Braving the unknown: Your election survival guide

Introduction- Host Mónica Guzmán introduces the episode’s theme: an election survival guide, with clips from the past seasons, focusing on managing personal responses during the election season and emphasizing the importance of integrity, self-control and staying grounded, regardless of the outcome.

Bill Doherty discusses the psychological benefits of identifying specific fears rather than succumbing to broad, overwhelming dread. 

• Doherty: Be specific in what you’re saying. ‘That I am concerned about where the next president will take the Supreme Court. I’m concerned about the independence of the judiciary.’…that’s about the use of the judicial system, and we can talk about that, as opposed to our whole democracy, our whole way of life. It’s too broad to get one’s hands around. And so the more specific we can talk about what we’re worrying about as opposed to the big D democracy. ‘Cause both sides are throwing that around at each other.
• Mónica: Fear makes us less creative, it makes us less collaborative…The more that our talking and our thinking scares us and stays at the level Bill is talking about of sort of this big hard to grasp rhetoric…then we’re going to be pretty far from a place of usefulness.

Luis Mojica explains how emotional reactions during political disagreements often reflect past personal experiences. He encourages focusing on internal resilience rather than expecting others to change.

• Mojica: Empathy is somatic. It’s biological. So when I look at you…you’re saying something to me that I like vehemently disagree with, right? That feels like a threat to my system…That rush comes up because I’m attuning to you. My body is mirroring your stance about what you believe in, and I’m attaching my safety to you.
• Mojica: What is bringing up in me comes from my past and it comes from what my body is expecting in the future and that feels like threat, right? So I attach it to you. The stress that comes up, I say is because of you. When what you’re saying is reminding my body of past stress, right? Past situations. When I can realize that’s in my body, then I also realize in the safety is also in my body. You didn’t create the stress. You don’t create the safety. My relationship to myself does does either of those.

Will Ford uses a metaphor of the rearview mirror to discuss the impacts of unforgiveness. While reflection on the past is necessary, holding onto it too tightly can obstruct forward progress.

• Ford: Unforgiveness is like a rearview mirror. Your rearview mirror in your car is smaller than the windshield of course because it’s too big you can’t see where you’re going. But when that rearview mirror is so large that it takes up your whole windshield all you can do is just pull over and keep reflecting on the past.
• Ford: Forgiveness…brings a level of healing where the memory doesn’t any longer influence negative behaviors in our lives…we respond instead of react.
• Mónica: This election, it’s big, but it’s going to be in the rear view mirror. It is. And when it is, when are we going to be then? And who are we going to be around and how are we going to treat each other? Can we transition from campaigning to just being, to just being in this country, to being citizens, to participating, to doing, to trying to thrive together, can we do that?

Thank you to media partners Deseret News and KUOW.

Supporting Partner: Tangle News

Wilk Wilkinson shares his journey from anger to gratitude, realizing that focusing on what he can control brings him freedom and peace. This focus helps manage frustration, especially in challenging times.

• Wilkinson: I figured out that you cannot be happy without being grateful. I didn’t want to be miserable anymore, so I started focusing more on gratitude. I had spent so much of my life mad, and so much of my life yelling, and breaking stuff…I didn’t want to feel that way anymore.
• Wilkinson: The ultimate freedom is being able to choose my response and how I am going to react to things that are outside of my control.
• Mónica: You can say, ‘well, I need to have systems that ensure my liberty,’ yes. But your own liberty is sort of up to you and it’s perspective, it’s ‘what are you going to do about the things you can’t control?’ And how do you figure out what you can influence?

Mónica and April reflect on a conversation between Francis Collins and Travis Tripodi and discuss the connection between truth and trust, stressing that diverse viewpoints are necessary for a fuller understanding of truth, and collective engagement strengthens both.

• Mónica: What the last few years have taught me is that when truth is not collectively searched for and explored, then it doesn’t have the power it needs and it’s incomplete.
• Mónica: You cannot unlock truth without trust. You cannot do it. We rely on diversity and disagreement in this country…we have to wrestle with that.
• April: Both sides have aspects of the truth…look at who people trust and why. That’s the, to me, the key to the whole puzzle.
• Mónica: If our democracy is pluralistic and has a lot of different ideas, but we don’t interact across those divides, how actual is our democracy? You know, and if our democracy is supposed to be the thing justifying election and these processes, how effective are they gonna be if we keep just talking to our own, apart, pointing fingers? So that’s, I think, the challenge…whatever happens, can we do the hard work of looking for the truth together?

Mónica uses USAFacts to discover data regarding swing states. 

