Let's Find Common Ground - Depolarizing America: Building Consensus Step-by-Step: Rob Fersh and Kelly Johnston

Episode Date: February 4, 2021

Kelly Johnston and Rob Fersh disagree strongly on many issues and voted differently in the 2020 election. But they are friends and wrote recently that they "agree on major steps that must be taken for the nation to heed President-elect Biden’s welcome call for us to come together." Both believe that constructive steps must be taken to help build trust among Democrats and Republicans, despite deep polarization and a firm resistance to bipartisanship from both ends of the political spectrum. They encourage open dialogue between sectors and interest groups whose views diverge in an effort to deal with divisive political discourse. Kelly Johnston is a committed Republican and a former Secretary of the U.S. Senate. Rob Fersh founded Convergence Center for Policy Resolution, and previously worked for Democrats on the staffs of three congressional committees. Both are guests on "Let's Find Common Ground". They discuss bridge-building and why this work is so urgently needed now in an era of political gridlock. Click on bonus audio as Rob describes the process at Convergence.

How do we get people who disagree, who feel very strongly about their stands on issues into the same room? Not only that, how can they build bridges together and seek consensus? The answer may not be about compromise. This is Let's Find Common Ground. I'm Ashley Melntite. And I'm Richard Davies, Kelly Johnston and Rob Fersh first met more than 25 years ago, as political opponents. Today, they still disagree on politics, but are good friends who work together to try and build consensus. Kelly is a committed Republican who voted for Donald Trump. He's a former secretary of the US Senate and worked on more than 30 Republican congressional campaigns. Later in his career, Kelly was a senior executive in the food industry.

And Rob Fersh worked as a Democratic staff member on three congressional committees before founding Convergent Center for Policy Resolution. In our interview, we'll learn more about how Convergence builds trust among people on both sides of the political divide. Rob Fersh, Kelly Johnston, you say that you agree on almost nothing except how to solve problems across the political divide. How did you start working together, Kelly,

maybe you could kick off? Sure, well, it actually goes back to 1995. And I was in a role as the staff director for the Senate Republican Policy Committee just after the 94 elections, which then forced the Republicans gain control of the House for the first time in 40 years and had regained control of the Senate after a few years. I had a call one day in spring of that year.

First, this was also the Newt Gingrich contract with America agenda would be pushed through the House. It wasn't entirely embraced by Senate Republicans. And so there's a tiny bit of friction. The one day I get a call from my counterpart, the staff director for the House Republican Conference. Called me up, it's a chaotic big favor. I'm supposed to debate this guiding Rob first next week

at the Student Policy Conference in Washington. I can't go. Can you go for me? I'm calling in a favor for you to do this. And then between then and the time I was going to speak at the Student Policy Conference with Rob, there was a little magazine that used to be in search. I think you can sometimes still get with some newspapers

on a Sunday to parade magazine. And here it was Rob first who was the time to head of the Food Research Action Network, Nations Leading Anti-Hunger Advocate. And I thought, oh my gosh, I'm going into a lion's den. I am not going to come out of there very well. So I was expecting a very hostile environment, a hostile audience, which would give me a challenge. And what turned out was a very thoughtful, open,

introspective discussion about this. There was genuinely so an arous part to understand the House Republican position, which I was able to at least, I think, clumsily thumbed through, if you will. But it really resulted in a great discussion, not assuming anything bad or evil or in opposition it was designed to try to come to an understanding. About how can we really resolve the issue of improving access, nutrition here in the United States? bad or evil or in opposition, it was designed to try to come to an understanding about how

can we really resolve the issue of improving access to nutrition here in the United States. It would, I left there just like, wow, that was fantastic. Why can't we have more of these discussions where people aren't vilified? They're treated with respect. There's a genuine curiosity about positions and they were all trying to at least resolve the same thing in different ways. So that began a longstanding friendship and partnership on these issues. So you knew nothing about food?

