Let's Find Common Ground - Year-End Show: Conflict, Patriotism and Creative Ways to Find Common Ground

Episode Date: December 21, 2023

Our final podcast for 2023 is the one-hundredth episode of “Let’s Find Common Ground”. We look back and include special moments from six shows during the year. Americans disagree on many things, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Journalist and author Amanda Ripley explains why, all too often, we see conflicts that are more about scoring points than seeking resolution. Rachel Kleinfeld of the Carnegie Endowment, who studies democracy and conflict, discusses whether America’s divides could be spinning out of control. Author and Washington Post columnist Ted Johnson examines race and patriotism in creative, thoughtful ways. In this episode, we also share several extraordinary moments in our conversation with two women on opposite sides of the abortion debate, and how they gained respect and understanding for each other without compromising their views on one of the most contentious issues of our time. Two faith leaders joined us to discuss religion's role in finding common ground. And acclaimed television journalist Judy Woodruff of the PBS NewsHour gives us a vivid example of how Washington DC is much more divided than it once was.

This is our year end show. And it's also our 100th episode. So we're going to look back and share some of the most moving moments of 2023, including stories about conflict and creative ways to engage with passionate disagreements. As well as race, faith and friendship. This is Let's Find Common Ground. I'm Richard Davies. And I'm Ashley Melntite. We begin with conflict.

Amanda Ripley is a journalist and author of the book High Conflict, why we get trapped and how we get out. She said it's not that we have too much conflict in our society, it's that we get sucked in to the wrong type of conflict. I feel like having spent a few years now following people who've been immersed in conflict, who study conflict, who themselves have been stuck in conflict, I am increasingly convinced that the problem is not conflict, that we need conflict. We probably need more conflict. But the kind of conflict really matters.

So the kind of conflict we've been stuck in tends to be conflict for conflict sake. It's counterproductive, it poisons relationships, it shuts down useful friction. So the kind of conflict really matters. I like to think of it as roughly two kinds of conflict, right? One is high conflict, which is sometimes called malignant conflict. And the other is what I like to call good conflict, which is basically the kind of conflict that makes us stronger, where we can challenge each other and be challenged, and that's the kind I think we need more of. And at the national level, what does good conflict look like? We've seen, we also, even now, we see a ton of good conflict. An example that I recently wrote about in the post is about a committee in Congress

called the Select Committee on Modernization, which was able to get 202 bipartisan recommendations passed despite being evenly divided, six Republican, six Democrats. So they were really on the face of it set up to fail. If you were placing bets, you would not have bet on them because they required a super majority of two-thirds of their members to get anything done. And they did disagree on a lot of things. So they were able to do that and they were able to push each other and they were able to ask questions of the witnesses and each other and they were able to ask questions of the witnesses and each other and kind of hear the answers.

Neither side got everything they wanted, but the end result was something that could actually endure. So that's an example of good conflict. But America is struggling with angry arguments over both identity and culture. To many, this kind of conflict is a lot less constructive than, say, policy disagreements.

Amanda told us these battles could reach a new level of intensity during the 2024 presidential campaign. The problem with polarization is that you're very vulnerable to being manipulated. But when a country is very polarized and there's a lot of anxiety, part of which has been ginned up on purpose and part of which is real, based on real threats and uncertainty,

then you're really vulnerable to conflict entrepreneurs and other forces that are benefiting from the conflict in different ways. You mentioned the phrase conflict entrepreneurs. What do you mean by that? Are these people who profit out of juicing up our conflicts, who make money out of it or fame or get political power? Yeah, so conflict entrepreneurs are people

or platforms or companies who exploit conflict for their own ends. So sometimes it's for the reasons you mentioned, like profit and power. Just as often I've found it's for more subtle forms of power, like a sense of being important, getting people's attention, feeling like you matter. All of those things are very powerful, we know, in a way that we didn't, you know, 50 years ago. But the research shows that the need to belong, the need to feel like you have influence are very strong drivers of human behavior. And we've now created a bunch of institutions, including social media, in order to raise up and amplify and celebrate conflict entrepreneurs. Amanda Ripley.