Kai Cheng Thom discusses the value of examining one’s own biases and flaws before criticizing others. She highlights the benefits of empathy, humility, and recognizing shared shortcomings across divides.

• Thom: When we point the finger, we’re actually seeing a mirror and then I was like, ‘oh s**.’ That means when I point the freaking finger I’m seeing something that might be true about me.

• Mónica: If you really want to talk to your uncle about this thing that his side is doing, begin with some admission of how your side is not exactly saintly on it, and see what happens.
• Lawson: There’s something incredibly disarming about humility and about saying, ‘yeah, my side does this too.’

During the Braver Angels Convention, attendees found shared grief over the state of the country to be a unifying force. This collective disappointment provided an unexpected basis for hope and common ground.

• Michelle Polino: It was clear that we had different opinions, but tonight afterwards after the debate, not watching CNN, not watching any news analysis. We, the people, got to speak to one another and said, what did we like? What we didn’t like? What really matters to us? That’s what we need more of.
• April: As you are going through this process, as you are sitting with people who disagree, as you’re watching results come in that kind of break your heart, remember that in where it seems like we could not possibly be together, the place that I think we’re together is that. It’s saying, “I want something better.” And I just think that if we can still believe in that in our fellow citizens, that’s where we’re going to find our answer. 
• Mónica: It turns out that even though we are voting for different people, we have different ideologies. We do really share a deep and profound investment in this place we call home and a shared disappointment in how messy things are.

Supporting Partner: Living Room Conversations

Braver Angels Election Week events

Historian Lindsay Chervinsky discusses how the intense rivalry between founding fathers Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson shaped the early United States.

• Chervinsky: I think that there was a risk that had either view been predominant… the nation could have gone down one of the more extreme paths. And Washington was much better off and much better president, made better choices by having both perspectives and often finding a middle line in between the two of them.
• Mónica: No matter who loses the election, we don’t lose. We’re still building this thing.
• Mónica: There’s a lot that has broken in the last several years that has led to us seeing things that we didn’t see before. And it does hurt. But so long as we can engage in the process of repair, I think we’re going to come out stronger in the other side. So I guess it’s about whether you have faith that that repair can happen and that we are capable  or if you think we are actually not capable of that, which brings me back to that beautiful concept you introduced me to of the anger of hope and the anger of despair. There’s a lot of ways that the divisiveness of the last several years has looked like the anger of despair, absolutely. But maybe this is about the ultimate outcome.”

Will Ford encourages listeners to consciously choose which narrative from their past and present they want to emphasize—stories of healing and progress over hurt and resentment.

• Ford: What storyline do you want to be a part of? The healing of the hurt, the blessing of the curse, what storyline do you want to be a part of?
• Mónica: What we’re doing is disempowering ourselves. We are putting all of that agency and all of that control of the future over there. Meanwhile, we’re finding ourselves just being victims and kind of being tossed around by the winds of our democracy. What is that? That is to me, that is so abdicating. And that attitude, if it is too far spread out. We are all going to let go of the reins. And that’s how we actually lose our democracy, not because of what the other side did, but because we decided to abdicate. That’s what it actually is.

Mónica shares a personal reflection on the need to approach election outcomes with grace, resilience, and responsibility, stressing that individual actions shape the collective future.

• Mónica: If we believe we need an all-powerful hero to save us, what does that say about our belief in ourselves?
• Yuval Levin: “Hope is not optimism. It’s not a sense that everything’s gonna be fine…Hope says things are up to us…and they could be good if we are good.”

Mónica wraps up the episode.

Featured Song: “Not Divided” by Stephanie Sweet

Episode Credits.

(music under)

Mónica Guzmán:

Today, how can we possibly apply the lessons we’ve picked up on this podcast to this week of all weeks? And to this election of all elections? April and I have some ideas. 

That’s the ultimate curse. The ultimate curse is if we all get so angry and so other-oriented and so hopeless that we actually give up the democracy that was always ours. 

April Lawson:

The trick is, you will make a choice about which future you’re going to be part of, and so own that, take it, and, frankly, make the right one. 

Mónica:

All that and more is just ahead.

(theme music up and under)

Welcome to A Braver Way, a show about how you can disagree about politics without losing heart. I’m Mónica Guzmán, your guide across the divide. And I’m here to help you hear and be heard by people who confound you. Across this country, we are proudly conservative, liberal, independent, or just ourselves.

And we don’t wanna be at war here. We wanna be at home. So strap in, because it’s time we learn how to turn up the heat, turn down the fear and get real about things that matter with more of our fellow Americans than we thought possible.

(music out)

Hi everyone. It’s time to get ready. After all these months of campaigning and debating, of talking and not talking, across the political divide, we voters have reached the deadline to make a very big choice. Which set of instincts and values, represented by a candidate, a party, and a platform, should lead our country next?

