Tangle - How we bring America together

Episode Date: February 26, 2021

On today's podcast, we sit down with Ciaran O'Connor, the Chief Marketing Officer of Braver Angels. Braver Angels is an organization that is seeking to depolarize America by getting people with different political views to speak with each other. O'Connor, a former Obama campaign staffer and self-proclaimed liberal, joined the group after Trump's victory in 2016 to seek out a new path in politics. In this episode, we talk about the monumental task of bridging the partisan divide, opine on whether the country is actually divided, and chat about how to have difficult political conversations.You can follow Ciaran on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/ciaranjoconnorYou can read more about Braver Angels here: https://braverangels.org/You can subscribe to the Tangle newsletter here: https://www.readtangle.com/about--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca.

From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening to my Tangle listeners, and welcome to the Tangle podcast, Good afternoon and good evening to my Tangle listeners and welcome to the Tangle podcast, a place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some reasonable debate and independent thinking without a lot of the hysterical nonsense you find everywhere else. I am your host, Isaac Saul, the founder of the Tangle newsletter, which you can find at readtangle.com, by the way, if you're not subscribed, go do that. And we today are joined by a guest I've been very excited to speak to for a long time. He's a man after my own heart, fighting many of the same battles we're fighting on the

Tangle team, all the bickering and partisanship out there. He's on the ground floor, really on ground zero in a lot of ways. Kieran O'Connor from the organization Braver Angels. Kieran, thank you so much for coming on to chat with us today. Thank you, Isaac. It's great to be with you. And I share the same sentiments. I've been reading your newsletter for the past few months, and I've been really impressed

and thrilled with what you're doing because I think you're bringing a fresh and original and compassionate voice, but one that's not afraid to go through the toughest issues, which is the same approach we take at Braver Angels and is ultimately, I think, the approach we need if we're going to really bridge some of these divides. It means a lot to me, especially coming from you. So that's a good place to start is about Braver Angels. I mean, I read your guys' newsletter and I've checked out the website and sort of the impression that I have, you know, I think of Tangle as being in this space where I'm arming people with information to make some decisions and have some tough conversations and get a general background on an issue if they want to go deeper on it with a holistic set of views behind them. And it seems to me like the work you guys are doing is sort of the step that comes after that in some ways, which is facilitating a lot of these really difficult

conversations across the political spectrum. Does that sound right to you? I mean, I'd love to hear how you describe Braver Angels and the work you do and also how you ended up there. Sure. I think that's a good description. I think fundamentally the work of Braver Angels is about experiences and what underlines experiences is relationship. That's how we experience one another as humans, and that's how we experience the world. We're social creatures, we're tribal creatures, we crave and depend on connection to survive and thrive. And that basic need has been scrambled and distorted by political polarization, and distorted by political polarization, social demonization, and the near complete disintegration of social trust in this country. And as you mentioned, Braver Angels tries to start at the

ground floor and bring people together through exposure. Exposure breeds tolerance. Tolerance breeds trust. Trust breeds working together. That's kind of the model. But fundamentally, we bring people together through action, through doing, through listening, learning, and expressing. That being said, we also are trying to model a more constructive form of media, but that's almost like the air cover to our ground game, so to speak. Got it. I'm very curious to hear, I mean, on a personal level, how did you end up there? I mean, I talk a lot in Tangle about why and how I came to doing this project. But I'm really interested to hear about how you ended up at Braver Angels and why you're there.

Sure. Well, I appreciate you asking because I think those are the questions that are most important. It's the power of stories that enable us to connect with one another. And that's another thing we stress at Brave Angels is how can we connect over our lived experiences and our basic humanity and stories that allow us to

see the humanity in one another. My story is one of somebody who grew up in New York City, born and raised in Manhattan, born to two journalists, both of whom are also from New York City, lean pretty left in terms of their politics. I grew up, went to public school in New York City, was someone who always prided himself on being able to speak different languages, not different actual languages, although I do speak a bit of French, but being able to connect with all sorts of different people. I prided myself as being someone who took the subway to school every day, literally living and breathing and eating with folks from all over the world, people from different backgrounds and all walks of life.

