ruling on Monday, a federal judge in Florida dismissed a criminal case seeking to prosecute former President Donald Trump over his alleged retention of classified documents.

The decision by Aileen Cannon, a U.S. District Court judge in southern Florida whom Mr. Trump appointed in 2020, held that the appointment of a special prosecutor to the case by the U.S. Department of Justice was unconstitutional. The special counsel, Jack Smith, said he will appeal the ruling.

The ruling represents the latest in a string of legal victories for Mr. Trump. It came days after he survived an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania and hours before he officially became the Republican nominee for president. The former president is the subject of four separate criminal prosecutions this year; this is the third to have stalled in recent months. 

In the short term, Judge Cannon’s ruling almost guarantees that the classified documents case won’t go to trial before the presidential election in November. But as special prosecutors have come to be relied on in the most politically sensitive and weighty cases, the decision could have broader implications for presidential power and the rule of law.

What exactly happened on Monday?

The ruling came in a case related to allegations that Mr. Trump retained classified documents after leaving office and refused to return them to federal authorities. (The case stems from that infamous raid of his Mar-a-Lago home two years ago.)

Mr. Trump has pleaded not guilty to 40 criminal counts in the case, but the decision this week had nothing to do with the allegations in the federal indictment. It concerned the person who brought the indictment.

In order to avoid an appearance of bias, Attorney General Merrick Garland assigned the case to Mr. Smith, a former Department of Justice prosecutor with experience investigating war crimes and political corruption. This appointment, Mr. Trump’s lawyers argue, was unconstitutional.

Mr. Smith, who is also leading the case against Mr. Trump related to his involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, has countered that because he is an “inferior officer” under the Constitution, he can be appointed directly by the executive branch. This is just as a U.S. attorney, who is subject to confirmation by the U.S. Senate, can unilaterally appoint an assistant U.S. attorney.

In a 93-page decision, Judge Cannon disagreed. Because Congress didn’t have appropriate input into Mr. Smith’s appointment, she ruled, it violated both the Appointments Clause and, as it relates to spending, the Appropriations Clause of the Constitution.

The Appointments Clause “gives Congress a considered role in determining the propriety of vesting appointment power for inferior officers,” she wrote. “The Special Counsel’s position effectively usurps that important legislative authority.”

Federal laws and regulations have for decades held that special prosecutors should be appointed in cases in which the impartiality of Justice Department officials could be reasonably questioned, particularly for investigations into the president or a member of his Cabinet. Critics have hit back that these offices carry too much power with too little accountability, but courts have typically rejected constitutional challenges to a special prosecutor’s appointment. Most recently, a federal judge in Delaware rejected a claim from Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden’s son, that the special prosecutor investigating him for federal gun crimes was appointed on unconstitutional grounds.

U.S. Justice Department/Reuters

Documents and materials seized during a search of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home and social club are pictured in this undated handout picture obtained by Reuters on June 25, 2024.

But Mr. Smith’s appointment was different, wrote Judge Cannon.

“There does appear to be a ‘tradition’ of appointing special-attorney-like figures in moments of political scandal throughout the country’s history,” she wrote. “But very few, if any, of these figures actually resemble the position of Special Counsel Smith.”

For example David Weiss, the special prosecutor in the Hunter Biden case, was serving as a U.S. attorney when he took on the Biden case. Mr. Smith, meanwhile, was working for a criminal court at The Hague, Netherlands, when he took on the cases against Mr. Trump.

“The appointment of private citizens like Mr. Smith – as opposed to already-retained federal employees – appears much closer to the exception than the rule,” said Judge Cannon.

The executive branch’s “growing comfort” in appointing special counsels “in the more recent era,” she added, “has followed an ad hoc pattern with little judicial scrutiny.”

How has the special prosecutor role changed?