But here’s the thing, for a lot of people I’ve talked to out there, not all, but most, making that choice was easy. Here’s what’s going to be hard: receiving an election result that doesn’t go your way. Dealing with people in your life or on TV who voted differently regardless of who wins. Staying grounded somehow if there’s uncertainty or crisis. And keeping your head up and your heart, no matter what.

(music under)

One of the toughest pills to swallow when you’re in any group making any high stakes decision is that you can’t control the outcome. And you can’t control other people. You can only control yourself and hope your behavior makes a difference.

So this episode, we are zooming right in on that. What choices you can make to navigate this post-election season with integrity, no matter what side you’re on, no matter what. To help you think about those choices for yourself, we’re going to take you on a tour of key moments from this podcast that we think lend some serious wisdom to whatever the heck we’re going to experience in the next who knows how many weeks, and to how you might want to respond. And to unpack what these insights might mean for liberals, conservatives, independents, and everyone else, I’ve invited the one, the only, my good friend, April Lawson, a political red to my blue, for some real talk going into a really big moment.

(music out)

Mónica:

Hi, April. 

April:

Hey. Hi.

Mónica:

It’s here! The election. It’s here. We’re actually here. It’s actually happening. This thing. 

April:

Oh my gosh

Mónica:

I know! So we’re here to help people through many of the same jitters that were coming through in our voice just in that moment 

April:

Mm-hmm, 

Mónica:

…and so much that is gonna be coming up, you know today tomorrow into the coming weeks. We don’t know, but we wanna be ready, right? 

April:

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Mónica:

So we’ve got these clips that we’re gonna be talking about.

And our first clip is from an episode that we released just after the first assassination attempt on Donald Trump. And as you remember, it seemed like everyone’s biggest fears were coming out around what’s going to happen to the country if the other side wins. But how do you talk about those fears productively without maybe fueling the kind of rhetoric that we know could lead to violence? So we had Bill Doherty on, who we both know, citizen therapist. And he said some really interesting things about how to do that. So let’s take a listen. 

Bill Doherty:

This is, again, part of the psychology of dealing with our fears, and that is, be specific.

Mónica:

Mmmmm

Bill:

Ok? Be specific in what you’re saying. That I am concerned about where the next president will take the Supreme Court. I’m concerned about the independence of the judiciary. And then that can lead to problem solving and mobilization around the specific fears that we have. The use of the presidency against political opponents, because many people on the right really do believe that Biden and the Democrats have gone after Trump in many ways to take him out by imprisonment. It’s a strongly held belief.

And then a strongly held belief among blues is that Trump will try to do the same thing. Okay, that’s about the use of the judicial system, and we can talk about that, as opposed to our whole democracy, our whole way of life. It’s too broad to get one’s hands around. And so the more specific we can talk about what we’re worrying about as opposed to the big D democracy. ‘Cause both sides are throwing that around at each other. 

Mónica:

That’s right. Very much so. 

Bill:

And so when that happens, move on from that rhetoric.

(sfx)

April:

So I think this is pretty much like this is essential as we start diving into this because what Bill is addressing here, brilliantly as usual, is that we need to somehow bring this stuff back to Earth. Because I think that what happens during the election season is that there’s this frenzy of emotion and like catastrophizing and all of this stuff and just specificity requires you to bring it back to planet Earth. And if you think about it, people might say that even in a, that like there’s a good reason to talk about catastrophe in this case. And I’m not even saying that’s necessarily wrong but even in a genuine catastrophe it’s useful to keep your head, right? It’s useful to be able to say, Okay, specifically, what am I worried about? Specifically, where is this going to happen? All of that. And so I, that’s my first thought on this is just that if we can bring this back down to earth, it will seem, we’ll all feel better, but it will also be useful, because we can actually strategize about what comes next, and how do we want to engage it?

Mónica:

Yeah, I would underline that we’re useful ’cause how we talk about our fear is how we orient our minds to be in the situation that makes us afraid.

April:

Well said.

Mónica:

So we can decide what to do about it. And what we know from the neurobiology of fear is it makes us less creative, it makes us less collaborative. 

April:

Right, right.

Mónica:

So the more that our talking and our thinking scares us and stays at the level Bill is talking about of sort of this big hard to grasp rhetoric where all you can do is talk about how scary it is because there’s nothing specific to grip onto, then we’re going to be pretty far from a place of usefulness.

April:

Yeah, I love that. I think that there are, whatever the specific fears are, they can be named.

Mónica:

Yes, yes.