Back in the mid-1990s, two female employees were shot to death at two Boston area abortion clinics. In the wake of the murders, a group of women on opposite sides of the abortion debate began meeting secretly with the idea of changing the rhetoric around this incredibly divisive issue. Two of those women were Fran Hogan, a lawyer whose pro-life, and Reverend Anne Fowler, whose pro-choice. We first asked Anne Fowler, what she scared at the idea of meeting with the other side. I was not scared. I felt obligated and called as part of my ministry to participate. Honestly, as I think back about what what my reaction was and what my

mood was going into the first meeting, I was more irritation than anything else. Why do we have to keep doing this? I was not scared physically. I was scared that people might think that I was caving on my position on the issue. And I was afraid that that would hurt my movement, my side of the movement so to speak. And that's part of the reason that at least I think among pro-life is we wanted this to be completely confidential. We didn't know what damage it might do to people on the front lines. So I wasn't physically scared, but I was nervous about the impact this might have.

Friend and Anne, did you have preconceptions about the other side. And if you did, could you tell us what they were as opposed to how you feel now? I didn't expect them to be smart, you know? And they turned out to be really smart, which which was just added to my irritation. I'll think because we were well matched. I think I probably did have some preconceived notions. Nikki Nichols' gamble, whom I like very much, was really an icon of the pro-choice movement, I think really known throughout the country for her leadership. Gamble was the president of Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts at the time.

And before I met her, I didn't like her because of the position she had. I did not know Ian before we met. I was not familiar with Ian at all. We had appeared on many different interview shows, or different events where they would have people from one side and the other side, but we really never clicked together. We sort of knew each other, but didn't really talk to each other. It was that kind of a relationship. As opposed to today, where we very much enjoy the few times we have to get together and to share a meal and to share updates on family and so forth. It's a relationship now it never was before.

In 2001, the six women published an opinion piece in the Boston Globe called Talking with the Enemy. We wanted to, by that point, after several years of meetings, they describe themselves as friends rather than enemies. Fran Hogan, the pro-lifer, answered first. I would. Would you mean? Oh, well, depends what you mean by friends. I think we were friendly

acquaintances, fairly close acquaintances. There are some elements of real friendship that I have to say for myself we're lacking. But I think most important, we learned to trust one another. And to this day, I would trust my life to anyone of the women. I felt like we had each other's backs. We were respectful of each other's position in a lot of ways. We were respectful of each other and we certainly became very fond of each other. We had a lot of laughs and we went through a lot of different people's life experiences, death of spouses, death of siblings, birth birth of grandchildren and those experiences forge deep relationships.

Anne Fowler with Fran Hogan. Speaking of relationships, last spring we talked to two religious leaders about the joys and challenges of friendships, especially with those who think differently than we do. Father Tim Haleedo leads St. Thomas More Co-Cathedral, a Catholic congregation. Latushia's Scriven is pastor of St. Paul's United Methodist Church, both are in Tallahassee, Florida, and their friends. We began by asking Latushia's Scriven why friendships are important to her. First, I'm a people person, so I like people.

And also, friendships are important because friendships are life-giving. Friendships are like breathing. Friendships give me the ability to see and be seen, to grow, and especially with people that are different or have different perspectives. I get to grow and especially with people that are different or have different perspectives, I get to grow, right? We get to grow together.

I think of the phrase, I am because we are because we are. Therefore, I am that my reason, my existence depends on other people and other people and creation, right? Depends on my existence. And so that's why it's important. It's life. It's life. Father Chen.

I think part of the human condition is a need for relationship and both licicion and our Christians. So our faith teaches a Star like in Genesis. It says it's not good that man be alone. And so he creates a suitable partner for him. So, it gets important for me, is I need it. I'm a social person. I'm not happy totally by myself.

I need friends in my life. I need my parishioners. I need the Lord. Ultimately, for me, having communion with God in prayer is extremely important for me. And then people who disagreed make, I'm fascinated by the other. I'm fascinated disagreed make, I'm fascinated by the other, I'm fascinated by my friends,

I'm fascinated by humans. As the church has said to, she loves people. I do love people, they drive me crazy at times, but I'm sure I drive plenty of people crazy at times, but I'm very fascinated, especially when someone doesn't see things the way I do.