Federal special prosecutors have been used since the late 19th century – President Ulysses Grant appointed John Henderson to investigate the Whisky Ring scandal – but they have become increasingly common since Watergate forced the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

Mr. Nixon’s attempts to fire the independent counsel investigating the Watergate scandal led Congress to pass a law outlining how and when special prosecutors can be used. The statute underpinned special prosecutions like the Iran-Contra affair and the Whitewater scandal, to name two high-profile cases. But it came in for criticism from members of both political parties for enabling sprawling and unaccountable investigations at great cost to the taxpayer. 

Congress allowed that statute to expire in 1999, at which point the Justice Department implemented regulations governing the use of special prosecutors. The regulations require the attorney general to approve any action a special prosecutor takes, but the attorney general must report to Congress when he blocks a special prosecutor action.

“That was the compromise,” says Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney who teaches at the University of Michigan Law School.

The regulations were “an effort to maintain some independence, but address the concerns of the sprawling, ‘you’ve created a monster’ idea of an independent counsel,” she adds.

Special prosecutors have since become even more common. While there were roughly 20 special prosecutions in two decades under the federal statute, there have been five in the last seven years. Some experts say the regulations have been invaluable in allowing the federal government to faithfully investigate cases the White House may not have wanted pursued, such as investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election, Jan. 6, and President Biden’s alleged unlawful retention of classified documents.

Special prosecutors “have been used [when] there’s particularly important, salient, politically charged investigations,” says Anthony Michael Kreis, a professor at the Georgia State University College of Law.

“It’s been a really important tool in order to ensure that the Department of Justice’s work is done in a fair and impartial way, without any undue influence from the attorney general,” he adds.

U.S. Senate/AP/File

In this image from video provided by the U.S. Senate, Aileen Cannon speaks remotely during a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight nomination hearing July 29, 2020, in Washington. On Monday, Judge Cannon dismissed the documents case against former President Donald Trump.

So what happens now? What could this all mean?

Mr. Smith has appealed Judge Cannon’s ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. The appeals court has already overruled the judge once in the classified documents case, but this question may not go the same way.

Judicial skepticism of special prosecutors dates back to at least the 1980s. In a 1988 dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia criticized the U.S. Supreme Court for holding that the independent counsel is an “inferior officer” and thus not in violation of the Appointments Clause.

Earlier this month, in a decision holding that Mr. Trump has a degree of presidential immunity from criminal charges brought in the Jan. 6 case, Justice Clarence Thomas echoed those concerns in a concurring opinion.

“I am not sure that any office for the Special Counsel has been ‘established by Law,’ as the Constitution requires,” he wrote. Lower courts, he added, should “answer these essential questions concerning [Mr. Smith’s] appointment.”

Judge Cannon’s decision on Monday quoted the Justice Scalia dissent and the Justice Thomas concurrence. Neither of those opinions is binding law – in fact, no other justice joined either opinion – but courts may now be pushed toward issuing a concrete ruling on the question.

If the role of special prosecutor is curbed, or abolished entirely, the simplest response would be for regular Justice Department prosecutors themselves to take on those politically sensitive cases. But that could be a positive thing for the country, experts say.

The existence of special prosecutors inherently suggests that the Justice Department and its prosecutors are biased, adds Professor McQuade.

“We have to trust them to do their jobs effectively, [that] there are checks in the system,” she says.

But there does need to be a way to hold presidents to account if or when they break the law, experts say, especially in the context of Congress being deeply polarized and the Supreme Court granting former presidents significant immunity from criminal prosecution, says William Howell, director of the Center for Effective Government at the University of Chicago.

“If there’s no special prosecutor, and the president is granted widespread immunity for any official conduct, and Congress is congenitally incapable of mustering the supermajorities required to impeach [and] convict, what’s left?” asks Dr. Howell.

“That’s precisely the question we should be asking,” he adds. “There are widespread concerns about the health and well-being of democracy, and the prospects of holding a president to account are just becoming dimmer and dimmer.”

Alex Brandon/AP

Darrin Bruce works on the exterior lighting on the Fiserv Forum ahead of the 2024 Republican National Convention, July 11, 2024, in Milwaukee.

“MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” headlines the 2024 Republican Party platform. 

Indeed, it reflects former President Donald Trump’s vision for the country, according to Trump campaign advisers, as well as the extent to which he has reshaped the party since its last platform was released in 2016. 

The platform includes far fewer specifics and policy details than in the past. It reiterates many of Mr. Trump’s campaign promises –  including building an Iron Dome missile defense system over the United States, and implementing “THE LARGEST DEPORTATION OPERATION IN AMERICAN HISTORY.” It also promises to hold government officials accountable for alleged abuses of power, such as “illegal censoring” of lawful speech or “unjustly” prosecuting political opponents.

Delegates to the Republican National Convention, which kicks off Monday in Milwaukee, are expected to adopt the new platform and formally choose Mr. Trump as the GOP presidential nominee. 

What is the purpose of a party platform? 

A party platform is a document that outlines what a political party believes on key issues – essentially a party’s “mission statement.” It is typically written by major party figures as well as representatives from interest groups.

Russell Vought, who headed up the Office of Management and Budget during the Trump administration, is the policy director for the Republican National Committee platform committee. Mr. Vought is also one of the authors of Project 2025, a sweeping presidential transition plan created by the Heritage Foundation that offers a road map for an incoming conservative administration, although Mr. Trump has recently sought to distance himself from it.

Rick Scuteri/AP

Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally, June 6, 2024, in Phoenix.

Party platforms have been a regular feature of campaigns since 1840, when then-President Martin Van Buren outlined nine major Democratic Party positions in about 500 words. Modern-day platforms are far more complex, running up to 75 pages long. They include a preamble that lays out how the party sees the state of the country and the problems that must be addressed, as well as goals it seeks to achieve on different issues.  

Typically, both parties draft updated platforms during presidential election years, and delegates vote to adopt the platform at their nominating convention. Presidential candidates are not bound to follow it. However, a platform is usually a good indicator of how a party hopes to govern.

How does the 2024 platform reflect Mr. Trump’s influence? 

Since 2016 the Republican Party has been moving away from its Ronald Reagan-era conservative roots, reshaping itself along the lines of Mr. Trump’s “America First” populism. The new platform shows just how deep an imprint he has made, from shifting policy priorities to adopting his signature and unusual use of capitalization. 

The 2016 platform – which was used again in 2020 – more closely resembled the GOP’s traditional conservative vision. This year’s platform is significantly shorter – 16 pages, compared with 66 – and dedicated to “the Forgotten Men and Women of America.” It appears to be aimed at regular voters, not policy wonks. 

In many ways, the platform reads more as an extension of Mr. Trump’s campaign than as a detailed description of party policy priorities. The preamble begins, “America First.” Mr. Trump is referenced by name 19 times. 

Jae C. Hong/AP

Border patrol agent Pete Bidegain looks from a hilltop on the U.S. side of the U.S.-Mexico border in Nogales, Arizona, June 25, 2024. The GOP has blamed the record rate of illegal immigration, which only recently slowed, on the Biden administration’s rolling back of border policies.

By contrast, Mr. Trump was not referenced at all in the 2016 platform. And he was mentioned just three times in a 2020 resolution to forgo developing a new platform that year, though it pledged to “enthusiastically support the President’s America-first agenda.”

This year’s platform dedicates a section to culture war issues like “gender ideology” and critical race theory. Other issues it prioritizes include election security and energy production. It puts the most focus on border security, promising to place the U.S. military on the southern border and to enact stricter vetting processes and “keep foreign Christian-hating Communists, Marxists, and Socialists out of America.” 

That’s a sharp difference in tone from the 2016 platform, which also called for improved border security, but sought to strike an inclusive note. “Our party is the natural home for those who come in search of freedom and justice,” began the section on immigration.  “We welcome all to the Great Opportunity Party.”

What are the biggest policy changes?