And yet, New York City is a very blue place. I didn't really think of it as such. I knew New York was liberal and cosmopolitan, but that was the era in which I breathed. I didn't really conceive of political and viewpoint diversity in the way that I do now as part of a larger tapestry. I saw it as something separate. And I got involved in democratic politics. After high school, I was inspired by Barack Obama, as I think many people in my generation were. I'd been very opposed to George W. Bush, the war in Iraq, the polarization that we were already seeing. And I always laid it at the feet of Republicans. I just couldn't understand,

like, how could somebody be Republican? Like, how could somebody be so wrong? I don't get it. It was alien to me. And I wanted to help. I was inspired by Obama's message of hope and change. And I wanted to help make that hope and change. So I worked on his campaign as a volunteer in 2008, and then as a staffer in 2012. And I worked in and around democratic politics for three years after that. And then I was on the Clinton campaign in 2016, sort of continuing the fight. It was always about the fight. And I still think in some ways, it's about the fight. Because elections have consequences, as we've seen, and I think we'll get into this. But the differences between the two political parties in the United States in terms of policy, in terms of, I would

argue, tone, and in some ways in terms of values are vast. And yet, there are deeper and more transcendent values that unite us that I've come to appreciate. But in 2016, I was very appreciate. But in 2016, I was very heads down on beating Donald Trump. And of course, we did not beat Donald Trump. So in terms of my political life, I knew both the thrill of victory and the anguish of defeat. And after 2016, I was devastated, shocked, and feeling a sense of dislocation, shocked, and feeling a sense of dislocation, like I was, that America was not the country that I thought it was. Part of me wanted to jump right back into the resistance and fight Trump and Trumpism with every cell in my body. But part of me also recognized that there was a deeper problem that had enabled Donald Trump to not only take over the Republican Party, but to win the election and to inspire the support and enthusiasm and diehard fanaticism that he did and continues to inspire. And that's when I heard about Braver Angels, then named Better Angels.

We take our name from the first inaugural address of Abraham Lincoln, in which he called on us to summon the better angels of our nature to hold the country together to embrace a higher partisanship, even though the country was on the brink of civil war. At that point, Better Angels was little more than an idea. It was a model for a workshop, a red-blue workshop that used family therapy, particularly couples therapy, to bring liberals and conservatives together, not to change their minds, but to build trust, to build understanding, to clarify disagreements, to start to reduce the stereotype thinking that we all do. And in so doing, then build together and explore common ground in good faith. And so I got involved in early 2017

and lent my skills and energy, some of which I've cultivated in my previous life as a Democratic campaign operative, to help the organization grow, to enter the media space, to drive communications, drive press. We did a bus tour in 10 states where we conducted workshops and planted the seeds for what would become then called Better Angels Alliances, local groups of liberals and conservatives who meet together and organize in the Braver Angels spirit. Basically, we changed our name in 2020 as part of an emphasis on courage and bravery, which we can talk about a bit later. But that's how I got involved. And it's been a wild ride, a powerful, at times challenging experience, but one that's broadened my perspective and also given me a bit of hope about what we might accomplish as Americans, even in the face of such incredibly

deep and frankly widening divisions. That's the spirit I brought to the work. And it's the spirit that we hope to carry forward as we end the pandemic and turn toward some of the additional pressing problems we have as a country, but also as a community and individual human beings that increasingly orient their identity around not just politics, but negative partisanship, and define themselves according to whom they're against. And as we know, that's a dangerous place to be in. It's a place that leads to violence. We've already seen it lead to violence in history, and also recently in the United States. And so I think that underlines the importance of our work and also the work that you're doing, Isaac, because so many people in our