I liked it. No, I was not by any means at that time an expirone food policy. So Rob, this right-winger from the Senate walks in and you meet for the first time. What's your impression of how you both met, given that you were a food policy activist acting on behalf of consumers and something of a liberal? Well, so first Kelly's a little too generous. I mean, the proponent Kelly had a defend,

which actually hurt Republicans politically, was specifically a proposal to block grant, the National School Lunch Program. And I was certainly openly hearing whatever Kelly had to say, because that's just the way I operate. Usually I try to listen, but I was pretty adamantly opposed to that idea. But in Kelly, I saw a guy of decency, a guy I could talk to, a guy I liked right away. Kelly, I saw a guy at DCC, a guy I could talk to, a guy I liked right away. And then for, I don't really remember, we just stayed in touch.

Kelly eventually moved to a trade association in food. And when I began to think about changing my career from advocacy to bridge building, I really wanted Kelly to be a partner in a bell weather, how I could do that in a way that was genuinely open to all different points of view. And Kelly has been a rock to me, a great no-whether and a great friend to try to build out a capacity to everybody could trust would be fair-minded and how we bring people together

who disagree on issues, but actually agree there are problems that just disagree on how to solve them. I know you're great friends, but you did vote differently in the 2020 election, right? Yeah, we did. And one of the things I'll say, I mean, my career now is to be a bridge builder. So my personal views, I don't tend to get into any setting I'm in these days. But I think part of why we wanted to put out the op-ed we did was to say that people who come from different orientations can be friends, can work together, even on tough issues. I did not favor the reelection of President Trump.

And it wasn't even as much because I come from a little background. It was more... I've been such a messenger for collaboration tolerance. People talking each other, understanding each other, giving people the benefit of the doubt. And I didn't think he modeled that very well. Let's talk about that op-ed, that article in The Hill. This is a publication mostly for people who are interested in what's going on in Congress in Washington.

Both of you have some interesting proposals about how rivals can help solve problems together. Kelly, what's step one? Well, that's a great, great question, and I would go back to our experience at convergence where I working in a food industry and was very frustrated over the constant attacks we were getting from consumer advocates in a food area.

I think there was a lot of animosity and a lot of very negative views of food companies that we were only in up for the money. We didn't care about people's lives and their health. On the other hand, we felt there are people in the consumer world that just didn't care about what we did. We're no appreciation for what we're trying to do in a lack of understanding that if consumers wanted healthier foods, we will make them. That's the way companies work. They want to

make things that people will buy and consume and come back and do it again. And if it's healthier food great. So Rob began that very challenging process of convergence to bring us together and it resulted in some really transformed relationships and some results that I think I'm really proud of. So Rob, you were president of convergence. Your job was to bring both sides of a contentious issue together in the same room. Kelly came to you and asked for help. What progress was made when consumer groups and food executives met? So I think the most important thing just to begin with is that we had a level conversation where people literally understood each other's constraints and their needs and their aspirations and that I think was transformative and as Kelly says as you'll continue to yield results. And they got in the room and one food industry person after another Kelly was one of them but there's many others explain that they were upset about the levels of obesity and diabetes and the health effects. They talked about their children, the health of their children.

They talked about the health care cost of their companies going up because diet related disease. Some even talk very movingly of people who lost limbs or had other issues that just moved them. And they then looked at their counterparts in the public health arena and said, we cannot unilaterally disarm our products. We have to answer the shareholders. But if you could help us create market demand, as college has said, for healthier foods, then we can move together on something to try to create more demand for healthier products and create a virtuous circle

of demand for healthier products, which would then mean that companies would invest healthier products and more than would come in the market and maybe consumer taste would change. But, you know, that's questionable. People have addictions to a lot on healthy foods, and we don't know. And the consumer group said, great, we love that. You know, you're not just selfish people out to only make money at the expense of everyone's health. It's nice to hear. But by the way, if you and we had Burger King at the table come in and advertise an Alonk and neighborhood triple bacon cheeseburgers when we're trying to do public health information, you know, it's working across purposes. So you have to take some responsibility with us. So you had a greater understanding

in the room and that led to some long-term changes in the retail food industry. What was the impact on stores? We had a breakthrough with convenience stores, like you might even go into a gas station in the road, begin to move healthier products more prominently and give you more attention and found that they were able to, as I recall, through the pilot test that their revenues stayed pretty much the same. So, you know, I haven't followed it in a number of years, but at least some momentum was created for greater dialogue over time and initiatives. And a lowering of the distrust, people then will talk to each other differently, try to work together in the way as they didn't before this particular dialogue we set up.