One long-standing campaign issue for Republicans is almost entirely absent from this year’s platform: fortifying Second Amendment rights.

While the 2016 platform dedicated a three-paragraph section, and included references elsewhere to Second Amendment protections, the 2024 platform has only a passing promise to defend “THE RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS.”

Rebecca Blackwell/AP/File

A vendor displayed merchandise before former President Donald Trump spoke at a campaign rally for GOP Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida at the Miami-Dade County Fair and Exposition on Nov. 6, 2022.

And for the first time in four decades, the Republican platform doesn’t include a call for a national abortion ban. It commends the Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 for giving the power to ban abortion “to the States.” But the word “abortion” appears only one time, compared with 35 times in the 2016 platform. The document also affirms support for access to birth control and in vitro fertilization (IVF), the latter of which was recently formally opposed by the Southern Baptist Convention.

Parts of the platform have drawn criticism from evangelical Christians, including Mr. Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence, who called the change in abortion policy “a profound disappointment.”

In addition, the GOP’s long-held priorities of reducing entitlement spending and reining in the national debt aren’t discussed. The word “debt” doesn’t appear anywhere in the document, and “deficit” appears only once, in reference to the trade deficit. There is, however, a promise to “immediately stabilize the Economy by slashing wasteful Government spending and promoting Economic Growth.”

Meanwhile, several sections address “Gender Insanity,” “Gender Indoctrination,” and “GENDER IDEOLOGY.” The word “gender” did not appear once in 2016.

References to foreign policy are mostly broad, such as promising that “Republicans will end the global chaos and restore Peace” and counter China. Russia and Ukraine are not named. The 2016 platform, by contrast, dedicated pages to specific and nuanced foreign policy positions.

Marjorie Hershey, a political science professor at Indiana University, calls the 2024 GOP platform “a series of outtakes from Trump’s rally speeches.”

Not all Republicans are happy with the changes. But the RNC’s support for Mr. Trump’s policies seems to signal that the party has indeed gotten on board. Many members who were once strong critics have urged the party to coalesce behind him. 

“Trump has completely taken control of the party,” says Dr. Hershey. 

Ayen Deng Bior

Women in Sintet, Gambia, have vowed to stop performing FGM and are working to protect future generations, May 28, 2024.

For generations, the women of the Bah family didn’t hesitate. They sent their daughters to be cut, just as they had been cut as young girls. 

As the Bahs understood it, cutting – a practice known internationally as female genital mutilation, or FGM – was a core tenet of their religion and their culture. Not doing it would be as unthinkable in their village as not teaching a child their own language. 

But when Penda Bah gave birth to a daughter three years ago, she made a decision. She would not subject the girl to the painful practice, which in Gambia is usually done before the age of 5 years old. Ms. Bah’s mother and aunt agreed. The cycle had to end. 

“We have stopped it completely because we understood the difficulties women face,” explains the aunt, who asked that her name not be used in this piece because of the sensitivity of the subject. Cut herself as a child, she says she now knows that much suffering women had been told was “normal” – from difficulties urinating to painful intercourse to excruciating labor – were actually a result of FGM. 

Nearly three-quarters of all Gambian women between the ages of 15 and 49 have been subjected to the practice, one of the highest rates in the world. However, Ms. Bah’s daughter was born at a fortuitous moment. In 2015, Gambia had banned FGM. 

Then this year, in a global first, the legislature considered overturning that same ban. But on July 15, members of parliament voted resoundingly to keep the law in place, sending a strong message to families like the Bahs: Their girls were safe. 

“I am just very happy and will recommend the country take full enforcement of the law,” says Ms. Bah.

A long fight

The decision to uphold the FGM ban came on the heels of months of intense campaigning by women’s rights activists in Gambia. When the bill was first introduced in March, 42 of the 47 legislators present voted to overturn the FGM ban. But in the final vote Monday, they pivoted sharply, voting 34 to 19 to keep the ban in place. 