workshops, the one thing they can agree on is that the media is dividing us. And so I'm curious to hear your thoughts about how can we depolarize the media? Well, it's interesting. I mean, I have a question first sort of related to your story and Braver Angels. Is the organization itself divided? You know, like your colleagues that you work with, do they come from a lot of different political backgrounds? They certainly do. In fact, that's core to our identity and our mission, that we are red-blue together. In fact, we call it the Braver Angels rule, which is that at every level of leadership, from the board of directors through staff and participants in programming that require equal balance, although not all of our programming does. To even our sources of funding, we try as much as possible to be

evenly split red-blue. Red meaning leans conservative, tends to vote Republican, and blue meaning the opposite. Although, of course, we recognize that not every American fits into those boxes. We do presuppose the polarity that undergirds our current binary system and seek to go through it rather than avoid it. And key to our efforts is a balanced reflection of the country. That being said, we have a lot of work to do when it comes to reflecting America. Our reds tend to be disproportionately never Trump Republicans. I think the vast majority of Republicans still support Trump. We want to get as many Trump supporters as possible. And then on the left, we want younger people. We want to get as many Trump supporters as possible. And then on the left, we want younger

people. We want people of color. We want people in the social justice community. So Reflect America, as we call it, is really a central focus of our work. And at the political level, which is where it starts, the red-blue balance, we're not where we want to be. But I think we're the only organization in the country that is both grassroots and largely bipartisan. I mean, you have organizations in Washington, like No Labels, which are bipartisan, but it's moderate elite Democrats and moderate elite Republicans who come together to find centrist compromise. We're not looking for centrism. We don't want people to feel like they need to moderate their positions or compromise their values or paper over the very real disagreements that we have, because that's oftentimes a fear folks have when they hear

this sort of work of, oh, you're just trying to paper over injustice or, oh, you're just trying to make me, you know, moderate myself and be a mushy moderate. And I can't do that because that's not who I am. And we say, no, you can be yourself, but you have to come in good faith. We encourage you to be passionate and vigorous and be an advocate and be a partisan. You can be a partisan. I'm a partisan. A lot of our folks are partisan. We're out there organizing for our candidates, but we also embrace the higher partisanship that Lincoln was talking about. What distinguishes us from a lot of other dialogue groups who, frankly, tend to lean very blue and whose programs inevitably involve many liberals talking to many liberals about depolarization. We go through conflict. We don't seek to avoid it. We don't bring people together to talk about how we're all the same. We attempt to accept, acknowledge, and honor our differences in the hope that ideally,

our differences can complete us and can complete one another and can ultimately help us achieve the pursuit of a more perfect union, which in its purest form, I do think can draw from both liberalism and conservatism. So I have, I guess, a brief response to the question you floated, and we'll tie that into my next question for you. And the response to what you asked about depolarizing the media, for me, is really about changing the incentive structure that we have. Because one of the things that's really critical to me about Tangle is that the newsletter is entirely subscriber supported. I think down the road, I'll probably seek out some sponsors for this podcast just to diversify my revenue stream. But the newsletter is always going to be subscriber

supported, which means that I don't need traffic in order to thrive. I don't need to appeal to a certain part of the political spectrum in order to get that traffic. I basically just have to fulfill the promise of what I say I'm going to offer, which is like a balanced view at what's happening across the political spectrum and what the views are on the story of the day. I think you look at the CNN or the Fox News or the Huffington Post or even places like the National Review, there's an incentive structure where they know what their audience loves. They know what their audience will tune in for. And it's often the things that elevate them emotionally. It's the things that anger them, scare them, make them want to pound their chest in victory. Those are the things that draw in a lot of the viewership. And I think by taking that away, it allows me to create better, more honest content that generally, and I hope regularly and consistently, sort of adheres to the pre-abolishment of the fairness doctrine type journalism, where I'm saying I'm explicitly going to give as much time and space as I can to conflicting views and views that aren't my own.

