Let's Find Common Ground - Talking with people you love, whose views you don’t. Holiday Special: Brian and Clare Ashcraft & Tania Israel

Episode Date: November 22, 2022

The holiday season is here but many people across the country may be dreading sitting down with their nearest and dearest— all because of politics. In the first half of this episode, we discuss political differences with a father and daughter who have different ways of seeing the world. Clare Ashcraft and her dad Brian live in Ohio. He’s an engineer and a conservative. She is a liberal-leaning college student. In the second half, we hear from an expert— well-known psychologist Tania Israel, author of “Beyond Your Bubble: How to Connect Across the Political Divide: Skills and Strategies for Conversations That Work." We share a series of smart tips that aim to minimize conflict and maximize cooperation with parents, family and friends. "Let's Find Common Ground" is hosted by Ashley Milne-Tyte and Richard Davies.

The holiday season is here, but many people across the country may be dreading, sitting down with their nearest and dearest, all because of politics. They're stealing themselves for eye rolls, heated exchanges, and awkward silences. But our guests on this show say it doesn't have to be that way. This is Let's Find Common Ground. I'm Ashley Melntite. And I'm Richard Davies. First we meet a father and daughter with different political views and talk to them about how they talk to each other. Claire Ashcraft and her father Brian both live in Ohio. Claire is a college student who appeared in a recent podcast of ours. Sheleens Liberal. Her father Brian is an engineer and a conservative.

And then in the second half of this podcast, we turn to an expert for advice. Tanya Israel is the author of the book Beyond Your Bubble and she gives us some very practical ideas on how to keep things civil if you feel your blood pressure is rising and how to minimize conflict and maximize cooperation with parents, friends and family. We begin with father and daughter Brian and Claire Ashcraft. I started off by asking Claire if she took part in political discussions at home when she was growing up. I didn't participate in the beginning because I didn't know what I believed. I listened and sometimes repeated that, like, at school or something, but as soon as I started

for my own beliefs, I did eventually participate because I felt like I couldn't not participate. It was something that I had begun to feel passionate about and that so when I felt like my parents were wrong and I cared about them and I wanted to teach them what was right because that's genuinely the way I felt when I was that age, I did feel like I had to speak up and participate in this discussions. Can you give us any examples or any early memories of when you thought you had to put your parents right? The first one I remember is actually talking about abortion. I think we ended watching a movie and my dad said something about like, oh it's their responsibility,

like if a woman makes her own choice, then she has to deal with the consequences and I was like, wait what? Like I was completely jarred by that and I was like, but people don't always have to do with the consequences. Like, if they drive drunk and get in a car crash, we're not just not going to fix their broken leg. So obviously, now I would consider that to be a slightly less apt example, but it was foring that people so close to me,

didn't have what I saw at the time as compassion for people going through that experience. Brian, you want to chip in? Yeah, that is not quite what I said during that time, but that's maybe what you heard. And I do recall that because actually it was a surprise to me because we did, I remember what show we were watching, but yes, the topic of abortion did come up and it was actually a shock to me to hear the beliefs of her and my son included of just kind of, I'll just say that you know they were for the pro-choice agenda and that's just not something that me and mom agreed with, right?

So, you know, we were on the pro-life side. And again, we've always been this based on our religion and our beliefs and stuff with that. And it was just kind of a shocker to me when I did hear that because we thought we were translating that to our kids well that they probably had the same thought process. But it was okay, right? Because A was something learning for me to get some insight into what they're thinking and where they're getting their information from. And for us, it did tip off the conversation of abortion for us. And I believe what I, the point I was trying to get across was that I believe that a woman does have her choice, right?

But I believe that a woman's choice is earlier in the scenario as in does she choose to have unprotected sex with somebody, does she choose to even have sex with somebody? And the consequences of our choices come into effect. And I'm saying that just because you can do something doesn't always mean you should have the kind of the right to absolve yourself of your choices and the consequences of those choices but it also comes back to the belief of just

it being alive and that i don't think we should have the right to kill that because that's just happens again to be the consequence of that choice. So just to be clear, Brian and Claire, your political views were and are different, right? If you could just give us a sense of that. Ooh. I will base myself more of realist type. I'm sure people will mark that as being conservative leaning.

