Let's Find Common Ground - Depolarizing America: Ending Toxic Polarization. Peter Coleman

Episode Date: March 14, 2024

Soon after Joe Biden became president he said in his inaugural address that wanted to bring Americans together, to forge unity. But maybe unity isn’t what we should aim for. Our guest this week says instead of focusing on that elusive goal, Americans need to concentrate on what’s damaging all of us: toxic polarization. In this episode we look at what toxic polarization is, how it got worse in recent decades, and how to end it, person-by-person. We learn about the role played by Common Ground Committee and other groups— local and national— in the bridging community. Peter Coleman has advised the Biden administration on how to detoxify America. He is a well-known mediator and psychologist who specializes in conflict resolution. A professor of psychology and education at Columbia University, he is the author of the book, The Way Out: How to Overcome Toxic Polarization.

America is stuck in a culture of contempt. This country is deeply divided and on a bleak precipice. Those are the words of Professor Peter Coleman, a highly respected expert on how to end long-term strife and bitter clashes. He researches entrenched conflicts overseas and now in the United States. We hear from him about toxic polarization and how to turn the temperature down. There are people in your community that are having conversations across these divides that are constructive and helpful and that are then moving on to mobilize and do active things that will change your community.

Find them, join them, because simply knowing that change is possible will help. This is Let's Find Common Ground. I'm Ashley Miltite. I'm Richard Davies. In this episode, we look at the science of polarization, how we got here, and why so many of us are exhausted by politics and want to shut out the noise. For many, there's a sense of dread about the 2024 presidential campaign. We're about to hear the ideas of Peter Coleman, who we first spoke with three years ago. He has a resume that's a yard long. He's a professor of psychology and education at Columbia University and director of the

Morton Deusch International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution. And Peter Coleman's most recent book is called The Way Out, How to Overcome Toxic Polarization. He advised the Biden administration on ways to help bring people together. Ashley, you asked the first question. Peter, you use this term toxic polarization. What is it? In politics, there is a tendency for us to sort of prefer to gather with people that are similar to us or be repulsed by or move away from those that are different from us. And in a two-party system like we have here, it's critically important that there be some

degree of polarization and opposition so that you have, you know, traditionalists or more conservative folks and progressives or people that are embracing change and reform in conversation with each other. It's part of a healthy society. But when it gets to this point where you have such deep enmity and hate and it's reinforced by these really parallel media ecosystems that we have in this country by internet sorting, by geographic sorting. When you have all of these factors that lead to these core emotional experiences of the other as the problem, a sense of contempt for the other and a sense of warmth and love for your own group, it can get toxic. When COVID as a pandemic doesn't unite the country together but becomes weaponized

politically or when wildfires in the West Coast don't unite communities to fight the wildfire but are weaponized politically and blamed on one side or the other, somebody's intentionally setting fires. These are the kinds of pathological dynamics that you see in societies that are so deeply polarized. So all of that adds up to a toxic state that is making us sick as individuals, as families, and as a nation. What happened in America in the 1970s even into the 1980s. It seemed like our country was not that intensely divided at least between Democrats and

Republicans and nothing like what it is today. Any thoughts about the reasons for this? There are many theories as to what happens and who's responsible. For example, someone suggested that Reagan and the conservative revolution that he sort of brought forward that the Republican Party started to realize that their policies were not popular, so they started to cheat and started to basically try to suppress voting and gerrymander their way in. Some blame Newt Gingrich because Newt Gingrich came to Washington and did a kind of provocative thing. So he was the Speaker of the House and he changed the rules of Congress

and so they went from a five-day work week to a three-day workweek. And what he said to his Republican colleagues in Congress was, don't move here, don't bring your families here, stay back in your states, you can come for three days and live in your office or live with other Republicans, don't fraternize with the other side, this is all out war and so part of what he did in that gesture whether it was intentional or not in Washington since the beginning of politics in Washington you had Politicians moved to Washington or Maryland or nearby their kids grow up and go to school and play sports and theater and music with kids from sports and theater and music with kids from politicians across the aisle. And you had these connections that basically allowed people to humanize each other.

And once he removed those social structures, it became much easier to just vilify the other side, only see them on the floor of Congress and attack them. That leads to kind of autistic hostility and escalation. So all of these things had an impact. And just looking at the big picture for a minute, you've also said that scholars have studied years worth of data on how states interact with each other and fight and so on. And they found that most of the time when states get into long term conflicts, that conflict was preceded by some kind of major political or cultural shock. Could that apply here too?

So one of the precursors of what happened in the late 1970s in America was the late 1960s and assassinations, right? There were several Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy, you name it. There were four or five assassinations. There was a cultural revolution. There were major legal, you know, Roe v. Wade legal precedents that took place. And so there was tremendous cultural upheaval that took place in the late 60s, early 70s. And about 10 years later, you start to see this pattern of highly divisive conflicts that basically set the trajectory for which we're on today.