I have friends that are atheist, for example. I'm very fascinated, how do you arrive at this conclusion? I want to know about it. And they're fascinated by me. Why is it you're a Christian? Why did you become a priest? And there's something I think really beautiful there for all of us. Well talking about seeing things differently, Father Tim, our show is Let's Find Common Ground, and we often talk about politics. But do you think that many conversations today focus too often around divisive topics such as politics,

religion or money? It might not be the frequency of the conversations is the issue but maybe the level of importance that's been given to them. I live here in Tallahassee and we have a city, we have a commission, a county commission, we have a mayor, there's a sheriff, like there's local officials here, and what's amazing is that I think if we're going to be super interested in politics and in our community, that's what we what we should really be focused on is these things actually affect us in a real way every day. But it says it sends to be the conversation, it sends to be what's brought to us by the national media and what we're told is important or whatever. It's like an amazing thing, like how sad or how happy people are based on some of these national elections,

where if I recount to you my entire day yesterday, which was pretty long and beautiful, not once did the current occupant of the White House, or Speaker of the House, or the Congress, or whatever party, like none of that affected my day yesterday. So, why are we always talking about that? And why does that become my identity? And why is that so important that it can determine

friendships and relationships for how I see the world? Let's try to show how do you feel about that? I think on a large level, yes. And no. So let me tell you, we have a need for belonging and love. And I think that in our disfunctions, we find deep belonging along lines that become divisive and in ways that we sometimes don't know how to come out of. So we find deep belonging around, I'm a Democrat, I'm a Republican, I'm an independent, I'm this or I'm that, and because our identity

and belongingness is so steeped in those terms and in those boxes, I think that people begin to talk about it because that's what they have. And we know that media has to sell things, right? Ratings have to happen. And so the more we talk about things that divide, the more that happens and we tend to follow the leader that's not great. But at our deepest level, I really do believe that people on a quest for belonging, fine belonging in silos and we have not learned how and sometimes have not exhibited the emotional capacity to go beyond the small groups to embrace otherness and to

belong to an even larger humanity. Latisha Scriven with Father Tim Holiida. Thank you again to Liz Joyner and the Village Square in Tallahassee for help with arranging that interview. We've had a great deal of help from others both inside Common Ground Committee and beyond in the bridging community to bring you stories about Americans who are working with and not against each other.

And much more to come in 2024. This is Let's Find Common Ground. I'm Richard.. I'm Richard. And I'm Ashley. To mark our 100th episode, we're seeking 100 donors. Please give us a donation of as little as $1 at one time or a ten dollar contribution to cover ten months. That's not much to ask Richard. But we have thousands of listeners and if they give us just a little bit each, we can

boost the number of shows we produce in the coming year. And let many more people know about our contribution to finding common ground. You can text a donate, tap in the numbers 5-3, 5-5-5 on your smartphone and type the letters CGC into the message. CGC is for common ground committee who make these shows. Text a donate at 5-3-5-5-5 and then CGC. We're aiming for a hundred donors for our 100th podcast. Next, we look at threats to American democracy and whether polarization is spinning out of control. Threats of violence against politicians and also those who count the votes during elections are up. Former British government minister Rory Stewart was a guest on our show a few months ago. He said that it looks like America could be heading towards a civil war.

So he asked Rachel Kleinfeld about that. She studied the threat of violence and is a fellow at the Democracy Conflict and Governance Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The Americans are extraordinarily polarized, we're heavily armed, we have more guns in private hands than all of the world's militaries combined. And we're seeing extreme levels of targeted violence. Threats against members of Congress are up about 10 fold since 2016. Local officials are being threatened.

So, I can see why someone would think we're on the brink. I don't think we are because civil wars, at least the kind with one group facing off against another group, they depend a lot on the nature of a government. If a government is still pretty strong and pretty democratic as the US is, and law enforcement military remain professional, you just don't see civil wars. But that doesn't mean what we face is pretty. I think what we face is a lot like what we saw in America in the early 70s or Germany in the early 1930s, a lot of violence, a lot of anti-social behavior, some clearly political and some criminal, and

it can become civil war if groups that are trying to weaken our government and infiltrate police and militaries succeed in weakening and deprofessionalizing those institutions. You write about effective polarization. Can you talk about what you mean by that and is there another kind as well? Sure, it's a pretty wonky word. Effective just means emotional and so what we see in the data is some people think of polarization is based on policies.