And I guess the question that I have related to that is, you know, you sort of alluded to this briefly about how you're operating inside these structures of right and left, of red and blue, that we're also simultaneously trying to take down. And I feel that every day when I write the newsletter, because I organize the format of the newsletter as what the right's saying, what the left's saying. And so there's something inherent in that, that is like, I am reinforcing the vision that I'm also trying to break. And I struggle with it a lot about how to operate. It's like, on the one hand, I want to do this newsletter and produce this newsletter in the, I guess,

in the format that makes the most sense to the common parlance of right and left and nonpartisan, whatever that means. So I'm meeting people's expectations. But I also know that by dividing it up that way, I'm still organizing the country into red and blue, which is sort of counteracts the mission that I'm doing at the same time. So my question for you is having all these conversations with people and facilitating these conversations, do you feel that the country is really divided? Do you feel that the country is really divided? Because I have been exposed to quite a few arguments on both sides of that. On the one hand, there's people who say the media and the politicians are dividing us. 70, 80% of Americans agree on so many issues and we're being trained to fight each other. And the other side of it is just look at the country. Of course, we're divided. Look at how we elect our leaders, the people who are being elected, how the news stations are so different.

And there are days when I wake up and I feel like, oh, my God, there's so much common ground. There's so much unifying our country. And there are days when I wake up and I think we are millions of light years apart from each other. Yeah. Well, I'm right there with you. It's a vexing challenge. I think our model generally takes partisanship as a given and tries to foster conversation across it. to foster conversation across it. But it's something I struggle with, too. Are we reinforcing the binary by constantly talking about the divide? I think the divide is real. And the divide is deep. I do think there are fundamental differences, not just in worldviews between liberals and conservatives, but sort of like basic moral foundations and the values and intuitions that guide those

foundations. And I'm not saying that in a prescriptive way, but a normative one. And I'm basing this on some of the work that has been compiled by Jonathan Haidt, who is a social psychologist at NYU. He also sits on the board of Braver Angels. He wrote a book called The Righteous Mind, which tried to dive into the issue of moral intuition. Because so much of our worldview, which informs our way of being in the world, and obviously how we I think ironically, the research shows that the smarter you are, the better you are at contorting yourself into thinking that you've come to a point of view through reason when in fact, it's often driven by moral intuition and emotion and then rationalized by our brain ex post facto. Jonathan Haidt calls it the elephant and the rider. The elephant is our emotions and the rider is our rationality. And so the rider might think they're in control and directing the elephant, but ultimately it's the elephant that is carrying forward the direction. And if the

element wants to go left, it really doesn't matter if the rider wants to go right. And again, this is an elephant, not a horse. And height has developed a hypothesis, which I think is compelling, but I don't think is like the end all be all where he says. Based on Charles Yu's award winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight.

Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages 6 months and older, and it may be available for free in your province.

Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca. You know, liberals tend to emphasize the values of, I think he calls it care and justice. it care and justice. So a deep sense of justice and kind of basic fairness and care for the least fortunate. And conservatives, they care about those things too, but they might not place as much of an emphasis on it. But they also care about other things like freedom and loyalty and sanctity is something sacred, which is not something Haidt argues that liberals care about as much. And so without going too deep into the weeds on this, although I'd suggest any listeners who are interested in this to check out his book, The Righteous Mind, because I found it really interesting.

in this to check out his book, The Righteous Mind, because I found it really interesting. I do think there are some fundamental divides between liberalism and conservatism as philosophies, but that's been so distorted and scrambled by our politics, which has become fundamentally tribal. And so in the tribalism we see, it's not really about like the merits of disagreements. Like on a lot of the major issues, you can find broad areas of agreement, even on something as polarizing as say abortion, where the pro-life position to its logical extreme is incompatible with the pro-choice position to its logical extreme. But in fact, the research shows that most Americans are somewhere in the middle. They support states' rights to protect the right to have an abortion in the first trimester of

pregnancy, but they also see a compelling interest in limiting abortion later on in pregnancy. And I think that is kind of where most Americans lie. Although, of course, I'm sure some pro-life people will tell me that I'm reading the polls wrong. Or if you look at economic stimulus or even issues of climate change, you can find broad consensus. issues of climate change, you can find broad consensus, but everything's become so tribalized that it pushes people into corners and it becomes identitarian. And so when your identity is oriented around ideology, that is whose orthodoxy is enforced by opposition, then the divisions deepen. And so I sort of think it's a both and

problem. And that's what we try to do at Braver Angels, because we don't bring people together to show, oh, we're not really that divided. Although oftentimes people do come away from our experiences saying, well, I don't think we're as divided as we thought. But we explore the disagreements. We clarify the disagreements. We make them less scary. We help people navigate their way out of the partisan haze that has enveloped so much of our waking hours. has enveloped so much of our waking hours.