So what that suggests is that the causes aren't necessarily always the things that you see happening at that time, like Reagan, like what Newt Gingrich did. But there is a destabilization of what is the status quo. And that starts to bring about various changes, which at some point tip into a pattern that we then get stuck in. In 2021, when we spoke with Peter Coleman, President Biden had stressed the importance of unity, of a divided country coming together as one nation. We cannot do it while divided against ourselves,

the president said in his inaugural address. But the tone of Biden's 2024 State of the Union speech was very different. Feisty and more partisan. To his critics, Biden sounded divisive. This speech came at the start of the election campaign that could well lead to even deeper polarization. So we asked Peter Coleman, when the country is so divided as it has been in recent years, what sort of approach works best? What does the research say about past conflicts overseas? What we know from the study of, for example, post-conflict settings is that you don't go into

Angola or Rwanda after extremely difficult times and tell people to heal or to reconcile because they just have no patience for it. There is not much appetite at this point for unity or healing. There's appetite for a fight. And so one way to focus that energy is to focus on a common enemy, like the fact that this type of polarization is making us and our family and our children sick. So what advice did you give to the Biden administration about repairing and reversing polarization and extremism? I think there is a need to do many things. But what I've suggested is that, you know, under the auspices of starting with the communities, that they do

really two things. One is what we call a radical listening tour. That one of the things that research has shown us is in serious intractable conflicts, when people start to feel heard, right, particularly people who are marginalized and feel left behind in low power, when they start to feel heard by those in authority, really listened to and responded to, it has a transformative effect on their attitudes. You know, if you can actually document what people are saying, their grievances, their ideas, then what you can start to do is parse that information locally and say, well in this region, these are the top three things that people want to see happen. So it really is data collection,

but it's also the power of listening and how that can be transformative if those in power actually hear you and respond. So it's not them coming up with some kind of democratic progressive proposals that they're jamming down right through Congress. It's them saying, we've listened to you and we've heard you and this is what you need to do. You've worked as a mediator consulting with peacemakers and leaders after conflicts in various parts of the world, including

the Middle East, Haiti, and Africa. What have you learned from this experience that perhaps is of real value now as we confront the levels of toxic polarization as a nation? Well, it's a good question. In fact, I was having a conversation yesterday with someone from the UN who focuses a lot on UN mediators and what UN mediators do. And one of the things that I think we're learning from sending mediators into conflict settings to either make peace or try to build peace is that oftentimes they're highly ineffective. And they're ineffective often because they are only in there

for a short period of time. They're oftentimes don't have a nuanced understanding of the situation on the ground, politics, other actors working there. And so they go in and they do their best to try to craft a deal and then they leave. And then you see a resurgence of conflict and when that happens things tend to really escalate. And so one of the things that we've found more and more is critical is not having external actors go into these

situations but to identify who is already on the ground doing good work. This is what we call positive deviance, that even in more settings, even in Kashmir in the Middle East or South Sudan, you have community groups that are already there, that are doing good work and trusted, that are trying to keep the conversation going, and they're best situated to make a difference and have an impact. And that's true in the US as well. By external actors, you mean experts.

You mean perhaps the man in the white coat, or somebody from outside a local community Yeah, like me. power shooting in. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Like me or anyone else going in with what we know and what we think will help, but not really having local context, experience, and expertise, particularly when you're going internationally. But this is a very eclectic country that we're in America, and there are pockets of tremendous diversity, regional pockets here. And so what I have recommended to the Biden administration is that instead of bringing in external experts to analyze the problem and

make recommendations for solutions, you identify those groups that are existing. And there are, by some account, 5,000 different organizations that have multiple affiliate groups in communities across the country. And the way I think about them is that they are the immune system of communities. They're actively today working to bring people together, to build

understanding, to fight hostility and antagonism, to clear up misunderstandings. And if the government were to recognize them, support and encourage them in ways that are useful to them, right? Like the government shouldn't come up with a plan to help them. The government should go to them and say, what do you need from us? How can we help you do what you do and scale up what you do better? And that's one way to basically help the system heal itself, help these communities and these actors that are already being effective in difficult circumstances, And these actors that are already being effective in difficult circumstances help them grow their capacities to heal. Peter Coleman, who believes local groups that are pushing back against polarization need

to be heard and they need to be helped. This is Let's Find Common Ground. I'm Ashley. I'm Richard. A lot of people listen to Let's Find Common Ground. Our podcast has 280,000 subscribers. And it's free. But we need your help to report on new ways of finding common ground.

And a matching fund has been set up to make your donations go further. Yeah, the fund is helping to honor the work, the passion, the extraordinary enthusiasm of Bruce Bond, who was co-founder of Common Ground Committee. Like Peter Coleman, Bruce was a mediator himself, and he recognized the importance of focusing on where people could find agreement. He felt that much of what drove disagreement

between the two main parties was based on a misunderstanding of facts and preconceptions about the beliefs of other people. The Common Ground Fund honouring Bruce Bond has been set up in his memory. Learn more at commongroundcommittee.org. You can also text to donate on your phone. Text to 53-555 and type in the letters CGC. That's 53-555 and CGC. Now more from our interview with Professor Peter Coleman. What are some ways for us to emerge from toxic polarization?