Do you agree or disagree on abortion or gun rights or women's place outside the home? And in fact on those issues and a lot of other really hot button issues, Americans have a lot of agreement. Our political leaders don't. Our political leaders are very ideologically polarized. But regular Americans share a lot in common, even though they often rate them at different levels of intensity. Democrats care a lot more about gun control than Republicans do.

Affective polarization is emotional. Do you just hate the other side, regardless of what they think, or maybe because of what you think they think, which might be erroneous? And we're very high in America on affective polarization, and part because people really misunderstand the other side. Boy, that's really helpful to me,

that definition of affective polarization, which I see bandied around a lot in writings and on podcasts like this one, that it's really just emotional polarization, that it's how maybe how mad you are at the other side, right? That's right. And that anger can be based on policy beliefs, but what we find is that actually Americans vastly misunderstand what the other side believes. In recent years, the group that we do podcasts for, Common Ground Committee, have sponsored a number of public events that have brought together thought leaders, journalists, elected officials from different points of view, for conversations across difference.

How do these kinds of things help? What kind of difference can leaders make, people who form opinions about public issues by speaking across difference? I'm thrilled to hear you're doing that because there's really good evidence that the best thing leaders can do is call out their own side for breaking democratic rules of the road.

So bridging difference is useful and talking to the other side is useful, especially if they're talking in ways that normalize being kind or being just plain democratic. The kind of thing that John McCain did in the question and answer session when he was running for president. And one of the questioners said, you know, isn't Barack Obama, Muslim, and so on. And McCain said, no, he's Christian, and here's, you know, his background. That sort of normalization of pro-democratic action by leaders really matters. But the best thing they can do is call out their own side for breaking the democratic rules of the road, just as Biden just did, separating Democrats from the far left rallies that were happening over the course of the last week about Israel and

Palestine, or Mitt Romney's done, calling out fellow Republicans for supporting extremism. That sort of moderation within one's own side matters just as much, if not more, than simply bridging difference. But in general, it's hard to overstate how important politicians are to upholding norms and how important elites are. Rachel Kleinfeld, on why dignified and respectful behavior by our leaders, can have a lasting impact on public opinion and reducing our bitter political divides. In May, with the approach of Memorial Day, we did a podcast on different ways of viewing patriotism.

Our guest was retired naval officer and Washington Post newspaper columnist, Ted Johnson. He's given a lot of thought to how Americans can take pride in a country with a history of inequality and injustice. Ashley, you asked him, what does it mean to be a patriot? This is a contested question. And I would suggest that most Americans don't agree on the answer. For me, being a patriot means to be proud of your country,

to fulfill all your obligations and responsibilities as a citizen to the country, and to demand that the privileges and rights of citizenship that the state is to extend to its people, that it is extended to you, and if it's extended to you and not others, that you compel the state to extend it to them just as they have to you and to point out where the nation has fallen short and insist on

addressing those shortfalls. So being a patriot is not about uncritical celebration. It's not about talking about only how exceptional we are, only how great the country is being an actual true patriot requires that you love the nation and that you critique it so that it will be a better version of itself. You say you cannot love America and avoid the topic of race. Why is thinking about race fundamental to thinking about what it is to be an American? to thinking about what it is to be an American. Yeah, so nothing has challenged this nation. It's history, our future, our ability to function well, like race.

And so if this is the place you love and the principles of equality, injustice, and liberty, freedom are things you say you hold dear, and you avoid completely the topic of race, then your love is skin deep. It's superficial because you're not grappling with the most challenging thing that the thing you say you love has yet to reconcile has yet to solve. So loving the country means requiring that it confront the demons of race from our history and the way those things play out today. Talking about race can be painful, it can be difficult.

