A few months, and a number of other tariff wars, lawsuits and protests in the past, I requested readers for his or her ideas in regards to the polarization rife in society at present, and whether or not they had discovered a approach ahead in their very own lives or had given up.
Lots of you shared considerate responses, questioning easy methods to talk extra successfully or be open to different viewpoints whereas holding boundaries intact. There was extra hope than despair.
This cross-section of responses is a part of the continuing Between Us venture, which examines the components that contribute to polarization and forestall good governance, good citizenship and good relationships — and presents options. Some submissions have been frivolously edited for size and readability.
— Melissa Davis, deputy opinion editor
Assist!
I’m collaborative by nature, inclined to hunt widespread floor in each interplay. However the polarization period is testing that spirit.
Just a few years in the past, I used to be paired in a neighborhood golf match with a person whose bag sported a “(Expletive) Biden” sticker. Though shocked as a supporter of President Joe Biden, I nonetheless loved taking part in with him, in the best way golfers usually discover camaraderie on the course.
However … our conversations by no means touched on politics, which raises to me an enormous query: How does one productively talk about political variations, even (perhaps particularly) with folks with whom we might in any other case be pleasant?
This got here up once more in a current chat with an excellent good friend from highschool. We hadn’t spoken in many years, and actually loved catching up. Nonetheless, when he spoke of “Trump Derangement Syndrome” and derided mentions of “the oppressor class” in his son’s education, I quietly listened and moved on to different matters.
Another buddies and family members are Trump supporters; I’m decidedly not. We get alongside high-quality in different contexts, however I haven’t mentioned politics with any of them in recent times. I’m genuinely inquisitive about their views, and wish to share mine. But I can’t deliver myself to provoke conversations alongside these traces, for concern of devolving into acrimony and raised blood pressures, at a time when civic discourse is just too typically framed as black-and-white/good vs. evil, ignoring nuances and shades of grey the place (I consider) the “fact” usually resides.
My detrimental views of Trump and MAGA, and significantly the threats to democracy, are not possible to vary. However I’m open to higher mutual understanding with those that consider otherwise. I simply don’t know easy methods to get began. Assist!
— Mark Ohrenschall, Kenmore
Use democracy improvements
All over the world, democracy improvements have made problem-solving throughout variations potential, and they’re increasing extra quickly than ever. Many people at present are doing the laborious work of traversing variations to search out widespread floor, however they shouldn’t need to do it alone. We are able to institutionalize democracy improvements to scale their affect on our fractured political setting.
Think about the residents’ meeting, the place a authorities convenes a random, consultant group of residents to deliberate on a troublesome challenge, then formally responds to — and sometimes implements — the meeting’s suggestions. Greater than 700 residents’ assemblies have taken place in Europe, Canada, Australia, Latin America and now within the U.S.
Or think about It’s Your America, a gamified three-hour workshop the place members wrestle with a tricky challenge and work collectively in small, ideologically various teams to craft options which have broad assist. The conversations on this setting are wildly extra considerate and productive than at your typical metropolis council assembly or city corridor.
Some cities have jettisoned the outdated “three minutes on the mic” public assembly, which set discussions as much as be (typically needlessly) adversarial in favor of deliberative public conferences, the place neighborhood members and authorities officers can talk and collaborate.
These improvements all have a couple of issues in widespread. First, they’re deliberations, not debates. In a debate, somebody wins and somebody loses. In a deliberation, members work collectively towards a shared purpose, figuring out that they won’t agree on every thing. Second, they’re facilitated. Critically, folks in these settings take part as people, not as politicized social media avatars. Lastly, they give attention to a selected subject, which retains the dialog solutions-oriented. (Extra data: ourcivicgenius.org, a venture of the Nationwide Civic League)
— Jillian Youngblood, Redmond
Thrilling, miserable, alarming
At age 88, it positive is tempting to “throw within the towel.” From Truman vs. Dewey to Trump vs. Harris, I’ve been a political junkie. The evolution of occasions in our fraying democracy has been thrilling at occasions, miserable at many others and admittedly, very alarming at current. The last decade of the ’60s, as chaotic because it was, held nice promise for our nation. That promise has evaporated, and now half of the nation is hissing on the different half. I’ve 5 kids, 11 grandchildren and 5 great-grandchildren. Though I think about myself fair-minded, I’ve handed on to them my core values … lots of which I really feel are nonnegotiable.
I’m a bleeding-heart liberal/progressive and have discovered that when confronted with MAGA/conservative positions, listening is essential and making lodging if potential. I’m skeptical that our divide will dissolve any time quickly. There appears to be a palpable conceitedness on either side that avers, “we’re proper, and righteously so, and you might be unsuitable, desperately so!” In any occasion, I don’t take without any consideration my good luck to stay on this blue enclave. I suppose as all of us grasp for solutions, we might not get an answer, however on the very least, we should stay civil to 1 one other.
Henry Thompson, Seattle
Extra conversations
I’ve simply retired from educating journalism and communication at Seattle Pacific College. Earlier than that, I used to be a journalist for KING-TV.
My largest drawback now’s that it’s laborious to develop (or blow up) my bubble. I stay in Seattle, attend a Presbyterian church that leans extra liberal, often go to City Corridor lectures, Seattle Arts & Lectures occasions, bookstore appearances. I volunteer at a software library and customarily give to causes and candidates backed by Democrats. My closest buddies are very like me: 60+, white, Christian-but-not-nationalist. Due to my hyperlinks to campuses, I’ve some younger buddies who’re folks of shade, and I study from them every day.