So here's the good news. The good news is that political shocks are destabilizing and can create opportunities for change. The change can be terrible or the change can be promising. If you study these long-term difficult conflicts, somewhere between 75 and 90 percent of them also end within 10 years of political shocks. And guess what? We're in the midst of an incredibly shocking period. Everything from the Trump administration's approach to governance, to COVID, to economic downturn, to racial injustice spikes, all of these things have come together to sufficiently destabilize America and Americans.

And so there is an opportunity, there's a window here for things to get better. And the other thing we've learned from studying international conflicts that end is when people are miserable, and we have seen a growing, what they call exhausted majority within the middle that are fed up, tired of this dysfunction and really want something else.

So Peter, there's an opportunity for groups such as ours, Common Ground Committee and many other groups that are in this space to act. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, absolutely. And there is an infrastructure there. There's an ecology of bridge building and decency that's there that needs to be supported.

And this is the time to do it because it takes time. You know, the things that frustrate me about some attempts to bring people together, to talk across their differences is that they don't respect the fact that in climates like this, those are not simple conversations. These things are conversations that take time, but oftentimes take facilitation and encouragement and support. And if those conditions are met, those conversations can be fantastic. It's a mistake at this point, I think, to say to people, reach out to somebody who's a, you know, if you're an anti-Trump, reach out to a person and go have a cup of coffee. I think

that's a big mistake because there are too many incidents where those things just blow up, make it worse, and people refuse to get back together again. LARIE KAUFMAN Peter voiced support for some of the Biden administration's spending programs on health care and economic backing for struggling local communities. PETER VON HOFMAN I still think they're getting the message to people that government can help, government matters, and that they care. But I think in the long run, they're going to need to do more to hear from the public and to try to get at some of these underlying grievances that, frankly, both Trump and Bernie

Sanders tapped into. There's tremendous resentment on the left and the right about inequality and bank bailouts. I think they have to listen to those grievances and they have to respond to them directly. And time is of the essence around that. You sound somewhat hopeful that we could be beginning soon to dig ourselves out from the weight of toxic polarization. But perhaps the reason is we're exhausted. We are, we're fed up where we are right now.

Is that a fair summary? Yeah, I mean, I think our exhaustion is important because again, there is so much energy for the fight, right? For the fight on the left and fight on the right. But exhaustion will definitely dissipate that and people will want something else. But they need to know what that is. They need to know that there is another way to engage.

And that's why what I'm saying is, there are people in your community that are having conversations across these divides that are constructive and helpful, and that are then moving on to mobilize and do active things that will change your community. Find them, join them. Because simply knowing that change is possible will help. That's another thing we learned from research in more intractable situations. If you believe that they'll never change, I'll never change, and the situation is stuck,

then it will be. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. But if there's a possibility that some people will change, that their attitudes will change, their actions will change, and in fact, I may even change, if you hold that possibility, you're much more likely to engage with the other and try. If you see other people doing that and doing it in ways that are effective, you're much more inclined to join them. Are you more hopeful than worried about our future or are you more worried than hopeful? I'm high on both. I do think I am worried.

I watched January 6 unfold and was an interesting day because January 6 was the day that the the votes were finally called in Georgia and the Capitol was stormed. So you had these you know basically democracy working and democracy falling apart simultaneously. They're both hopeful moments. I do feel like this is a rare opportunity to reset America, and I think in many ways America is sick and needs a reset. So I'm hopeful that we can take advantage of that. I do think that the leadership in Washington today understands that.

Problem is that politics are broken as well. Money and politics and just politics as war is part of it. And that's going to be a very difficult thing to change. So again, I'm optimistic that the Biden administration understands that and are amenable to change. I don't know how long that will last. If they keep getting opposition around every piece of legislation from the Republicans, they may just also go nuclear, get rid of the filibuster and push everything through.

And I understand that, but I think it's a mistake because I think that they ultimately need to find some way to model for all of us that there is a different way to function. The siren is blaring metaphorically and in fact. Peter Coleman, thank you very much for joining us on Let's Find Common Ground. Oh, it's my pleasure. Thank you for having me. And let's stay in touch. I read Peter's book and it includes some very creative ways that could help us to respond creatively

to the tribalization, the polarization of American politics. There's such a gap between what we think the other side believes and what they really do think. It's true. And I also liked Peter's emphasis on listening to what local groups are doing. And there's a recent YouTube video well worth watching with Peter and Pierce Godwin, who's also appeared on our podcast. They're talking about the Listen First project that Pierce leads. And that's our podcast for today. Again, that text to donate number is 53555. Yes, please tap in the letters CGC or go to our website, get details about the Matching Fund and also hear a lot more of

our podcast episodes. It's commongroundcommittee.org. I'm Ashley. I'm Richard. And thanks for listening. This podcast is part of the Democracy Group.