Bridge Builders. Nathan Bomey
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holding dynamic conversations on topics ranging from the 2020 election to race relations in the aftermath of George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis. Membership more than tripled during the year.
The group’s goal is to help people “see the little bit of humanity that you recognize is shared with you in the other person to the degree that you have an inner desire to do good to them, even though you disagree strongly,” Blankenhorn said. “That’s really all we’re trying to do.”
From the beginning, Braver Angels had no interest in the pursuit of political consensus among the participants. “We were not that much interested in having people agree on policy. We were not that much interested in having people adopt a centrist political philosophy. We were not that interested in getting people to modify or change their views of public policy issues. Nor were we particularly interested in having them agree on facts,” Blankenhorn said. “Our point of view was that what one views as a fact depends on questions of social trust, not the facticity of the fact.”
Without reestablishing social trust, we’ve got no hope of getting on the same page. “The diminishment of social trust was the reason that we believe that people couldn’t agree on facts,” Blankenhorn said. “So what we were trying to do was establish social trust, which we believe is a precondition for all these other things.”
Doherty said Americans won’t get on the same page until they recognize that everyone must be part of the solution – just like for couples to be successful in therapy, both people must embrace the role they can play in pursuit of relational reconciliation. “It has to be a we problem, not just a you problem,” said Doherty, who is also a former president of the National Council on Family Relations. “And if we have a problem, then more of us may have some motivation to try to be curious and understand the other side.”
Doherty recalled that after one Braver Angels session, one group member walked away with the transformational realization that he was part of the problem – much like drivers complain about congestion: “This person realized, ‘I am traffic.’”
Yet even if the entire nation entered into the political version of family therapy, we’d still struggle with the purely human magnetism of polarization. It will never go away in full. But that doesn’t mean we can’t find common ground more often. “I tell people at the end of successful couples therapy that you are now much more aware of the handful of problems that you will have until death do you part,” Doherty said, only half joking. “Hopefully what you’ve gotten from this is better understanding of [those problems] and better ways to deal with them, having them be annoyances rather than life threatening – and to live gracefully and graciously with them.”
Clearly, we can’t send everyone in the United States to Braver Angels workshops. We need a more realistic approach to helping people find common ground within the context of their daily lives. But what Braver Angels has proven, within the confines of a civic laboratory, is that reestablishing social trust is possible when approached strategically.
So how do we go about it in real life?
Since you’ve picked up this book, you are at least curious about the possibility that there are proven methods for bringing people together despite their differences. But perhaps you are skeptical. You’re thinking, Americans are stubborn and won’t change their minds no matter what we try.
Maybe you’re right. Maybe our divides are too wide to be bridged. I can’t rule it out. Yet if history is our guide, there is hope.
Take it from Rauch and Blankenhorn. During the early 2000s, they engaged in a years-long debate about the merits of gay marriage. Blankenhorn, who is straight, actively opposed it, while Rauch, who is gay, was a vocal proponent and had written a book about it. “We went at it hammer and tong as intellectual adversaries,” Rauch said.
There was no reason to believe they’d ever find common ground on one of the most contentious political topics in America at the time. But as they got to know each other – as their friendship deepened and they engaged in an ongoing conversation about the issue – Blankenhorn eventually came over to Rauch’s side. His change of heart on marriage equality ultimately led him down a path to the creation, in 2016, of Better Angels. “I changed my mind on gay marriage mostly stemming from my relationship with Jonathan,” Blankenhorn said. “We began in this public debate, but then we eventually became friends.”
Blankenhorn’s experience brought him to a realization that the establishment of social trust is the first step toward getting on the same page. It’s not enough to simply present new facts or opinions. “But because of relationships,” he said, “you can change your mind and still feel that you’re being true to yourself.”
Introduction
When the COVID-19 pandemic erupted in early 2020, I thought perhaps this would be the catalyst that finally brought Americans together. Surely this crisis – a life-or-death situation for millions of people – would prompt us to rally alongside one another, bond with each other despite our differences, and set aside our political disagreements to get through it together.
Looking back on it, my hope was terribly naive. It didn’t happen. It was never going to happen.
Yes, Americans showed plenty of support for frontline workers who put their lives at risk to contain the virus. And we did a lot of Zoom calls with our friends, which was nice for a while until it got tiresome. But it wasn’t long before we began bickering over the roots of the COVID-19 crisis and arguing over what to do about it.
The tendency of some Republicans, in particular, to resist the exhortations of public health officials to wear masks placed them and others at risk of death and profound economic hardship.1 One reason may be because then-President Donald Trump initially refused to set a good example by wearing a mask in public. To be sure, at various stages during the pandemic, many other prominent Republicans, including Ohio Governor Mike DeWine and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, publicly promoted masks, which were scientifically proven to save people from contracting the disease.2 Nonetheless, mask wearing became so contentious that National Public Radio referred to it as “another signifier of political identity,” as Republicans insistent on maintaining their personal freedom declared that masks are “for the weak” and reflect “government overreach.” On the other hand, there were also reports of people – presumably Democrats in many cases – berating others for not wearing masks in socially distanced outdoor situations where they were scientifically unnecessary.3 Debate about the seriousness of the crisis even turned rigidly partisan, as Republicans became less concerned about it as the months went along, while Democrats became more concerned.4
We should not be surprised that the pandemic turned out to be a force of division. One-time events – no matter how significant – are no match for our chronic divisiveness. Even sudden disruption of our way of living cannot overcome the disgust we have for others who aren’t like us. Such disruption can provide only a superficial sense of togetherness – and usually for a short period of time – unless people on the ground are ready, willing, and able to organically transform their circumstances into an opportunity to build bridges toward each other. Absent such a concerted effort, we’d rather fight about our circumstances than fight together against our circumstances.
It was, in fact, virtually inevitable that the pandemic – which, by the end of 2020, had killed more than 340,000 Americans, infected more than 19.6 million,5 and ravaged the economy – would cast a spotlight on our national divides. Much like there was no quick fix for the pandemic after it began raging, so there is no quick fix for our crisis of polarization – no treatment that can eradicate divisiveness overnight. “The divisions between Republicans and Democrats on fundamental political values – on government, race, immigration, national security, environmental protection, and other areas – reached record levels during Barack Obama’s presidency,” according to the Pew Research Center, and those gaps grew “even larger” under Trump.6 During his four years in the White House,