The other part of this is like, you know, folks like me and you, but also millions of other Americans are just constantly talking and thinking and breathing about politics. And it's so dominant in the culture. And if that culture is polarized, it really starts to polarize your mindset and your identity and your way of being in the world.

You become more mistrustful, more fearful, more judgmental. That was a bit of a babble, but the answer is I don't have a straight answer for you. Yeah, I mean, I don't think that there necessarily is a straight answer. I will say, you know, the responses I get to my newsletter often are people saying, you know, I never knew that this was the actual view that was held by a conservative or a liberal, the loudest, who are making the most absurd and eye-catching argument, whether it's on the right or the left, are the ones who are often given the most oxygen by the opposition. Today, someone like Marjorie Taylor Greene is becoming a household name to liberals everywhere, even though she is not particularly representative, I don't think, of your everyday conservative or Republican, certainly not

particularly representative of the conservatives or Republicans that are in Congress. And this happens all the time across the political spectrum. And so I hear this a lot from readers that are like, you know, this is the first time I've ever encountered argument X, Y, or Z about abortion or immigration or social justice issues or free speech. And that typically makes me feel like we need to do a better job of doing what you guys are doing, making these conversations happen. But I don't, obviously my work isn't really related to that so much as it's related to just arming people with some of this stuff. And I'm really interested to hear, I mean, how you facilitate these conversations, what the guardrails are, because people ask me all the time, you know, I have a really liberal

cousin or I have a super conservative dad and I want to talk to him about politics, but I can't because I know we're just going to start screaming at each other. And I'd love to hear from you, you know, what you've learned, what your advice is to people who want to have these difficult conversations with their family members or friends or colleagues who disagree with them politically, and maybe what a few good tips or ground rules are for going into it. Yeah, absolutely. And that's one of the core things we do is develop skills, practical skills for how you can have difficult conversations. I think the fundamental expectation to abandon when you're going into a political conversation is that you

are going to change the other person's mind. I think that we've been so conditioned by the media and by our political culture that political conversations are zero-sum battles where it's, you know, dominate or submit. And so each side really goes into it kind of hardened and argumentative, defensive, not really listening, ready to make their point, got their partisan talking points. So we advise, if your goal is to have a productive conversation, because that's not always people's goal. In fact, oftentimes people's goal is to humiliate the other side. If your goal is to have a productive conversation, and if your goal is to maintain and or strengthen the relationship that

you have or are building with the person to whom you're talking, particularly if that person is like your dad or someone you care about, someone who you don't want to throw out your relationship with them because you voted differently, and someone that when you've tried to talk politics before, it just ends up both making you both more angry and more loathe to engage, is to come to the conversation first seeking to understand, just asking questions, leading with curiosity, and not just understand, like, why do you support Trump? Although that's a good thing to try to understand, or why do you support AOC or whoever, but, you know, deeper questions like what are the lived experiences you've had that have informed your political philosophy? Like, you know, why do you think, quote unquote, liberal policies are good for the country? Do you have any reservations about them? Leading with understanding softens the other

person up and then enables you to then be heard. So it's sort of a simple framing from like convincing, persuading to like listening and learning and then being heard. So you're like understanding other perspective and then you're articulating your own, but not with the expectation that they do it. And then there's all kinds of more individual tips, but it ultimately comes down to trust. If you trust the person you're talking to is actually trying to understand your point of view rather than beat you, you're more likely to transform the conflict into an opportunity for building the relationship. And so, you know, there's simple things, a lot of them come from family therapy, which is what we use to design our initial model. It's, you know, try to use

I statements, like, this is how I see it, rather than this is how it is, which is like the exact opposite of Twitter, You know, try sharing your perspective rather than just making broad pronouncements. Try acknowledging what the other person has said before you respond. That can be simple as paraphrasing them. So they say something and you paraphrase them back to them to make sure you understood it correctly because it's validating for them to say, yes, that is what I think. Yes, you are understanding me right. Because so much of the conflict stems from a fear that people have that their words are being mischaracterized or twisted or used to paint them into a corner. Or a lot of times people will ascribe the worst characteristics of a particular politician to anyone who supports that politician, which is not fair and not productive.