And that's really interesting. I mean, what strikes me about that is that when you get these groups together as actual people, as individuals, then you can get somewhere, because so often the corporation is talked of as if it's just a thing, a blob, where it's actually real people with lives and problems work in it.

Actually, I think you just hit the heart of what, if there's any message of this podcast, it's all in human relationships. There was a woman in the room from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and they are the leading funders of work to improve the health in the country. She'd been working on these issues a decade or more. And she said to me afterward, you understand what happened in that room today. I said, I think I did, but why don't you tell me, and this woman had spent her career on this issue said, Rob, this was a once in a lifetime experience.

The hair on my arms literally rose up during that dialogue. I've never seen a level of communication at this point, and I'm very optimistic that something good will happen. I'm going to look for ways to support your efforts. Now, I don't want to overstate it. We didn't change the American diet overnight, but I think we began to make the steps that are necessary to build bridges and then have follow-up actions that can make a difference. And it has to start with people developing some trust and understanding the underneath it. All people on it is different as they think. And they should give each other the benefit of the doubt. Speaking of building bridges, during his inaugural address, President Biden spoke about the need for unity. We have much to repair, much to restore, much to build, much to heal, and

much to gain. He said, Kelly, what can Biden do in a divided Congress, for example? I mean, he said many of the right things during his speech. I'm not sure people on my side of the aisle feel like he lived up to some of that just yet. And certainly he's been very focused on about two or three dozen executive orders, many of which are strongly opposed or were even then many of people on the conservative aisle. But I do know that former congressman's head regrishment who is on the President Biden's white house staff is trying to reach across the aisle in Congress quietly to try to see what kind of where they can cooperate on some of the agenda items they feel lady Congress has helped to achieve. That's good. That's the kind of discussions you need to have there. Conversely, I think there are probably two or three issues that they should try to focus on that Republicans

would want to be a part of to try to see if there's resolution. I know many people on the Republican side are still very concerned about election integrity. Democrats are very concerned about voter access versus voter suppression. And I think that's one area, and I've been tried before, not successfully in my view, but I think there is one area that would be very helpful to try to bring more resolution to this last election for a lot of people on the conservative side of the aisle. For example, Senator Tim Scott, Republican and South Carolina, as a proposal for an election commission to really dig into it and investigate what did go wrong.

Was there really evidence there of not corruption but fraud or mismanagement or election all violations that we have to address in some fashion? Now I think if they were to say, you know what, as part of that commission, we need to have a convergent style dialogue and really air that out. Let's look and see what really transpired. It would probably help confirm the fact that Joe Biden won. It would also help conservatives understand and have some resolution for the election. I think he's got a real opportunity. Rob, what's your answer for that? What should Biden do to encourage unity?

I think he can do a number of things. But if he's going to do it, he has to do it authentically. He can't do it. Like I'm going to invite a bunch of Centrous Republicans in and put a gloss over it as if we're going to heal that way. So one of the things convergence does is we try to include the widest possible way of people. We're a cost-suspectrum who are willing to participate. The other thing is I study a little bit the truth and reconciliation issues, approaches in South Africa.

And this is not to be a counterpoint to Cali, but just to underscore the difficulty that you can have reconciliation when there is truth. So that commission, which I think generally is a good idea, whether it's an official commission or what, where it's done, there has to be an adherence to people being truthful. And again, who judges, who's being truthful? That's a tougher issue. Bridges get formed when you learn new things and you look at facts objectively.