I know Claire is more liberal than definitely what I would be, but I have other friends who are also very liberal-minded and I have discussions with too. A lot of the things we talk about, nobody denies what you want to end game to be. We agree with that. Could we have free education? Everybody would love that. I would love that. I think where we disagree is on the roadmap of how we get from A to Z.

With my thinking, of course, I'll say I'm more technical person being the engineer type person that I am, I tend to I'm more technical person being the engineer type person that I am. I tend to get the rational part down, right? How am I going to get from A to Z? We just don't actually get to the end game and say, this is all good for edge-case-fair everybody, Yippee. There's a lot of work that needs to be done to get from A to Z. And we disagree on how money should be spent, what does it mean,

how do you build the roadmap for that? I mean, that's just one example I think of something that we've talked about in the house and how we want to get there. The end game, it would be great if we could afford to do that. But just that roadmap and the reality in between and getting there is where we tend to differ. Claire, what about you?

Your dad's describing him and your mom is more conservative and you grew up with them. So how do your views evolve? Yeah, I think everyone at some point, when they're really young, just parents, but they hear the house. And pretty much immediately, when I started doing that, I got a little bit of a visceral reaction at school.

No one has ever rude to me, but like friends would just be like, wait, hold on a minute, and then would kind of tell me their perspectives and it gave me an opportunity to start to see, what do I believe and how do I come to those beliefs? Not just taking what any adult says as truth or what any my friends say is truth, but being able to hold all

the new perspectives that I'm getting in conjunction with one another and make a conclusion. So I think at a certain point, I ended up doing kind of far to the left because of not just the information I was getting, but when you agree with people on certain issues, you start to trust them, like public figures, like, I agree with you on X, so your opinion on Y and Z is also pretty likely informed. And I think I started adopting some beliefs before I fully flushed out what they were and understood them. So now I'm a little bit closer to the center.

And I think my dad and I still disagree a lot on social issues just like we did in the past. But there's a little bit more overlap than there was. Right now, both of you are sounding incredibly reasonable. Were there moments, were there times when your conversations got heated or one or other of you sort of stamped off and went, oh, that's ridiculous or you raised your voice.

Okay, so for me, the tipping point that I really was like, I don't know if I can do this anymore, was on the summer of 2020 with all of the Black Lives Matter protests going on. And I actually didn't want to really talk about it because I was like, I'm maybe emotional and frustrated. And I'm just like not ready to talk about this right now. But then actually my mom was like, oh, I know you have an opinion on this. Like you have an opinion about everything. It's true like why are you being so quiet. So I did like get into the conversation that we were having about it.

And I remember my dad saying some things that I really disagreed with. And I remember I was very careful. I didn't call him a racist, but I said some of the things you're saying sound like they could be interpretive as racist. Like I just came out of that conversation, not understanding, not feeling hurt or understood, but also not really wanting to understand who's coming from, I think.

And so, I just was incredibly frustrated and I was like, how can I go to dinner after this and an hour and act like everything's fine when I really distraught over how that conversation went and what I perceived his views to be and I was like how do I reconcile this amazing person that I know with these views that they have and what they're saying that I think are really cruel so that for me was was a really big turning point where I was like something has to change. Brian, what do you remember about that?

I really don't remember if I had that conversation or what I said during it. I mean, obviously if I said something that would have offended you, apologies because I honestly don't remember what it was, so it was obviously something that didn't impact me. Brian says he always tries to be mindful about the impact his words have on other people, but obviously this time what he said was more inflammatory than he intended. And you can always feel free to call me on that at any time if I do that, right? I got no problem shutting my mouth if I have to, but what thing we've done with both our kids

and especially clear, yes, you've always been very opinionated on everything, which is a wonderful thing, right? We tried to raise our kids to think for themselves, not pair it what we talk. Because we're teaching them to grow up and be adults in the world. We don't want them to be scammed,

bamboozled, hoodwinked, whatever, into something that they don't really believe in. But if they don't know why they believe in something, right? It's easy for them to get taken to many jobs. So Claire's one of them who's always researched her beliefs, and she has a stance for, you know, why she believes something. And I love to hear that, right? Because to me, that's my child evolving right in front of my eyes into an adult.