So how do we talk about race and reckoning in ways that could make us feel better rather than being angry or resentful? I think if there's one thing that we can all do, it's to reframe the conversation from being an interpersonal issue into being a sort of systemic or structural issue. When it's interpersonal, that means us three on this call right now need to figure out

how to fix racism in America. And as smart as we are, it's not going to happen. We're not going to be able to figure out. And if you in America. And as smart as we are, it's not gonna happen. We're not gonna be able to figure out. And if you take us out of this call and put us with our groups, with however we determined to decide what those groups are and say, okay, hey you groups, go sit together and hash it out, figure out racism.

It's not going to happen, it's gonna feel very zero-sum. And so what I would suggest is that instead of making racism an interpersonal issue, an intergroup issue, we make it an issue between the nation state and its public. And so when we reframe racism as a shortcoming of the way our country operates, now we can all come together because I want you to live in safe neighborhoods just like I want to. I want your kids to go to good schools just like I want to. I want you to be paid a fair wage just like I want to. I want your kids to go to good schools just like I want to. I want you to be paid a fair wage

Just like I want to. I want you to be able to accumulate wealth, realize the American dream and I know that we have enough in this nation for all of us to be successful and so the reframing of the debate to be something between the state and its people, which is what the Constitution is, which is what you know Our founding documents are about the relationship between government and its people. Instead of an issue between groups of people, I think that helps take some of the animus out of the personal relationships and allows us to refocus our energies on making a better and more responsive, more efficient government. Ted Johnson on reframing how we think about patriotism. His research for New America Foundation explores the role that race plays in politics and its

influence on American identity. You know, we've done a lot of interesting interviews for Let's Find Common Ground throughout the year and it was kind of hard to pick six. You can hear them all for free at commongroundcommity.org or subscribe to Let's Find Common Ground wherever you listen to podcasts. One of the most memorable moments from our podcast year was when we asked Judy Woodruff to give us an example of how Washington DC politics have changed in recent years. Judy was the perfect person to ask. She's been covering national politics for more than 50 years. She moved to Washington, DC back in 1977 and has been there ever since, reporting for NBC,

CNN, and then public television, most recently spending 11 years as anchor of the PBS News Hour. most recently spending 11 years as anchor of the PBS news hour. You've said that years ago, you and your husband used to attend Washington DC dinner parties where there would be Republican and Democratic politicians, everyone got on, and that's almost unimaginable today. What did you talk about at those parties? You know, I barely remember because it was a long time ago. I'm sure what did you talk about at those parties?

You know, I barely remember because it was a long time ago. I just know that we would have a good time and it wasn't just the parties we attended. We would invite people over. We would have members of Congress or people who worked on the Hill or worked in an administration. And there would always be a mix of Republicans and Democrats. And we would talk about legislation. I mean, this is a very wonky kind of place, Washington, DC. We love it because we sort of swim and all this stuff.

So I remember there was a dinner where Dan Rostyn Kowski, who was the chair then of the House Ways and Means Committee, was there. And there were several Republicans in the group and they had a very vigorous argument voices were raised over the minutiae of tax legislation, but they still had a good time. Everybody was having a great conversation. Yes, a little wine was enjoyed, but today you just don't see that. You're very, very careful when you invite an R and a D to the same event.

Judy in our last episode before this one with you, we spoke with Ted Johnson. As you did on your series America at a crossroads, Ted is African-American and military vet, and with us he sounded somewhat hopeful about patriotism and the ability of the military at least to bring people together. What did you learn from him about our racial conversation in America? Well, I learned a lot from him, and I'm so glad that you all spoke with him as well. You know, race has been at the center of America's ideals from the very beginning, whether it was talked about or not.

And he went through with us in a much more eloquent way that I'm sharing right now, how he sees that has happened, and how he thinks it's so important to keep talking about it, to be much more transparent than we are. Broadcast journalist Judy Woodruff. We spoke with her about her reporting project called America at a Crossroads. And that's our year end show on Let's Find Common Ground. Thank you to our podcast team at Common Ground Committee, Bruce Bond, Eric Olson, Mary Anglade, Donna Vislaki and Hannah Weston.

And thank you to all our donors. And if you want to become one, text to donate. The number is simply 53555 on your smartphone and then the letters CGC. I'm Richard Davies. I'm Ashley Mel Tite. Happy Holidays. And thanks for listening. This podcast is part of the Democracy Group.