Beat | A new divide in America

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Mónica Guzmán:

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Mónica:

Hey y’all, before we get to today’s episode, a note about what’s coming next week. The election carved an emotional divide in our politics. One side is relieved and joyful. The other is struggling to move under the weight of their fears. How in the world do you bridge divides now? What’s shifting in our whole project because of that big decision America made on November 5th?

To help you reach for answers, we knew we would need your questions. Hundreds of you have sent them in. Hundreds! Really! Thank you! And next week, you’ll hear a cross-partisan panel of political bridge builders, Trump and Harris voters alike, take them on. Don’t miss it. And now, I’m going to take you back a week, to the day that changed so much.

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Election Day 2024, and the very unexpected thing that hundreds of liberal and conservative voters went to the polls to do together, all across the country. In our last Beat episode, we introduced you to six of them. Three pairs of red and blue Americans who showed up to the polls sporting a red hat and a blue hat, holding up signs, and fueling a call that no one saw coming.

Which brings us to the heart of this week’s beat. Standing up for, being together, across political difference, in person and in public, on one of the most divisive days of our lifetimes. How did that go?

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We’ll start with Don Goldberg and Elizabeth Doll. Don is the liberal in this pair, living in Seattle, and Elizabeth is a conservative who lives in a more rural part of Washington State. What they found at their election site was far from the tense and highly polarized environment we’ve come to expect from anything that touches politics these days.

Elizabeth Doll:

People were really warm about it. They seemed sometimes surprised. Sometimes amused, but everyone was really receptive. 

Don Goldberg:

Yeah, and then we, in between times, we just had a chance to talk about policies and agreements, disagreements and it was really kinda delightful. We didn’t ask people which side they voted for. We just wanted to thank them for voting.

Mónica:

Our second pair was in Austin, Texas on the big day. Dorsey Cartwright leans blue and Roger Haynes red. The third voice you’ll hear in this one is our honorary A Braver Way correspondent, Richard Davies, who is also the host of the How Do We Fix It podcast. 

Richard Davies:

What were a few memorable moments for both of you?

Dorsey Cartwright:

I’ll tell you one that really keeps coming back in my consciousness was really one of the first people that we talked to. It was a young couple that they had voted. They were coming back out and they were holding hands. And there was just such a glow to the two of them so much that even little introvert scaredy cat here, I got out of my chair and reached out to them.

He’s a musician. He said, we musicians, we have a real mixture of conservative and liberal. He said, we learned how to get along. Oh, it was wonderful to connect with them. 

Richard Davies:

Roger, any moments stand out for you?

Roger Haynes:

Yeah, absolutely. There was a one young man who he was, former supporter, I think, of the Democratic side. He lived, I believe, in Arkansas and then relocated to Texas. And, you know, I think his background, he’s Hispanic and he talked about how he leaned red and moved that direction. But it was interesting to hear how his, you know, new side, perceived him, right? We all think, oh, this person’s Hispanic, so they’re probably an immigrant, where we prejudge people before we really know them, and know what they really think.

Mónica:

When I heard Roger and Dorsey talk about these people they met at the polls, I remembered what journalist Isaac Saul warned us about a couple episodes ago. How our media, and all of us really, tend to lump people together into these really broad categories. But we lose so much in the simplification. And we already know, don’t we, that there’s nothing like meeting people face to face and hearing about their beliefs firsthand to see what we’re missing.

Don and Elizabeth were thinking along those same lines when they stood outside their election center. Washington is a 100 percent vote by mail state. 

Don:

It’s when you go to a ball game, people you wouldn’t normally hang out with. It’s just the whole of humanity getting together to cheer.

And that was more what it was like here. It wasn’t so much like I’m meeting the folks in my neighborhood, but I’m getting a better idea of the folks in the larger community. 

Elizabeth:

It’s kind of funny to me, actually. I’ve grown up in Washington and I’m fairly young, so I have actually never experienced an in person vote.

And the more that I hear people talk about the community experience of gathering together on election day to vote and being able to talk with your neighbors, and, I actually met someone who told me that his neighborhood used to do cookies and lemonade. 

Don:

Oh yeah. 

Elizabeth:

…After they voted at their local precinct.

Don:

Yeah. Let’s see. It’s just like even Zooming and social media. You’re missing part of the personal interaction, but it’s just different when it’s one to one. 

Mónica:

Heading down to Tucson, Arizona, we catch up with our third pair, Martin Hunke and Tarleton Ferrin. Martin, who leans liberal, immigrated from Germany a couple decades ago. And Tarleton, who’s conservative, grew up in rural Arizona before moving to the Tucson area. 