And I truly enjoy the conversation. So whatever it was, again, I'm sorry for whatever I said to the clerk. No, it's OK because it brought me to where I am now. Like at the time, it felt really tumultuous. But now I'm in the crew of Bridge Building, which I might not have been, had that conversation not happened, honestly. Yeah, speaking of bridge building, Claire, you're now part of bridge USA.

The student movement that aims to bring people of different points of view together, we should point that out. Yeah, I was just going to add, I do remember at the end of a lot of hard conversation we had, you're saying, well, I'm glad at least you can think for yourself. And at the time it didn't feel like much of the solace right in the heat of the moment, but after I could go back to those words and be like, okay, you respect that we're having our own beliefs and that's something that's really important. Claire, I'm still thinking about something you said when we first met you in a previous podcast we did with you, in which you said that for your dad's generation you thought that political debates were a fun intellectual exercise, but you said in my generation it's

more attached to morality. That really struck me. Yeah, for me growing up the beliefs that were instilled in me through social media and through my peer group was that how you feel about immigration and abortion and gun safety, these are all issues that tell about how you treat other human beings. And so when you're growing up in a generation that is Gen Z is predominantly more on the left and more liberal, it's very easy to slip into people

who don't agree with me or bad people. They don't treat other people equally. And I think when you reduce it and over simplify it that much, you're losing a lot of nuance and a lot of interest in meeting other people with different ideas and experiences that led them to where they are. I just listened to that podcast too and I did you say that too. And that was actually kind of a surprise to me because I don't equate our

political conversations to it being moral. And yes, I'll say it's more of an intellectual exercise. I'll say for people of my generation, you know older people, then it is being attached to our feelings. Now know if that's our generation or just my way of thinking about it. Just because again, my personal belief is going to be if you have to make a set of laws, rules, regulations for the common good of the 300-some million people there in the United States, creating those based on feelings makes it very subjective to whose feelings are you're reading that against, you know. Given what both of you have told us, what's your advice to other families,

some of whom are torn apart by political and other differences? We have Thanksgiving coming up, any ideas? I would say Monica Goosman makes this great analogy to when conversations get heated, like as if they're on a stove. Sometimes it's cooking up new understanding and sometimes that heat is actually burning our relationship and you can tell the difference. And if something's burning then you need to step away in that moment and make sure you're setting boundaries. So if you're not ready to have a conversation at the time, then I think it's on someone to say, hey, can we come back to this another time? So I think boundaries are important, but if you're

interested in having conversations, I think that's always a good direction to go. I know a lot of people who have cut off family members, frankly, because they felt that their political beliefs were immoral. And I think there's a little bit of a narrative that you have chosen family, you have a community. And I'll say that may work for some people, but I don't think community can replace family in the way that some people say that it can. I wouldn't burn a bridge to your family because you think you can just choose the people you want to surround yourself with and that it will be equal. Just for our listeners Monica Guzman is the author of the book. I never thought of it that way. She's one of the leading voices in the bridging

space. She works with Braver Angels in trying to bring people of different political viewpoints together. Also a former guest on this podcast. Exactly. Brian, what do you think? If you care about your family, first off, if you know what the trigger points are and political conversation can be a very big one, don't bring it up. Number one, if you can't separate the animosity out of it. But the other thing is, is why not listen? You know, let the other person talk. Let them be heard. Even if you don't think it's going to sway you in any way, shape or form, and also having the knowledge that what you might say isn't going to sway the other person, you can still have a rational discourse about it, and at least talk about what they're hearing, because

it may not be something that you're hearing if you're isolated to just one new source, one information stream, and in order to be able to get the whole picture, you got to listen to both sides. You know, you got to hear the arguments and the discussion of what both sides want to bring to it, because the vast majority of the time, right, it's going to be skewed to what their click-able-ears are and what your click-able-ears are. And then the actual reality is going to be somewhere down the middle, and you got to be able to see that middle ground. you got to be able to see that middle ground.