April:

And if you want it to be like actionable and useful, which all of us do, right? Like that’s part of the experience of fear is futility. It’s powerlessness. 

Mónica:

That’s right.

April:

And so, naming something specific gives you power back because there’s a specific thing you can wrestle with.

Mónica:

Exactly. And you can wrestle it with other citizens, you know, who have different fears, and hopefully you get to someplace smarter together. That would be something. 

April:

It sure would. And yeah, I just have to say, like, I’m really glad to be going through this with you. Because I feel like it’s, oh my gosh, even just like me, like being a strange little me in my life, like, it’s a lot. And just, yeah, being able to wrestle through this with you is really, really good.

Mónica:

So next up, April, we had another therapist on the podcast. 

April:

Uh-huh

Mónica:

This was Luis Mojica and he is a somatic therapist, so he pays a lot of attention to the sensations and how somehow if you think about it from the body, you can get further along on some of these things. So, with him, we talked about the beliefs that someone else holds that can feel like an all-out threat. So let’s listen. 

Luis Mojica:

Empathy is somatic. It’s biological. So when I look at you, and let’s say I’ll use the political example, you’re saying something to me that I like vehemently disagree with, right? That feels like a threat to my system, like you believe in something that feels oppressive to me, right? So I’m seeing you, I’m hearing that. That rush comes up, just like you said. The rush is coming up because I’m attuning to you. My body is mirroring your stance about what you believe in and I’m attaching my safety to you, which is why we get desperate to change the mind of the person we’re in front of. 

Mónica:

Wait, so slow down. Attaching my safety to you, does that mean I’m looking to you and what you do and what you say for my sense of safety?

Luis:

Exactly. Like if you believe in this and I believe in this, I need to change your mind because I can’t rest until I know you agree with me. That’s me finding safety in you. I’m looking toward you as once you change, I will finally relax. Finding safety myself in that same experience would be okay, there you, there’s Móni, just believing what she believes. Here’s me believing what I believe. What’s actually happening in the room right now? Nothing. Just two people having different beliefs. What it’s bringing up in me comes from my past and it comes from what my body is expecting in the future and that feels like threat, right? So I attach it to you. The stress that comes up, I say is because of you. When what you’re saying is reminding my body of past stress, right? Past situations. When I can realize that’s in my body, then I also realize is that safety is also in my body. You didn’t create the stress. You don’t create the safety. My relationship to myself does either of those.

Mónica:

I mean, that, yeah, that sounds like a journey to get through that experience.

Luis:

It is!

(sfx)

Mónica:

There is so much, there is so much in that one that is so radical. And this one, it makes me think about our relationship with our fellow citizens, citizens who make different political choices. And as this election advances toward a result and the country takes its next step, we are gonna be thinking a lot about those folks who made different political choices, especially if their side wins. 

April:

Mmm-hmm

Mónica:

And that sense that what they believe is a threat, is a danger, might come up. And this is not to dismiss very real divides that have very real consequences for people. The key, I think, to take from this is finding safety in ourselves, finding stability in ourselves, finding a sense of calm. That’s where we can actually act.

April:

Mmmm

Mónica:

You know, have good judgment, go and be constructive, think really well. It’s very related to fear where if you’re not in a place of safety, then it’s difficult to move forward productively. 

April:

Totally. Yeah. No, I like the that you’re highlighting the… my inner contrarian wants to be like, well, but there are real threats. I know you’re acknowledging that. And so to me, this one is about, it’s a it’s about a sort of overreaction, the sentence that I like, really took away from that quote and have been like working with for a long time is Luis’s description that ‘I can’t be okay until you change your mind’, right? I can’t be okay until you change. And anyone who’s ever been in a romantic relationship knows that that’s a difficult proposition. And it’s also just pretty much always untrue with regard to somebody that you’re meeting face to face, right? That somebody who’s actually in your life. And so even thinking about, like even holding in mind the real physical and otherwise consequences for people in the world, sorry, for particular communities with regard to particular candidates and policies and all that. Usually, if you’re right in front of someone and you are freaking out, it’s because some part of you thinks that you can’t be okay until they change their mind. And so, for me, the way that I think about this is just, I mean, Luis’s whole point in some ways is pay attention to your body. Notice what it’s doing. And I can sort of sometimes sense when I’m just getting like too upset, there’s something that’s like crossing a threshold around like, wait, wait a second, and there’s a panic. And so just trying to notice that and then say, okay, this is, I liked that he said it’s about the past. It’s not about right now, it’s about the past. 