There are things to avoid if you want to have a productive conversation. One thing that a lot of people do when they're asking questions, and asking questions is good. Again, I think leading with curiosity is good. But they ask kind of like gotcha questions. So it's not a question that's designed to actually understand what someone thinks,

but it's a question that sort of sets the other person up to look stupid or ignorant or cruel. So instead of saying, like, do you have any concerns about such and such politician's comments? do you have any concerns about such and such politicians' comments? It's like, how could you support such a monster, such a socialist, such a xenophobe, et cetera, et cetera. You know, and if you immediately jump to labels, generalization, stereotypes, that is the approach you're going to engender in your counterpart. But, you know, it's a lot of it is like the stuff we learned in kindergarten, you know, try to respect the worth and dignity of the person you're talking to, you know, even if you are dumbfounded or appalled by their views. You know, we all have friends and family members

whose views don't align with ours, some of them more than others. And if you want to maintain these relationships, especially if politics is important to you and it's important to them, it's crucial to try to emphasize rather than demonize. And multiplying these relationships is how we're going to strengthen the social fabric

that is going to help us reestablish a shared epistemological framework. That's a whole other issue we can get into is the issue of shared reality because that's another thing that drives divisions is people are not having conversations based on the same facts and people sort of find that to be an impediment. And the last thing I'll say is, this is not for everyone. I mean, you know, some people will say, like, I don't, I don't want to

be friends with this person anymore, because our values don't align. And I want to spend my time building relationships with people whose values I respect more. I think that's a fair position to take. But I think it's almost a privileged position to take. It's a position to take that is easy to take if you're, you know, a liberal who lives in New York City or LA, right? You come from a blue background, you're surrounded by blue people. You know, you could go six months without talking to a Trump supporter. Or vice versa, if you live in a super red community, you don't have to confront the possibility that your stereotype of liberals is not true. But most Americans live and work in places that

are more divided within their own families, communities, and workplaces. And they don't really have that luxury. And so finding practical ways to do this is super useful. And one thing I'm seeking to convince people to do is understand that approaching conversations this way is not surrendering. It's not akin to compromising. So many folks will argue that, you know, by even engaging with another perspective, you're normalizing or legitimizing what they have to say. And I don't generally buy that argument. I think there are instances like Twitter banning Trump, which I support. I think that Trump not being on Twitter is good for our social culture. But Trump was using Twitter as a megaphone, in my view, to spew disinformation and bad faith. Whereas most people, whatever they think, they might be misinformed, but they're articulating their views from a place

of identity and oftentimes a place of fear. And by leading with understanding and compassion and humility, that's how you can bring people along from fear to hope. But the crucial ingredient in today's environment is courage, the courage to have these conversations, not only to absorb the insults and invective that may inevitably get hurled at you from the other side, but also the judgment from your friends who say you're a sellout. Or, you know, if you're a liberal having these conversations that you're apologists for white supremacy, or if you're a conservative, that you are just playing playing into the elites game to subjugate traditional Americans. So it's complicated. And one thing we often struggle with, one thing people often ask us is, where do you draw the line? Are there certain views that shouldn't be engaged with at all? Should you talk to a white supremacist? Are there certain things that shouldn't be allowed into a debate?