The people are so ideological that they cannot open their eyes to what seem to be pretty clear facts from one another than you have a dilemma and there are limits to what our process can achieve. What about the individual level, like what can the current administration do to encourage individuals to actually talk to each other and come to some kind of understanding

of where the other comes from? I think they can model it. And I think you're seeing a little bit of that now, but I think clearly that action speaks louder than words. It's not something you can legislate or mandate or anything else. I think members of Congress have a start of modeling that as well. In fact, I think we would be have more of an impact than even the White House doing something. I also think that the real answer, I have a real believer in grassroots action and there really a lot of change happens and starts most effectively at the local level. Start small. Don't try to look big but start at

the local level and look for ways to address problems there. There are a birchening number, an amazing proliferation of groups in the last few years, especially since the elections 2016 local groups and some national groups like Brave Arangles and also a lot of local groups We're developing skills on how to get people to talk to each other. I think Joe Biden Could say folks you need to talk to each other. You need to know each other. You need to see each other's humanity There's nothing I think to replace true honest relationships across people and even if you end up disagreeing I've seen it done even in the field of abortion where people

feel so strongly that they literally, you know, can't abide each other's use until they get to know each other, then they see each other's human beings who are decent. So I think there's a grounds well of activity that could occur around the country, Biden can be a cheerleader for that. The government doesn't need to do it all, but there are all these groups that want to help that have skill sets and who have developed ways to get people to talk to each other in a way that they can actually at least build trust and respect for each other, even if they don't get to agreement. Rob Fersh and Kelly Johnston on Let's Find Common Ground. I'm Ashley. I'm Richard.

I'm Ashley. I'm Richard. Our podcast is a production of Common Ground Committee. As Rob was saying, we're part of a burgeoning number of groups and communities that are pushing back against deep partisan divides that are putting barriers in the way of progress. We're discussing practical and creative ways to repair the tear in our political fabric. Find out more about what we do at commongroundcommity.org. And also on Facebook, Richard, you and I post and answer questions about our podcast in the Facebook group.

Let us know who and what you'd like to hear about next. The Facebook group is where we share ideas, stories and common ground events that are coming up. And one more thing, we're excited to be joining Democracy Group, a podcast network with shows about reforming and improving our democracy. We'll have more about this in future episodes. Now back to our interview with Kelly Johnston and Rob Fersh. Rob, you've said that bridge building work is not easy, but there are proven successful methods. What did you learn at convergence, the group you founded?

I think it's this general impression that those of us in this field are people who come around with guitars and get everyone that can come by ya. I like that imagery. But we've developed a methodology, and it's now backed by a lot of social science and even neuroscience about why this works.

But the basic steps Richard just to give you a clue are that you have to understand what problem you're going to address, and you have to make it bigger than a bread box, but not oily ocean. You have to frame the issue in a way that's inviting. So people who, for different points of view, feel they're being heard, you know, if you frame the police issue about,

how do we defund the police? People aren't gonna feel like it's an open conversation. You have to build trust with people like us in convergence that were truly neutral and I'm gonna have some agenda. And then you have to go through a trust building process. A lot of that's just by open dialogue. And you start by not debating positions. For God's sake, you don't debate positions. You talk about your underlying interests and your values and your concerns.

When people hear that, they see the humanity. And usually they see their concerns are the same, but they disagree on how to get there. And that begins to open you up to a conversation of what are possible solutions. And when you have ground rules about not hogging the microphone, about being truthful, about relying on evidence, then people push each other's thinking. I don't need to tell you to this, but we're

in this time of incredible division and passionate feelings about politics. Have you two found that it is harder to do your work over the last several years? Let me go first to mean, I realized my role here is someone I've voted for President Trump long time, conservative or Republican combatant, but even people like me get accused of being soft and squishy

by my peers and on the right when it comes to issues like election reform, who won the election even on some of the issues. So it is hard and there's definitely a very strong, let's go fight based inside my party and I think it's true on the left as well. So that's challenging. Definitely very strong, very rock rib elements on both extremes. There's a good middle there that we can work with.

Now I do think that I'm starting to see much more of a hunger for, how do we, as Rob says, bridge build? Yes, Shai is a great question. I actually think it is more difficult. Now, recent events, I think, have put a charge in it, but I want to make a different point, which is that not everything has to be government action.