Mónica:

Okay, April, so we’re going to go way back for this next one. This is to Will Ford, who joined us along with his very good friend Matt Lockett, an incredible story about racial healing. The question for that episode was how do you bridge a legacy of pain? And we were talking about finding that balance between looking back at the past, which you need to understand the present. But also being able to see the present clearly enough so that you can walk toward the future. So he put this in a really beautiful way that we will play right now. So let’s listen back.

Will Ford:

What I’ve learned in this whole thing is unforgiveness is like a rear view mirror. Your rear view mirror in your car is smaller than the windshield of course because it’s too big you can’t see where you’re going. But when that rear view mirror is so large that it takes up your whole windshield all you can do is just pull over and keep reflecting on the past. And while I do believe we need to reflect on the things that have happened in our past we shouldn’t do it in a way that stops our forward progress moving forward. And I feel like that’s what unforgiveness does. It gives us the sole focus on the things that have happened in our past that we can’t move forward. 

Mónica:

How would one know that the rearview mirror of unforgiveness has gotten too big? Because like you said, people want to have the right balance between, I think you even said in the book, we need to bring the past and weave it into the present so that we can get double the results that we need for the future. So how do you know when you’re carrying too much of that baggage? And how do you know when it’s just right?

Will:

There’s something about forgiveness that brings a level of healing where you don’t forget. We’re not saying forget. Only God can do that. But there’s a thing where we get to a place of healing where the memory doesn’t any longer influence negative behaviors in our lives, negative reactions in our lives. We respond instead of react. I think that’s really key. That’s what I’ve learned in my experience with this.

(sfx)

April:

So that metaphor is fantastic, right? The rear view mirror and the windshield, and it just, it makes it like visual and clear to me. And what I would say though, is that I would tweak it in one way for this election, which is, I think that it’s actually not the past that is the rearview mirror that’s taking over the entire windshield. I think it’s the election itself. It seems so big, and it is taking over everything. And the unforgiveness is like, this is not looking at the past, trying to forgive the past. This is looking at right now, trying to forgive difference right now. 

Mónica:

Wow

April:

And so to me, the fundamental, like the fundamental message of that clip is it’s a tough one. It’s about perspective. And what I would say is just, yeah, that sounds harsh perhaps right now to say like, remember, this isn’t everything. But their context was harsh too. It was racial reconciliation and literal slavery. And they still could say that. And so what I would say is just, for us, the election is the rearview mirror and the country, right, the fact that we’re all going to be here, we’re all going to live together, we’re going to somehow move forward is everything else. And I just feel like –  this is not a real idea – but something like in the moment like that’s kind of the the action that I feel like you can take away from this and just retaining some of that perspective

Mónica:

I think that’s absolutely beautiful. This brought me back in the context of the election to a Beat episode where we mentioned something called return day in Sussex County Delaware. And at return day, which happens every election year, there’s this parade, there’s this festival and there’s a ritual where the winning and losing candidates get up in front of their community, take a hatchet and literally bury it.

The lesson of that event that is so cool is it’s a ritual that takes us from campaigning season to governing, 

April:

Mmmm

Mónica:

Back into governing. We’re gonna bury the hatchet. And around the election, I have folks in my life whom this applies to and maybe some of you do too who are listening, people who have said things that have insulted you about politics, that offended you, might there be a transition? Might there be a way that you can take that rear view mirror, because you put it so beautifully, April, this election, it’s big, but it’s going to be in the rear view mirror. It is. 

April:

Mm-hmm

Mónica:

And when it is, when are we going to be then? And who are we going to be around and how are we going to treat each other? Can we transition from campaigning to just being, to just being in this country, to being citizens, to participating, to doing, to trying to thrive together, can we do that?

(music up and under)

This season we are proud to be partnering with two fantastic media organizations to help us reach more listeners like you. KUOW is Seattle’s NPR affiliate station, founded with the idea that everyone should have free access to honest, fact-checked information. Deseret News is a multi-platform newspaper based in Salt Lake City, committed to providing thoughtful reporting and insightful commentary from the Intermountain West. Help us by helping them. Learn how to read more at kuow.org/brave or desert.com/subscribe. Thank you Deseret News and KUOW for helping us create bridges between communities and to Braver Way listeners, everywhere.

(music under)

Before we move on, I want to tell you about one of our supporting partners, Tangle News.

Every day, Tangle News breaks down one big political debate by describing what’s happening in the most neutral language possible, then sharing 6 opinions on it from across the political spectrum. No spin, no clickbait, opinions from the left, right, and center so you can decide. I’m a subscriber and read it almost every day these days. Learn more about Tangle News and sign up to get their daily newsletter at ReadTangle.com. Learn more about Braver Network and the movement for civic renewal at braverangels.org/abraverway.