You got to see the reality of it. It's just especially if it's your children, what way you're going to get to your children? I mean, you know, I love your children. You want them to be part of your life and you know, be part of their life. And, you know, the only thing that I have to hope for is my, you know, both my children are getting older. Is that me and mom can still be a part of their lives as they get older and have families of their own.

We still want to be there for that, you know, that the worst thing that we can have is to not be able to see and spend any time with our own kids. So I'm just like, why do that, that wedge happen? As the parent, I'm, hopefully, I'm not gonna let that happen. Are you looking forward to a good family Thanksgiving? Oh, I am. I love our family things.

Eat too much and watch them football and have some good conversations. I'm for sure looking for a good family Thanksgiving. I love the food and the dog show. That's my favorite. Will there be any conversations that are off limits for you guys? I don't think so. I mean this again it's pretty open conversations we can have in the house so I'm not thinking of anything that would be off limits. Claire? I think it's up to each person with their limits are but I think we've worked through a lot of hard issues so at this point I feel like uncomfortable like anything's on the table.

You've been listening to Brian and Claire Ashcraft on Let's Find Common Ground. I'm Ashley. I'm Richard. Claire and Brian certainly seem like they're in pretty good shape for a relaxing Thanksgiving, but if you're worried about getting into it with a friend or relative at the dinner table, Common Ground Committee has a gift for you. If you go to our homepage, you'll find a link to our essential guide to civil

political conversations, how to bring down the temperature, set aside personal biases, and seek agreement, among other things. You'll find that link at commongroundcommittee.org. Now, as promised, Tanya Israel is back on our podcast. We first spoke with her a couple of years ago. She's a psychologist and the author of the book Beyond Your Bubble, how to connect across the political divide, skills, and strategies for conversations that work. Kind of sums it up, doesn't it? Ashley asked Tanya the first question. So Tanya, we're going into the holidays. A lot of people are going to be nervous and

possibly stealing themselves for some testy exchanges, any words of advice. The holidays are such a challenging time in this context of political conflict, and so I know people have some anxiety going into this time period. And so the first thing that I would say is to be aware of that coming up and to try to figure out if there are ways to adjust that before you go in to the situation itself. So the first thing is that often our ideas about people who disagree with us politically are misconstrued. We have these cognitive biases that cause us to see people on the other side of politics as being more extreme than they actually are being uninformed or misinformed, being morally

bankrupt. There are all these things that we believe about other people based in part on what we see in the media and social media, but partially on our own minds. And so if we can know that going in and have a more open mind to the people who are going to be dealing with, then that's a really good place to start. You mentioned the role played by both the news media and social media. So much of what we read in here is divisive and often stokes the flames of our political division.

It also reinforces the idea that those you disagree with are not good people. Yeah. And actual human beings are more complex than what we are being exposed to in media and social media. And so if we're going in with a feeling of open-heartedness and curiosity to really find out who are these other people and can I find out something more about where they're coming from that might be different from or at least more multi-dimensional than what I'm seeing in the media. And one of the better ways to do that is to try to have someone on one conversation with

people because in a group context, we just don't do as well connecting and really being focused on that relationship and understanding, because sometimes it gets to be a little bit too performative. Yeah, that's a really good point, because shouting across the table, you know, that's what often ends up happening, I think. This idea of taking somebody aside, is it work. If you're willing to do the work to really shut up and listen, I think we use that phrase in our last podcast with you that you, the person with the preconceptions, has to zip it and actually listen to the other person talking about where they're coming from. Yeah. So it's something we can even do in preparation

for the holidays. We could reach out individually to some folks who we want to have that kind of conversation with and say, you know, I know the holidays are coming up and I'm going to see you and things haven't always gone so smoothly in our discussions about politics before. But I'm interested in hearing more about where you're coming from and our connection's so important to me. And I think communicating that to somebody, well, you know, and then you actually have to do it. Then you have to actually be interested