You know, I came from the liberal side where everyone thought, all answers are government, but we did a project on kindergarten through 12 education and it's not an not-to-do public policy. We brought together teachers unions and charter schools who are normally at each other's roads and administrators and companies like Lego and Disney and people who care only about putting computers in in classrooms and people only care about social emotional learning and what a birch is a now a new nonprofit called education re-imagined where

these people are working together on a shared vision to doing a grassroots up and not relying on public policy and they are formally people who couldn't even sit in the room together. In fact, the first day that that group met in the history of convergence was the 10th-stay I've ever experienced. I wasn't sure there'd be a second day. Fortunately, there was a year and a half of meetings that came up with a vision statement that people on the left to write loved about how to create a learner centered system that could apply in charter schools or public schools or private schools and of various settings. They all got excited to work with each other. So there may be room for citizens to work with each other where you don't have to deal with

members of Congress. Kelly, you described yourself a few moments ago as a fighter on the right. But before we did this interview, we did a quick search of your name on news sites. And what came up pretty quickly was one unfortunate incident on Twitter when you tweeted that George Saras' foundation, Saras is a well-known liberal, was assisting a caravan of migrants bound for the United States and that caused a real flurry. Do you want to comment on that? Yeah, I'll be brief about it and I have a blog that I've talked about that to some degrees well but I think that that is a whole episode is one example of one in temperance on social media.

I'm guilty of that every so often. I'm constantly in recovery trying to be better at that and mulling it better. But I think the reaction to it was also a disconcerting where there was clearly an organized mob, if you will, that really came after me, tried to silence, discredit, and destroy me for what I did. It was not successful, obviously, but that is happening all over. In fact, just as we've seen at least two or three other

incidences where people are being canceled, or being fired, or being let go, for some intemperant tweet or comment. And by the way, it's not just the left doing it to the right, the right's doing it to itself too, and now, but I think the lesson here is that cancel culture is real, and it is incredibly destructive to trying to build dialogue and bridge build

and get to objective truth and have honest discussion. That tweet of yours about George Soros and immigrants heading for the southern border was in temperate. But do you think that it times people are defined by their in temperate moments rather than by their years of hard work? Yes, it is much easier to tear something down than it is to build something up.

And companies know this, and being in a food industry for 22 years. I've learned that it takes years, decades, even in the century, to build a brand and that it only takes one bad incident to destroy it. And that's very true in social media as well. Yeah, because Daniel, the reason we ask you about it, Kelly, was just because you're a common grounder and it wasn't a very common groundy tweet. Yeah, Rob will know and he and I have talked about this before. I began as a journalist and moved to Capitol Hill. Then I did campaign work, 35 campaigns and 25 states as combat. So my instincts and my experience and my work was all about doing battle. And then when I got into the private sector about two decades ago, Rob actually inspired me to look at bridge building as a much more productive activity.

And I realized that I was part of the problem because I was busy tearing other people down and fighting on issues and I was accomplishing really nothing to advance the ball. And I realized, you know, I like to really solve some of these problems. And that's what do I fall off the wagon on occasion? Yes, guilty is charged. But I try to get back on, which is important. People just can't, you know, you make mistakes. You want to incentivize people to stay involved, stay engaged and really help be part of the solution. Rob, what's your view of this? Look, I think this is a fundamental issue that's really important. And there may be lines that get crossed the time to time where you just feel you can't deal with somebody or just the morality's been compromised and or you've been burned so often you can't deal with somebody. But we have to think really hard about what's what's a final line that you can't

you can't abide by and can you get people benefit of those out or if you disagree on some things including important things can you work on other things? And I think about someone like Mandela, who was jailed for 28 years or whatever it was. A Nelson Mandela in South Africa. And he kept a heart open to people who literally put him in jail and silenced him. But he kept an open heart and eventually one people over to see things another way. And I like to leave that door open. But I think people are getting, as Kelly's saying, they're too quick to cancel.