(music out)

Mónica:

So our next clip ties a little to what we just heard from Will, and this is from our friend Wilk Wilkinson. And we had him on to talk about how we navigate political anger in his personal life and in his interaction with politics. He’s been there when it comes to the rage and what it makes you want to do. And the lessons he’s learned were pretty incredible. So let’s listen to him.

Wilk Wilkinson:

I figured out that you cannot be happy without being grateful. I didn’t want to be miserable anymore, so I started focusing more on gratitude. I had spent so much of my life mad, and so much of my life yelling, and breaking stuff, and and getting into fights and doing all.. I just didn’t want to feel that way anymore I didn’t want so when I started to look at the world around me and really realize there is so much in this world that’s out of my control and it’s not a matter of allowing those things that are outside of my control to make me angry and then that anger has to build to a point where I’ve got to spell it off or whatever. And just coming to the realization, the personal accountability realization that it’s not what happens in this world that’s out of my control that matters, but how we react to it. And once I just made that part of my personal mantra and said that, you know what, I’m not going to let these things outside of my control control me because I don’t want to be controlled. I am a conservative guy. I want to have the ultimate freedom and that ultimate freedom is being able to choose my response and how I am going to react to things that are outside of my control, and I am not going to allow that stuff to control me.

(sfx)

Mónica:

Man, Wilk has a lot of wisdom here. In an election, there’s going to be plenty to get angry about and anger has its place. It really does, it focuses our attention, you know? Outrage does that and it’s really useful.

April:

Mmm-hmm

Mónica:

I ended up at a coffee shop the other day where they just so happened to have the Declaration of Independence in this old book and I read that line that we have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Wilk mentioned, I realized I couldn’t be happy when I wasn’t grateful, and an election is not a great, an easy time to be grateful for what we have. And this is where one of the things that makes me angriest comes out, which is, coming from another country, there is so much the United States and our process in our election and our democracy has that is so good, so good, compared to so much of the rest of the world, and sometimes it really feels like we’re not grateful for it. 

And it’s if we’re not feeling grateful for those rights we do have, the right to disagree, you know, the right to vote, it’s very difficult then to look at the work that we need to do to keep this thing going and keep it up, and then to look past our anger to our agency and our power and our liberty. 

And Wilk just nailed it with that, you know? We have the right to liberty. That doesn’t mean that we’re gonna make ourselves capable of exercising it and we do play a role in how we exercise it and whether we can. So you can externalize it quite a bit, right? You can say, well, I need to have systems that ensure my liberty, yes. But your own liberty is sort of up to you and it’s perspective, it’s attitude. It’s, what are you going to do about the things you can’t control? And how do you figure out what you can influence?

April:

Totally. Yeah. And I think you’re zeroing in on exactly the right place, which is control. But I just, the, I think the, the point about what does it actually mean to be free is beautiful because usually in America, we’re talking about competing visions of freedom. 

Mónica:

Yes. 

April:

And justice, right? But those are not always very different from one another. And basically, I feel like the message of this clip is don’t disempower yourself, because lots of other people will do that. And that’s the other piece of freedom and anger is, remember, lots of entities out there right now are trying to manipulate you into anger, into anger. 

Mónica:

Yes.

April:

And don’t get taken, you know? Like retain your conscience, retain your equilibrium, retain, I mean, and I’ll be like realistic, like we’re all going to be pretty angry for this period. And we should just give ourselves grace for that. But I think remembering not to disempower yourself is one of the harder pieces of this, especially when lots of people around you are making that more difficult and are disempowering themselves. And anyway.

Mónica:

Right. And as human beings, we are tempted to believe that the way to find power is to get other people to do things. But the only thing we can ultimately control really is ourselves. And I think you just put it so well, you know, this liberty is about, don’t be taken for a ride. People are really good at that. There are forces out there in the media and political parties would love probably for many of us to be taken along exactly the ride that they want us on, to then do the behaviors that are going to give them more power. And this is how it works. 

But our independence, you know, in this country, our liberty in this country really relies on our ability to think for ourselves. And that requires some awareness of these forces, these default settings in our society that can take us for a ride via our emotions. The levers that they can push and pull where we don’t even notice. And anger and fear? Anger and fear are the two like cheapest levers to pull. It is easy. It is so easy. So are we going to let, are we going to let it happen without at least, you know, checking it out first? I think is the question. 

April:

Yeah, totally.

Mónica:

Okay, so now we’re going to hear a clip from a two-part episode series that we did around COVID and truth and trust following the pandemic and health and science and what we trust and the vaccine and masks and all these things that came out of that. And we had that episode with a man who was responsible for much of the federal government’s response, Dr. Francis Collins, and Travis Tripodi, a conservative small business owner in New Hampshire who dealt with the effects of both the pandemic and the government’s response to it. It was an incredible conversation between the two of them alongside all these themes about how we think about truth and trust. And it inspired some thoughts on truth and trust in the conversation that you and I had afterward, April. So let’s listen back to that.

