Participants and observers in a Braver Angels workshop, focused on abortion, in Grants Pass, Oregon reflect on their experience and the influence of Braver Angels.
‘Braver Angels really helped me to see the humanity in people from the other side’: One high schooler’s journey to better political conversations
06/18/2026
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A native of Boulder, Colorado, Mia didn’t know many Trump supporters—and she was nervous to engage with them. “I was like, ‘Don’t they hate women? Don’t they hate black people?’” she said. “That was my initial belief because that’s what I had heard about people who voted for Trump.” But she quickly realized she was wrong. During the first Braver Lens session, Mia was able to connect with conservatives in the group and recognize their points of commonality. “When we met, they showed their pictures, and explained their life stories, and I was able to see where our values overlap,” she said.
2 thoughts on “A Braver Angels PSA”
All of these are such needed topics and I plan to join the debate on the 23rd. It sounds helpful and what is needed now in the midst of so much fear mongering, lack of data and science and TESTING!
Guess what side of the debate I am on?
Personally, I am going more inward every day and have to call a friend or get up from the 24-hour Virus TV.
Projects, projects, projects. Journaling, List making.
British (more real than US) TV on Hulu. Keeping my place tid-ed up.
Going to and copying readings from organizations like yours. SPLC (Southern Poverty Law Center), Listing to the organist at Plymouth Congregational Church play gorgeous and inspiring music that makes me cry–grieving for less cakotic days. Reading the journal of the Westar (Jesus Seminars) for more uplifing and open-minded, liberal theology than most.
Mother Jones – Purged: Amid the pandemic, Republicans are working overtime to keep you from voting–very concerned and working with Democrats to make sure the November 2020 voting is secure.
In other words, freaking out about everything!!! Trying to believe that we will get through this like the 9/11 tragedy & Katrina storm. Hoping that enough people will in this country will become interested in equality, healthcare for ALL, ways to begin conversations on how to change the United States political climate to go forward in a more equal and just way for ALL of us.
I joined Braver Angels when it was a small group named Better Angels on Facebook. I didn’t have a specific personal ‘mission statement’ that defined me. I was really kind of desperate to find anything real that could be uplifting and pragmatic at the same time. I knew instinctively that I needed to reclaim my own hope and my own purpose as a citizen and as an informed voter. I’ve been on the ragged edge trying to confront and re-examine my own beliefs and my own innate distrust of the Winner-Takes-All political system. I could no longer trust what I saw on the news. It was hard to judge who was doing purposeful good work, who wasn’t, and what I was doing or not to empower my Bravel Angels support and participation. I am so excited to see how BA has evolved and grown in the short time it’s been operating. I want and need to be part of the journey that BA is opening up to truly move forward, past the noise and negative rhetoric that has caused us all so much harm. It has divided my own family to the point we hardly speak to each other other than in vague platitudes. It feels like loss. It feels like emotional estrangement from our brothers and sisters and friends and parents. None of us have ideas on how to reunite and still be authentic in each of our own convictions of right and wrong. I am longing for them still, and I hate how we’ve been separated as we’ve each chosen one political party or ideology over another. It’s as sad as a death in the family. I have to believe in Braver Angels, because I want my family back.