in where they're coming from. And that listening part is so important. And so giving somebody uninterrupted time to speak and then after they've spoken, reflecting back to them what you've heard and encouraging them to save and more, before you even go anywhere near sharing your own views, that's going to be the best way to really create a stronger and warmer connection. Tanya, you're speaking to the good side of me, which is saying to myself, be reasonable, be kind, listen, don't

put your views forward too fiercely. But there's another side of me, and I'm thinking of one person I'd love dearly in particular, that just wants to put them right. They have this crazy view of the way the world is and I can't wait to be with them thanksgiving and say you know what you were saying the last time about this it's you're wrong. I am the angel on your shoulder. So the thing that I always come back to is what are your goals? What is it that you're trying to get out of this conversation?

And reliably there are four things that people tell me their goals are for dialogue across political disagreement. One thing they say is there's somebody in my life who I want to maintain a good connection with and we're having trouble doing that because of politics. Some people say I want to persuade or convince somebody to see things the way I do. Some people say I want to heal the divide or find common ground. And some people say I simply cannot fathom

how people can think or act or vote as they do and that there's some curiosity there. So that part that you were just talking about with, I want to persuade or convince somebody, the thing is that by sharing stats and slogans and here's the latest study that I saw, that's actually not going to convince anybody to see things the way you do. So you're actually not even working toward the goals that you have set out for yourself. I think it's helpful to really think about what it is that you want to get out of it and then try to use the skills and the approach that's going to be helpful. I actually laid this all out in something that I call the flow chart that will resolve all political conflict in our country because I wanted to help people be more intentional about thinking about what are their goals and what are the different ways to get there. And there is even a Thanksgiving-themed placemat version of that that you can buy on Zazzle.

At Thanksgiving, we aren't just talking about those with opposing political views. People may see things differently because of their age. It came up with Claire Ashcraft and her dad. This is a young woman and her father we spoke to who were gonna be in the same show. And Claire had said to us, you know, for people my age, though early 20s, she said, you know, your politics and your beliefs

are kind of aligned with your morality. Whereas for my dad, you can have a good political debate and it's about politics. It doesn't speak to whether you're a good or bad person. That really struck me that there was this somewhat of a generational divide in how they thought about arguing about politics. If we're speaking from our own values, then it's not that the other person doesn't have any of those values, they're just not their top priority.

So the problem is that we kind of flip things around to think, for example, if somebody says, well, I'm pro-life because I value children. And then, you know, if you're not pro-life, you must not value children. We flip things around so that the meaning that it has for somebody else, it isn't really what that other person would embrace at all. Or somebody says, well, I support gun control because I care about children. So if you don't support gun control, you must not care about children. So that there's two things going on here. One thing is that we might have some differences in terms of our moral priorities.

And the other problem is that we tend to flip the meanings around for other people. So we assume that they are basically devoid of any of the positive morals that motivate ourselves. Tanya, how do you deal with people you love who believe in crazy conspiracy theories? That's tough, isn't it? That's tough, isn't it? I think it is, and most people are not extremists. And often we think that if somebody disagrees with us,

then they must believe all of the things on the most extreme of the other side. And so the first thing to do is recognize that we shouldn't treat everybody as if they're a conspiracy theorist because they may not be. But what if they are? If they are, then I still go back to, well, what's your goal? What are you trying to do here? And the best thing that you can do is to really try to have a connection that is warm and that promotes understanding.

I mean, don't you want to understand where they're coming from and how did they get there? I think that that's such an interesting question. If we don't do that especially and we just try to lay out there all of the reasons that the way they're seeing things is wrong, we're just not going to have any impact. Do you avoid the, if you know they in in your opinion, there are conspiracy theorists? Do you avoid the topic altogether or do you wait until they raise it and then you'd listen and encourage, as you've spoken about, to encourage them to sort of tell their story?

I think that people have to make their own decisions about whether or not they want to approach these conversations. I always say it's an opportunity, it's not a mandate to have dialogue across political lines. And so some of it has to do with, you know, am I even going to have a chance of achieving my goals? Honestly, when people are dealing with family members, there's also often a lot of baggage that comes along with that.