Mónica:

It was really eye-opening, really hard for me because I, you know, there’s the signs. There’s signs everywhere. I believe in science, you know? And on people’s lawns. And so I believe in, I believe in truth. How do you not? I believe in truth. I believe in getting to our best understanding and acting on it. I believe in that.

What the last few years have taught me is that when truth is not collectively searched for and explored, then it doesn’t have the power it needs and it’s incomplete, which is the part that I think will be controversial to many of the people I know, in journalism and elsewhere, who think of facts and truth in a certain way as a very discreet thing that you go for, and then you protect and you defend. But like, there are steps on the way to truth. There’s foundations you build under it for it to work. And you mentioned the one earlier, which is that you cannot unlock truth without trust. You cannot do it. We rely on diversity and disagreement in this country. It’s messy AF, but we have to wrestle with that.

And so the burden on not just communication, but engagement, listening, that’s something that our institutions don’t do. So that’s the way I see truth is like, we’ve been blind to how important trust has been to truth all along. And like it just, so no, I don’t think, I certainly don’t look at it as like, there’s a lot of people that just didn’t value truth. (laughing) You know, that’s not at all.

We all value truth. We’re just looking for it in different places and we’re not looking for it together.

April:

I liked that you said that the truth is incomplete. That’s a thing I deeply believe. That if we shut out, you know, the people who won’t wear a mask at the event, like, you’re not going to get the whole truth because they know things that you don’t.

(sfx)

April:

I think this one’s really interesting because it gets at, so all of us, right, are walking past people who are going to vote the other way. And often they’re in our families and co-workers, friends, etc. And the interesting thing is that usually when you try to persuade someone, you fail. And I think that people give a lot of airtime to the idea that it used to be great when Walter Cronkite told everybody the same facts and we all had the same ideas and all of that. 

But I think that trust was the ballgame even then. And what’s interesting now is I almost feel like if you’re sitting there and you’re watching the election results roll in, and it’s not going your way. It’s gonna be very tempting to say, “I knew they were evil, I knew they were stupid, I knew they were whatever,” right?

But in some ways, the most true thing is they didn’t trust you and they didn’t trust your sources. And that’s a really different sentence and a really different feeling. And I think that both sides have aspects of the truth, you know, the thing about they know something you don’t, they also, both sides right now are oddly sort of aligned with one form of truth or another. I would say that the blue side tends to be aligned with like institutions producing numbers, right, science and government agencies and all that stuff. And the right tends to be aligned with the individual independent researcher who has just done a bunch of work to try to figure things out. And both sides spent a lot of time saying their version of truth doesn’t count, their version of truth is corrupt. It’s either that it’s corrupt if it’s red to a blue or it’s, you know, just because somebody said that on your Facebook page doesn’t make it true in the other direction. But the truth is that actually, once again, we need both.

I would say that it’s particularly American to have both of those things, not just the one. And it’s about trust. Again, look at who people trust and why. That’s the, to me, the key to the whole puzzle. 

Mónica:

Yes, absolutely. And in the context of this election, I imagine the conflicts, some of which will be spun up, and some of which will be quite real and objectively really urgent. But we’re probably going to be tempted to just talk to the person who agrees with us about it, right? 

But I think the harder thing is is the thing we’re called to do. Enough of us have to try to exercise that capacity we have to look for truth together. Meaning, don’t just talk about what’s going on with the people who have your same instincts because they will share your same blind spots. That’s how that works. So enough of us have to do the harder thing, which is, if you watched it all at on MSNBC, who do you know who watched it on Fox News? Who do you know who’s seeing this story from a whole different angle with a different set of suspicions and concerns? If we keep those worlds separate, this election, and we keep doing that all the time in our politics, we’re gonna continue to spin apart. It’s not rocket science. So enough of us have to do that hard thing. 

So that’s what I think this calls us to do, which I recognize is difficult. But do not look for the truth of anything that’s contested this election either in isolation, or in the isolation of being surrounded only by people who think the same way you do. And the sort of more profound thing, I suppose, that kind of gets me to is like, you know, I think our democracy, if our democracy is pluralistic and has a lot of different ideas, but we don’t interact across those divides, how actual is our democracy? You know, and if our democracy is supposed to be the thing justifying election and these processes, how effective are they gonna be if we keep just talking to our own apart pointing fingers? So that’s, I think, the challenge is like, whatever happens, can we do the hard work of looking for the truth together?