The fervent advocacy that forced that change is the latest chapter in a fight against FGM with a long history here. 

“FGM is deeply rooted and shrouded in secrecy,” says Isatou Touray, former Gambian vice president and health minister, and executive director of Gamcotrap, an organization that works to end FGM and child marriage. 

Still, she says, Gambian women have long spoken to each other behind closed doors about the excruciating pain and lasting health consequences they experienced as a result of being “cut,” a procedure defined by the World Health Organization as any “partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.” 

In 1984, in an effort to take those conversations public, Dr. Touray and a small group of other activists founded Gamcotrap. 

Ayen Deng Bior

Isatou Touray, executive director of Gamcotrap, a Gambia-based nonprofit that works to end FGM, stands in front of a photo monument of women who have vowed to stop performing the practice, May 30, 2024.

But they had to fight against a deeply ingrained moral teaching. Gambians were told the practice was part of Islam, the religion practiced by 96% of the country’s population. Efforts to ban it were billed as attempts by the West to destroy African culture. 

This messaging is prevalent in most of the two dozen or so countries where FGM is regularly practiced, but the procedure predates Islam. There are Christian communities that practice it, and many Muslims who oppose it. It is not mentioned in the Quran.

In Gambia, activists spent decades spreading this message and educating people about the health effects of FGM. They slowly chipped away at resistance by forming alliances with traditional leaders, former cutters, and other influential figures. 

That work appeared to pay off when, in 2015, the country’s then-president, Yahya Jammeh, outlawed FGM. 

However, although the new law prescribed fines and jail time, FGM continued essentially unabated. This was in part because people associated the law with Mr. Jammeh, a brutal dictator, and in part because many Gambians still viewed the practice as a religious duty. 

“We are just advocating on the side of the religion. We are not forcing anyone to do it,” explained Abdoulie Fatty, an influential imam, when Monitor journalists met him in Banjul, the capital, before the ban was upheld. “It should be a choice; let people practice it when they wish and let others go by as they wish.” 

For Dr. Touray and other activists, that logic feels hollow for many reasons, chief among them the fact that most girls in Gambia are cut as infants or toddlers. These are “children who have absolutely no decision-making in the process,” she says. “This is about misogyny.” 

In August last year, she and other activists welcomed the news that for the first time since the ban went into effect eight years earlier, the law was used in a successful prosecution. Convicted were a traditional cutter and the mothers of two baby girls. 

Mr. Fatty, however, was incensed. He told local media the conviction amounted to an attack on Islam. He raised money to pay for the fines – about $220 for each woman – and encouraged Gambians to pressure their lawmakers to overturn the FGM ban once and for all. 

From there, the momentum grew. In March of this year, Almameh Gibba, a lawmaker and longtime supporter of FGM, introduced a bill in parliament to reverse the ban. Outside the legislature in Banjul, Mr. Fatty and hundreds of other pro-FGM activists celebrated, chanting “Female circumcision is my religious belief” and “Gambia is not for sale.” 

Opponents of FGM “are not Muslims,” Mr. Gibba told the Monitor before the final vote to uphold the ban. “Nonbelievers are interfering in our climate and our traditional beliefs.”

(In a statement after the ban was upheld, Mr. Gibba wrote that he would continue to fight against laws that “enslav[ed]” Gambians by forcing them to go against their “religion, traditional practices and Cultural origin.”)

“Culture is not static”

Gambia’s debate over its FGM ban took place at a precarious time for the global movement against the practice. 

Over the past three decades, some 20 countries have recorded drops in the rate of FGM, many of them dramatic. In the West African country of Burkina Faso, for instance, the percentage of teenage girls who have been cut has fallen from 83% to 32%, according to UNICEF.

And in several of the approximately two dozen countries in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East where FGM is widespread, public support for it is eroding. For example, in Ethiopia, where two-thirds of women have been cut, more than three-quarters of the population now opposes the practice. Meanwhile, 51 countries have explicitly criminalized FGM, including 28 in Africa. 