Martin Hunke…

I particularly liked how civil the whole process was. Everybody was like orderly in line. Nobody was making a ruckus. At the same time, I felt some sadness. Here are my fellow citizens. And here we are all wanting to do what’s best for our country. Deciding how we should live together as a society. And yet we know nothing about each other. These are all strangers to me. And I realized that we live in very different worlds. We can’t agree on what truth is. We have different sources for our personal truth. And it’s scary if we can’t agree on what world we actually live in and how things work. 

Umm, I’m a little bit deflated right now. Not so hopeful that we will find a solution going forward. 

Tarleton Ferrin…

Yeah, it was one, one conversation item that Martin and I were discussing was the importance of community in just our everyday lives. And it’s interesting how our society has really opted for more of a privacy-oriented life, kind of more of a solid solitude life. And all these important things that we do as a society. we often do by ourselves, in solitude, and it can be a lot to bear. I mean, there’s a, there’s big political questions or they’re complex things. None of us are really smart enough to figure it all out by ourselves. And yet, where’s that community that we can work through?

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Martin:

I remember the agony I had last time when it wasn’t clear at the end of the evening, who the president would be. And I expected a very different outcome this time. I thought the Democrats would narrowly win and then it would be contested by the other side. It would have this whole drama again, oh, election fraud and another hundred lawsuits.

So the most positive aspect of what happened yesterday is that there is no violence, no contesting of anything. And I’m proud to say, howdy. My side handles this. They concede, they say alright, the American people have spoken, what can we do to help you for a peaceful transfer? That’s how it should be.

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Mónica:

And now, back to Dorsey and Roger in Texas. Dorsey was just explaining how this election feels different to her than the last ones. 

Dorsey:

This time, 2016, when, you know, Trump had won, I was in the deepest despair with a profound underlying sense of doom. And the question came to me of what can I, little Dorsey Cartwright, one person, do to help my country? And I was getting all these emails from friends and colleagues about join the resistance. Thought about that. And then the Democrat in me came out and said, I’m going to put everything I have into turning all the houses blue. And then I thought, yeah, the Republicans are out for four years. They’re just getting more angry and then they’re going to take over and it’s just yanking back and forth.

And then it came to me, we’ve got to, both sides have to somehow be helped to really communicate with one another. And by that I don’t just mean hearing words. I mean really getting what the other one’s world is like. So, this morning, when, you know, Kamala had lost, I felt this calmness. And I was puzzled by it. And what I realized is that I do not trust Trump, and I don’t trust a lot of people around him. However, Roger does trust Trump and I trust Roger. So I’m going to hold Roger’s feet to the fire. And if anything begins to happen that I think is not good, I’m going to go to Roger and say, “Hey, help me understand this. How do you see this?” I trust Roger. He trusts Trump. Okay, here we go. 

Richard:

How do you see it, Roger? 

Roger:

Um, yeah, can you repeat the question? Sorry, that was really moving what Dorsey was talking about. I was kinda captivated and stuck there. It was great. 

Richard:

Yeah, how do you see things from your side? Your side won. And yet, Dorsey is a friend, and you know that there are many people hurting, or feeling despair, or anger, or just plain upset at the results. 

Roger:

Sure

Richard:

How do you see things?

Roger:

Yeah, that’s a great question. People will win and lose, but we as Americans are left with kinda moving forward together. We have to learn to win and lose with grace and understand how to be more empathetic with people that did, whose side didn’t win. Do we brag? Do we gloat? Or do we try to be you know a real solution to how people are feeling and really step outside of our tribe and go ‘what’s it like for them’? You know, I saw a post today, people are scared heartbroken, and that should bother people in the red side that people are scared. Because that translates to me that people could be scared of me and I you know, it, it breaks my heart that people feel that way. And I think we need to feel the heart of the other, and understand, in order to build a house more united, we’ve gotta have that empathy, and not just be the team that gloats at the finish line, and spikes the ball, and leaves the, losing team behind. Now it’s time to really get to work.

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Mónica:

A huge thank you to Roger, Dorsey, Elizabeth, Don, Martin, and Tarleton for talking with us. And to all the red/blue pairs who showed up out there, together, in proximity to the heart of the other.

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With that, thank you so much for joining us for this beat episode of A Braver Way. 

A Braver Way is produced by Braver Angels and distributed in partnership with KUOW and Deseret News. We get financial support from the M. J. Murdoch Charitable Trust and Reclaim Curiosity and count USAFacts as a proud sponsor.

Our senior producer and editor is David Albright. Our producer is Jessica Jones. Our theme music is by the fantastic number one billboard bluegrass charting hip hop band GangstaGrass. A special thanks to Ben Caron, Don Goldberg, Gabbi Timmis, Katelin Annes, and Emily Provence. I’m your host and guide across the divide, Mónica Guzmán.

If you want to reach out, share your story with us, please do. You can always find us at abraverway@braverangels.org or join our text line by texting the word BRAVE to 206 926 9955. Take heart, everyone. Till next time.

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