For a while, I subscribed to The Wall Road Journal, so I used to be compelled to learn its op-ed web page. It was often considerate and positively not my political leaning. However I’m not often in a spot for dialog with those that voted for President Donald Trump. I’d like to do extra to need to hear extra — to place myself in tougher locations that problem me.
Peg Achterman, Seattle
Completely different treads, totally different people
The Seattle Occasions’ current name for civility is a pleasant gesture, however it’s too little, too late for Trump’s America. We granted him this platform — first via our perception in civility, then our hope for it and now our determined cry for it. As we teeter on the sting of a slope greased by billionaires, tech bros, fanatics and an entitled, informal apathy, our right-wing foot willingly begs for the descent whereas the left-wing foot hopes its computer-designed, non-GMO, vegan treads will grip simply lengthy sufficient for a miracle. As if a tectonic shift may unexpectedly erupt and upend that journey into the abyss. No such miracle is probably going.
Michael Monteleone, Seattle
Cool the flames, then work it off
Recently, I’ve come to consider myself as a form of human fireplace extinguisher; continuously pushing again in opposition to extremes, attempting to douse the flames of concern whereas trying to find slivers of widespread floor. Whether or not it’s Israel and Gaza, or our personal nationwide and native divides, I discover myself standing within the center, feeling the warmth from each facet.
Buddies, classmates, household, folks I like maintain sturdy and opposing views. The depth is all over the place.
So what helps? I attempt to hear with out interrupting, to ask questions that make clear moderately than problem. I search for small openings for empathy. I give attention to what we share, not what separates us. And afterward, I run or train another approach — that’s how I course of the anger, confusion or damage that lingers.
I write letters to editors, ship op-eds and attain out on to leaders with concepts or questions. I volunteer in my neighborhood, the place widespread function nonetheless feels potential and dialog can circulation with out flaring up.
I accumulate tales that spark hope, like Utah’s Republican governor describing on “60 Minutes” how he collaborates with Democrats to get issues completed.
I remind myself that others earlier than us have endured darker occasions. As “Ethics of Our Fathers,” a compilation of Jewish moral teachings, states: “It isn’t your obligation to complete the work, however neither are you free to desist from it.”
My father, father-in-law, uncles and cousins fought to protect our democracy. My obligation now’s to maintain it alive by cooling the flames, not feeding them.
Michael B. Goldenkranz, Seattle
Hold it native
Hyperlocal journalism presents an antidote to polarization. Whereas nationwide information algorithms feed us rage and division, neighborhood information brings us again to shared actuality.
In Fremont, we don’t debate summary tradition wars, we talk about whether or not the roads ought to shut for bus line upgrades, easy methods to assist native companies, and promote civic occasion info. These aren’t purple or blue points. They’re neighbor points.
Once I launched fremontneighbor.com, I noticed firsthand how the lack of native information creates a vacuum. With out trusted, shared details about our rapid neighborhood, neighbors drift towards nationwide outrage cycles that don’t have anything to do with our every day lives.
Hyperlocal journalism does three issues that counter polarization:
First, it forces us to see one another as complete folks, not labels. Once I cowl the Fremont Neighborhood Council or profile native companies, readers encounter their precise neighbors: advanced people with legitimate considerations, not strawmen from social media.
Second, it creates shared stakes. All of us care about the identical potholes, parks, and college zones. These widespread considerations remind us we’re on this collectively, even after we disagree about state or nationwide politics.
Third, it calls for accountability and accuracy at a scale the place belief may be rebuilt. Nationwide media feels distant and suspect. However native journalism? Folks know if I get it unsuitable. They see me on the Fremont Market or strolling on Stone Method. That proximity breeds accountability.
I don’t declare hyperlocal information will resolve all our divisions. However in an period the place we will’t agree on primary information, our personal blocks supply the widespread floor we desperately want…verifiable, related, and shared.
Alyson “Aly” Teeter, founder & editor
Despair? By no means
Polarization? Sure. Despair? By no means. Dependable polling reveals repeatedly that almost all People occupy the broad center, agreeing on many social and financial points. Polarization is pushed by the small, vocal minorities (lower than 10%) on every finish of the political spectrum whose opinions are amplified by media, each mainstream and social (controversy sells!). They don’t converse for us.
The reply is twofold. First, eat a large and various weight loss program of data. Blogs and Substack posts are high-quality, however search out and browse not simply folks you agree with but in addition some you don’t agree with. Embody many sources which can be edited and vetted (e.g., newspapers, magazines). Do you want The New York Occasions? Additionally learn The Wall Road Journal. Do you favor conservative discuss radio? Make a degree of listening to NPR and studying The Atlantic.
The second a part of the answer is to ask questions and hear. Affirmation bias is a powerful human tendency. We search out and heed info that helps our current beliefs. Search for alternatives to have interaction with these whose opinions differ. Relatively than lead along with your opinion, ask why they consider as they do. Ask how they arrived at their conclusions. Ask in the event that they see any various approaches. There are clever, caring folks on either side of any advanced drawback. Discovering options – and dialing again the enmity- requires that we hear and study from one another.
It’s trendy as of late to say that we haven’t been this polarized because the 1850s, but it surely’s not true. Anybody who is aware of in regards to the New Deal, anticommunism, the civil rights motion, and the Vietnam Battle is aware of that, of their day, they have been seen as struggles for the survival of our nice American experiment. We survived these battles, and we’ll survive at present’s.
Ross Elkin, Seattle
This venture is funded partially by The Poynter Institute as a part of its Beat Academy for reaching polarized audiences.