But progress has been uneven, particularly in Africa, the region where FGM is most common. In Somalia, Guinea, Djibouti, Mali, Egypt, and Sudan, more than 85% of girls and women are still subject to FGM. 

In Gambia, FGM rates have slowly begun to fall, but support for the practice remains stubbornly high. Only a third of Gambians oppose FGM, according to UNICEF. 

Meanwhile, women’s rights activists across Africa watched the situation unfolding in Gambia with deep concern, fearing that the government there could set a dangerous legal precedent. 

Before the vote, Nafisa Binte Shafique, UNICEF representative in Gambia, wrote in a statement to the Monitor that overturning the ban could “pave the way for further regressive measures, such as lowering the age of marriage and condoning domestic violence, all under the guise of cultural and religious practices.” 

Although the decision to uphold the ban has put those fears on ice for now, Dr. Touray says the fight is not over. She and other activists say they must continue to fight to increase popular support for the FGM ban, making it harder to build support for another campaign to overturn it. 

In part, she says, that is a matter of convincing people that being true to Gambian culture doesn’t have to mean supporting an outdated practice harmful to its women. 

“Culture is not static,” she says. “It is on a continuum, and it changes with time.” 

Nyima Sillah contributed reporting from Sintet and Banjul, Gambia, and Kizito Makoye contributed reporting from Musoma, Tanzania.  

Is summer camp a rite of passage, a stand-in for child care, or an enrichment opportunity?

That’s the question parents are increasingly asking themselves as they navigate logistics, affordability, and what’s best for their children when schools go on summer break. The answer is individual to each family but often includes more than one consideration.

The American Camp Association (ACA) estimates that nearly 26 million children in the United States attend some form of camp each year, including during seasons other than summer. They range from the Hollywoodized version of overnight camps in the woods to day camps at community centers or nonprofits.

In an era defined by technological attachment, summer camps typically provide fertile ground for human connection and social development. That’s an experience more parents want for their children, says Tom Rosenberg, president and CEO of the ACA.

“At camp, kids have the opportunity to try hard things, try fun things, [and] be supported by peers,” he says. “There’s no social media. There’s just people talking and being with people.”

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff/File

Campers can canoe and kayak at Camp Putnam in New Braintree, Massachusetts. The American Camp Association estimates that nearly 26 million children attend some form of camp each year, including during seasons other than summer.

For parents, the question is more complicated than simply deciding whether their children will be summer campers. There are cost factors and scheduling hurdles. (Scholarships and financial aid exist, but limited space can make snagging spots difficult for even those who don’t need help.) Other considerations include a child’s camp readiness and interests: Day camp closer to home or an overnight experience? Learning to code, creating art projects, or playing sports?

Summer camps have been a tradition in Dan Weir’s family, given the sense of belonging they provide.

“When you think about the virtual world that we have these days, kids are often experiencing things individualistically,” says the father and camp consultant. “So when they could experience it together with folks, that often leads to really deep relationships with other people.”

This year, Mr. Weir’s younger daughter, age 8, anticipated returning to a day camp near where they live on Long Island in New York. The camp has become a second home for her, Mr. Weir says, filled with friends and fond memories such as learning to swim. And for the first time, his older daughter, who is 11, planned to spend two weeks at a YMCA camp in the Catskill Mountains. It’s the same camp where Mr. Weir and his wife met when they worked as counselors.

In California, Bay Area parent Alistair Savides says camp helps with work schedules and gives his children a chance to try new things. After his two daughters attended a weeklong camp in Missouri last summer, they came back eager to share about their water skiing and horseback riding adventures.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff/File

Lunch is served in the dining hall, a retrofitted barn, at Camp Putnam, July 5, 2022, in New Braintree, Massachusetts.

To quell their daughters’ nerves – and perhaps a bit of parental unease – his wife worked remotely near the overnight camp. “It turned out that was completely unnecessary,” he says. “They loved it.”