And too quick to think poorly of others would actually understand them. They don't know each other. So I think that's really important, less than for us, to all think about, in terms of what kind of society do we want to have, how do we want to treat each other? Common ground committee and convergence

are both part of a growing movement to encourage dialogue between people who do not agree on the issues. But it's often seen as made up of polite liberals and moderate. So how can this campaign be broadened to include people who are skeptical of its goals? I will tell you that Robyn knows this,

but when I've had a huge challenge on my side of the aisle trying to get people to enlist in this process. And I prior iteration of convergence, but you actually tried to build something through Congress to be kind of a much like states had done, or we're going to establish this process by which people will walk out their differences and come back to us with a real good proposal. And I found there was a lot of opposition on my side of the aisle because Republicans and conservatives in particular have felt a long time that these are nothing more than called third-way efforts that force us into compromise. And there's a lot of you that we're always compromising away a lot of our principles

and the ball keeps going in our own, in moving in our own direction. And I think we have to realize, no, that's not what's going on here. Yeah, compromise is a part of a lot of discussion, but I think that's the wrong word to use. I think new and creative solutions and new ways of approaching things is the answer to that. I think my answer has to be, only experience, personal experience is what makes converts of people. And I think the only way we do this is through story, through documentaries, through personal relationships. So for people like Kelly who have courage,

who out of his own personal values have found this to be valuable. And he's going to go out on the limits and say to people, there's something that can happen here. And it's not about you getting compromised. it's about you engaging consistent with your own personal religious values to treat each other well. And the more that people experience this, the more they're going to want that because frankly they get relieved. Most people really don't want to hate each other. It's a great relief. Not to feel to walk around hating everybody.

I like to feel to walk around hating everybody. In your personal lives, do you get grief from some members of your family or close friends who are like, why are you talking to them? Yes, I do, but you know what, though, I consider those teaching opportunities. I still, well, here's what dialogue that we're actually having. And I think ultimately one of the ways I try to tell people or encourage people to consider this approach is

consider the consequences if we don't. Because ultimately we're going to see more of what we saw on January 6th that we don't try to resolve it. Or we'll see more of the violent incidences and some 200 cities over the summer or what happened with the tragic George Floyd situation. So we're starting to see the fruit of that very poisonous tree with

the violence that's been on the increase across the United States over the past 12 months. Rob? Yeah, I do take heed. Well, my one of my personal friends, one person said to me, how can you write an op-ed with Kelly Johnston? And how can you actually, how can you write this op-ed and support President Trump? They couldn't, they couldn't put that together. But actually, I thought you were gonna ask something different, which is also, you know,

we're not perfect models of this and our personalize. But I was gonna say, you know, even in my own life, I have four kids, everyone's so off, I lose my temper. You know, one of my kids will say, oh, there goes the world. Famous media here. Modeling behavior, he wants to see in the world. You know, we can't be perfect. We're never going to be perfect.

But again, it's more what's the overall direction? And how do you bring people back to a norm that's different than being in tag andistic or intolerant? And I think we can create that. Rob, I have been humiliated a number of times by my kids. What have you both learned from each other about finding common ground? Well, it goes back to what I learned about raw from day one. Was that there is a different way of communicating with people who don't share your, necessarily

your worldview or your background or your, or points of view on issues. And I think the most important thing for me is in one of these, it's been a lifetime really in politics going back to my college years, a few centuries ago, is that not everything is political. And we've over politicized everything. And it really helped prevent the kind of bridge building that that Rob and I are committed to. I'd say this I can't begin to describe what an important go-wether and grounding Kelly represents for me. To be honest when I read some of the things he's written and I'll wince and I can't imagine how we could think that way and and people in my office say, you can't believe what Kelly wrote today.

I then asked how to remember. This is my friend Kelly. A guy I know is decent, who's honest, has integrity, is caring, shares so many values I share. And because it's Kelly, it allows me to open to things that I don't instinctively open to. So that's the lesson. It's that it's just not about, you know, centrist people talking to each other. This only works if we can be tested by the diversity of our differences. I often say it's not just what you fight for, but who you are as you do it. And I think that's what, I think that's what all the major faiths try to teach us is,

what kind of persons are we as we pursue, the goals in life that we are important to us. Thank you so much for talking to us. Thank you. Thank you for having us. In their article for The Hill, Rob and Kelly write about working to construct a virtuous cycle of renewing our civic culture and restoring faith in the resilience of American democracy. We have a link to their op-ed on our podcast website, and we also have about five minutes

of bonus material with Rob. He gives examples of how the convergence approach works. You'll find that audio on commongroundcommittee.org-podcasts. We'll have another episode in two weeks. on committee.org slash podcasts. you