And it's a challenging question. It gets into the whole topic of platforming and deplatforming and tactically what's going to be best for accomplishing your aims in the political space. And I think that's all well and good. And I think politics is, to use a cliche, sometimes a blood sport. And so if you're a political operative working for the Democrats or the Republicans, maybe the best, you know, tactic is to be polarizing and de-platform or mischaracterize. But we're working in a different lane. We're working in a lane that is understaffed, but has the potential to be more transformative

and in my view has the potential to solve the meta problem of mistrust. the meta problem of mistrust, because that's what's fueling not only the division, but the rise in conspiracism. You know, people don't believe disinformation and conspiracies because they're stupid. They believe it because they trust sources of information that are telling them disinformation and conspiracy theories. And when people don't trust credible sources of information, then it's easy to fall into conspiracy theories, especially when that gets wrapped around identitarian dynamics that provide a sense of meaning and comfort, but it's wrapped in an us versus them mentality that's ultimately going to destroy the country. Because I do agree, if you can't agree on what's true, it's hard to pursue progress. But in order to work on that problem, we have to start by building trust, not just in our institutions, but in each other.

Because once you trust that somebody is acting in good faith, then you're a lot more likely to listen to them because you're not afraid that they're using your engagement as an opportunity to dominate you or hold you down. I wonder, listening to you talk about this, how it's impacted you personally doing this work. it's impacted you personally doing this work. Do you feel that your political views have been moderated or moved in a certain way, or that you've come closer to the center after spending so much time existing in these blue dominant spaces, as you put it? It's a good question. I would say on issues of policy, not really. I'm pretty far left on certain issues, particularly the environment, reforming capitalism, protecting basic forms of social justice and personal liberties. But other policy areas have changed. And that's

in part from having a broadened perspective due to interacting with such a more diverse set of perspectives. But I also do think a lot of the ground is shifting beneath our feet. If you look at the ACLU, for example, the ACLU was always known as a progressive organization that supported free speech. And I think they're facing a lot of challenges that liberals face now, which is they're sort of a younger, more activist wing of the Democratic Party, who I agree with in many ways, and I think who are giving voice to a lot of concerns and people that have been marginalized for centuries, but who are also fundamentally arguing that some people shouldn't have a right to express their ideas because those ideas are dangerous. And I sort of don't know how I feel about that. It's like

the Winston Churchill quote, democracy is the worst system of government except for any other. And I feel like we've made a decision in this country that we have a fundamental commitment to free speech. And that commitment leads to a lot of bad outcomes sometimes. But the alternative seems to be giving some people the power to determine that other people can't have a voice. And I don't see how that works better. So on certain areas, I guess you could say my views have gotten closer to conservative views. But I think that my orientation as a progressive has in some ways been strengthened, because I feel like I have a more nuanced understanding of certain issues. And I think that by understanding a wider range of

perspectives, you're more effectively able to advocate for your own positions. It's sort of ironic. It's like so many people are just talking to people they agree with and trying to enforce orthodoxy within their own side, that they're not really moving the needle on persuading people. And I know there's an argument politically that, well, we don't need to persuade. We just need to get more of our people to turn out. And I think that might be right again, sometimes in sort of a shrewd political sense, but at a basic cultural level, it's fairly toxic. So yeah, I don't know. It's hard to say. I think I haven't had too many like aha moments where suddenly I'm like, I believe the opposite on this issue, but I have a much better understanding of what others believe and why they believe it. things in a new light? Because things are usually complicated, and there's usually merit to different sorts of arguments. So it's a good question. I'd be curious. I'd pose the same

question to you, but maybe we should wait until I have you on my podcast so I can flip the script and ask you these sort of deep searching questions. Yeah, I mean, I would be happy to answer it. And I can give you a brief preview here, which I've written about in the Entangle in response to a reader question about it, which is that I definitely have had views that have been impacted in a pretty serious way by writing the newsletter, both by hearing personal perspectives from people across the country, but also by just immersing myself in the writings of the most intelligent thinkers on the right and the left who have convinced me or moved me on certain things, which has been for me a really rewarding, I mean, a truly rewarding and intellectually stimulating experience. Something that I think is, is maybe my favorite part about doing the