His 13-year-old daughter, Elise, planned to return to that same camp, which is affiliated with their religion, this summer. Meanwhile, his 11-year-old daughter, Alexis, and 6-year-old son, Elliot, are attending a day camp connected to their school.  

Other parents have decided to take a break from summer camps. Ericka Weathers says she and her two children’s father went into the decision this year with a central question: “What do we want out of summer camp?” 

They have a 9-year-old daughter and a 7-year-old son.

“For the last couple of years, they went to a summer camp,” she says, clarifying that it was a nearby day camp. “It was great in a sense. ... It gave the kids something to do. But sometimes it just felt like glorified babysitting for a lot of money.”

Their search for other options ended in dismay. Dr. Weathers says their past 10-week day camp cost roughly $9,000 combined for both children. Other camps that appeared to have more enrichment opportunities were in the $12,000 to $16,000 range for that same time frame.

Ultimately, they chose to skip any form of camp this year. Dr. Weathers, an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education in Philadelphia, says she will adjust her work schedule around the days she has her children to the extent possible. She is also planning outings and trips with money saved from day camp.

But as a working parent, she knows she can’t replicate a camp experience every day. “There will be some boredom because trying to work and manage the kids’ schedule is going to be hard,” she says.

Mr. Rosenberg, of the ACA, envisions more public-private partnerships and philanthropy initiatives to bolster camp access. He says about 93% of organized camps offer financial aid.

The ACA has also been developing camp-school partnerships with the National Summer Learning Association. The project focuses on social-emotional growth and mitigating pandemic learning gaps among middle school students.

“We think of school as the learning hub,” Mr. Rosenberg says. “Surrounding that learning hub is an ecosystem of programs like camps and other youth programs that provide important experiential and kinetic learning for them.”

Mr. Savides saw that in the stories his children told of their experiences at camp in Missouri. “To see their independence unfolding that way was pretty cool,” he says.

AP

Students at Eisenhower High School in Decatur, Ill., play a game as part of an esport team in 2018.

Always eager to reach young people with the values of athletic sports – excellence, respect, and friendship – the International Olympic Committee announced last week that the first video gaming Olympics will take place next year. It was one more example of how multiplayer electronic sports, or esports, have become not only universal among teens but also a powerful tool to enhance the education of gaming enthusiasts. A few lesser-known examples show just how powerful.

In the United States, esports clubs are being introduced in middle schools to help deal with a near doubling in student absenteeism since the pandemic. The clubs, which are often integrated into classrooms, have proved to be a big enticement for kids to go to school. The teacher-guided esports increase a sense of belonging and a deeper engagement with others. They also help students build a variety of skills such as teamwork and critical thinking.

At three middle schools in Virginia’s Henrico County, esports clubs “are proving to be a game-changer in boosting attendance and reversing the student engagement slide that follows elementary school,” reported Education Week. “At two of the schools, no student who was part of the esports club was considered chronically absent – even though kids were encouraged to join based in part on their spotty attendance records.”

Not all of the students in a club play video games. Some learn to shout-cast, or comment on a game in real time. Others set up the electronics or learn about sports management. In Henrico County, the schools use games that are nonviolent – as the Olympic Esports Games will be.

For students in these clubs, “Your grades are going to be better. Your behavior is going to be better. Your sense of well-being is gonna be better,” Jon Gregori, an education innovation specialist in Virginia, told Education Week.

Schools have long tried to fix the root causes of absenteeism, such as student bullying or unsupportive parents. Yet with about 85% of American teens playing video games, one easy solution is to use a popular activity as an avenue for deep connection and learning. “They show up, and then you have the opportunity to teach them all different things,” Claire LaBeaux, chief advancement officer for the Network of Academic and Scholastic Esports Federations, told the publication Government Technology.

Esports clubs are simply using what teens love to do to broaden their experience of connection with others in a classroom. For many, that’s an incentive to get up each morning and head to school.