So it's not just about the political disagreement. There's a whole lifetime of history that's there. And so you have to decide, do I want to have any kind of conversation more conflictual than, you know, apple or pumpkin pie. So there's, there's a lot of choices to make about these conversations. And I think that it's really important to think about what is it that you're trying to get out of this conversation? Do you have the skills to do that and to really decide how you want to go about it then? In the case of a family member, someone we really love and care for, what should we be

trying to get out of that kind of conversation? Well, you might really want to understand them better. You might be curious about just where are they coming from and how did they get there and how is it that somebody I care so much about seems to be coming from a different place? You could also say, well, I wonder what I'm not being shown in the media because we all have this confirmation bias, where we're more likely to pay attention to things that confirm our perspective and to ignore things that don't.

So there's probably a lot that we're not seeing. Speaking of pie, we're probably only seeing a small slice of the pie. And so we might say, oh, like, what are you looking at? What are you hearing? I'm curious about what are your sources, and rather than just jumping into challenging them, be interested in, oh, okay, well, I'm curious to know more about that. And tell me about how is that making sense to you? Because it doesn't quite sit with me, but it seems to really be a good fit for you.

And sometimes, really why it fits for somebody has to do with particular things that they care about or particular perspectives that they already had before they saw that. So, it's not even something that you're going to change their minds about. Do you have a story or an anecdote from your research or maybe from a friend about how the strategies you suggest worked out? Because I'd love to hear an example. Sure, well, it's not a holiday dinner, but it is a family situation that a friend of mine,

she had a family member who was dying and needed help. And this was during the pandemic, you know, it wasn't from COVID, but she wanted to go and help to take care of him, but they had very different political views. And she was really, you know, concerned about kind of going and being with him and was, was she going to be able to tolerate that? And she really was able to be with him during, you know, his end of life and take care of him and see the news on that, you know, he wanted to have the news on that was that just was completely a poor contour, but she cared about him and was able to really focus on that.

And also his friends who would come around, they also had very different political views in her own, but they were working together in support of him. Why do you feel so passionately about this stuff? Back in the 1990s, I started a group to bring together pro-choice and pro-life people to have dialogue with each other. And I had been working in a clinic that did abortions and there were protesters and it was very conflictual and I was so angry because I felt like they weren't helping the women who I was trying to help. And I was really in this angry state for years and I got tired of it. And so is there something else I can try?

So I had heard about this group in St. Louis that was doing these dialogues that they were calling common ground. So I started a group like that where I was living at the time and I reached out to the person who headed up the pro-life pregnancy center and we did it in collaboration and brought in the people on our sides and people who really wanted to try a different approach who were tired of what we had been doing. And it was an absolutely transformational experience for me. It didn't change anything about how I felt about reproductive rights, but it changed so much about how I felt about people who disagreed with me on it. I could really see them in greater complexity. It humanized them for me. And I was like, if we can do this, we can do anything.

That's such a heated issue. And so, after the 2016 election, it was so clear to me that we were having trouble connecting across the divide. And in the years since then, it's clear that we are still in such distress about it. And that distress is not only hurting our connections with other people, it's hurting our health, and frankly, it's hurting our democracy. And if there's anything that I want to do,

it's to strengthen our connections with other people, our ability to tolerate and even embrace disagreement, because that's what we need for a healthy democracy and I'm really committed to that more than anything else. Tony Israel, thanks very much for joining us son. Let's find Colond Grant. Thank you so much it's been the late fall to be here. Tony's book on bridging divides is called Beyond Your Bubble. We make this show for Common Ground Committee and we couldn't do it without the support of our team.

Bruce Bond, Eric Olson, Donovan Slokki, Mary Anglade, Isabella Moore, Brittany Chapman, and our producer Miranda Schaefer. And we wish all of our team and you dear listener listener, a convivial, conflict-free Thanksgiving. I'm Richard Davies. I'm Ashley Melntite. Thanks for listening. This podcast is part of the Democracy Group. on ChrissyCrooke.