newsletter. You know, I'm on that note, I guess I'm really interested, I guess, a good high note to leave on here might be if you could tell me a little bit about an experience or a success story in your view of the work that you do. And I don't think that needs to require someone changing their views or moving politically. I mean, my personal position that I harp on a lot is, I actually believe an evolving set of views is a good thing. I view that really favorably, so long as it's done for a good reason. If a politician flip-flops on something, and it's not clear to me that they're just doing it because it's politically expedient, I don't think that's a bad thing. I think people should have room to change their views if they're presented with evidence that undermines their current position and the position that they're holding. So I'm wondering, you know,

what's a win for you guys when you facilitate these conversations? And if there's maybe a story that sticks out to you that sort of encapsulates the kind of work that you're trying to do, because we're coming up on an hour here, so we're going to wrap. And I think it'd be nice to leave on a note like that, that it's possible to do this and sort of move people a step closer to each other, even if it's not someone changing their political views overnight? Yeah, it's a really good question. And I agree. I think, yes, it's good to have evolving views. And that when you do this work, you're naturally going to have more evolving views, because you're also going to reduce the fear that we all have. Like shit, if I consider

something a different way, am i selling out myself or people i care about and want to protect them am i being unjust am i being a sellout whatever else at braver angels i think the the success stories ultimately is the culture it's the friendships the relationships that have emerged it's it's changed hearts more than changed minds. And there's all sorts of beautiful friendships that have come out of Braver Angels, my own and among our members. There's sort of like the famous initial red-blue pair in Braver Angels, which is a couple guys in Ohio, a guy named Greg Smith, who's former police chief, sort of Tea Party Trump supporter out of Central Casting,

Tea Party conservative. And Kuyar. Kuyar Mustafshi is a proud, Muslim, progressive immigrant from Iran. They came to a workshop, initially very suspicious of one another. They've become good friends. And they support one another. They help each other's families, they have gone to each other's places of worship, and they kind of lead our work. And it's fun to talk to them because they really disagree you know it's like they're not moderates it's not just like center right and center left talking about like here's our like immigration compromise it's like no we really agree and we're going to vote differently even though we think

the person that you're voting for is a threat. But we both believe in each other. We know we're good folks. And we both believe in the country. So there's a lot of stories like that. And just the friendships and relationships that I've been able to develop, and it just it just makes you feel better about the state of things. It's like ultimately a politics of love, which is our product. It's drawn heavily from the nonviolent movement of Gandhi and Dr. King. It's seeking to create a beloved community in which our love for country is demonstrated and our love for our fellow citizens. has demonstrated in our love for our fellow citizens. And it helps you get out of that helpless anger that we all feel, because you're taking action and you're able to see the better, braver angels in yourself and others. And so I would encourage any of your listeners who think that sounds cool or zany or inspiring or naive, whatever.

Check it out. Come to an event. Listen to a podcast. Send me an email. It's really an invitation to join a movement and meet some people who are different from you. I love it. All right. Kieran O'Connor from Braver Angels.

You can find them at braverangels.org. Kieran, thank you for coming on the show. I really appreciate it. I think it's an incredible lane that we are operating in and really important work right now. I'm sure we'll be hearing a lot from each other over the next few years. And I'm excited to come chop it up with you on your turf here pretty soon. Yeah, man, I'm excited to turn the tables. This was cool. You asked me some questions that really prodded me to look inwards and be like, well, shit, what do I really think about that? I don't

know. Weighty, complicated issues as they should be, but taking them seriously is important. And again, having the courage needed to do this work, because again, it's not for everyone. I appreciate it. Thank you guys for tuning in. This has been a conversation that I think will last for a while in the minds of a lot of Tangle listeners, because I think it's so important to what so many people are trying to do, who tune in and subscribe and read the newsletter. So thank you all. I also want to thank and shout out to Impostor Radio, who helped produce today's episode. And of course, if you enjoyed this, please give us a five-star rating wherever you can rate podcasts.

And don't forget to check out Tangle, retangle.com, subscribe to the newsletter. We'll be back here same time next week. Looking forward to it. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease.

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