April:

Totally, and I feel like we’re sort of compounding challenges. Like read the other side’s news and don’t get so angry that you can, you know, you can’t think anymore. And like, I just want to acknowledge that this is hard. 

Mónica:

Really, really hard. 

April:

And so the thing that matters is, do you search for truth with the other people in the long term. Not just like, if you can’t do it today, okay. But like, just don’t give up on it in the long run.

(music up and under)

Mónica:

Every vote counts in America’s presidential elections. But this year, the votes in seven states are getting most of the attention. These are, of course, the swing states. The seven states that, back in 2020, each handed their precious electoral votes to a candidate who squeaked to win by less than three percentage points.

People in these seven states—Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and the biggest prize, Pennsylvania—have been bombarded by campaign ads, robocalls, the works. And the more I hear about these states, the more I’ve wondered. How have the swing states swung over time? And which of them, if any, tend to side with the overall winner? 

Rather than hem and haw, I went to USAFacts and did some digging. USAFacts is a non-partisan nonprofit that’s out to guide people through the maze of public data from the nation’s more than 90,000 government entities. They do that by compiling the data and organizing it so it’s accessible and understandable to everyone, not just policy wonks, not just journalists, everyone. USAFacts is also a proud sponsor of A Braver Way. 

The first thing I learned is that there is no one definition of what a swing state even is. A close contest in the last election is one way to define them. But another way is to see which states changed parties from one election to the next. On an interactive map that USAFacts loaded with data from the Federal Election Commission, I saw that five states did that from 2016 to 2020. 

But it hasn’t always been so tight. You know how many states switched sides from the 1988 to the 1992 elections? A whopping 22 states. Which brings me to another question. The states that aren’t swing states and haven’t been for a minute, are they really that reliable? The facts say, yeah, pretty much. Since the 1988 elections, half a lifetime ago, 20 states plus Washington DC have voted for the same party every single presidential election. And only in three of those states, Minnesota, Oregon, and Washington, was it ever even close. So is loyalty equally balanced between red and blue with these states? That’s where it gets interesting. Of these 20 reliable states, 7 have voted consistently for one party, but almost twice as many, 13 have voted consistently for the other. Can you guess which is which? If you said the 7 went with Democrats and the 13 stayed with Republicans, you are correct. 

Another fun fact about swing states, they tend to be better predictors of the overall winner. Two of our current swing states have gotten eight of the last nine elections, right? That’s a pretty tall order considering the volatility of our politics. One of those states is in the American West and the other hugs our Great Lakes. Give up? Give it up for Nevada and Ohio. Thank you USAFacts for the quick data plunge.

Now back to the episode.

(music out)

Mónica:

So April, we talked to Kai Cheng-Thom, a trans activist who joined us to take on a really difficult question for a lot of folks, which is how do you bridge the divide, engage across the divide with someone who thinks I shouldn’t exist, or in some way to me kind of gets so in the way of what it would take for me to thrive in this country. So that’s quite the question. Let’s listen to one strategy that she models and talked about. 

Mónica:

As I read the book, one of the things that really struck me was how letter after letter to those who you have had trouble holding in your heart, maybe because they’ve hurt you, or they hold beliefs that, you know, appear to keep you from thriving, whatever it is, letter after letter it’s like you found a way to search within yourself for the things that you were condemning them for. 

Kai Cheng-Thom:

Yeah 

Mónica:

Like what?

Kai:

Yeah I, you know so we go back to, um, I was unhappy with the social justice left. Like I was like, oh, we’re always accusing each other of being evil. And then I noticed hypocrisy. I was like, oh, the people who are accusing others of being evil are doing the things that they are saying are so bad. On the left, it’s very common to call each other out for doing these things we call microaggressions, like making small comments that are unintentionally prejudiced or whatever. And I was like, the people who are making big accusations and callouts are doing that all the time. I know them. And then again, I thought about my experience on the church, the evangelical church on the right wing. And I’m like in the church they’re always saying it’s bad to be gay, but the loudest voices that are anti-gay are often secretly gay. And so I was noticing this phenomenon of like when we point the finger, we’re actually seeing a mirror and then I was like, oh s***. That means when I point the freaking finger I’m seeing something that might be true about me. And so and then I became fascinated with that and that’s what this book is about.

(sfx)

Mónica:

Yeah, this clip to me screams humility radical humility, you know that that virtue that seems non-ideal because it can look like weakness. It can look like concession. Especially in the competitive cutthroat world of elections. But the message here, I think, is just so sound, which is that armed with humility, any interaction with the other side to contest something they’ve said or to critique something they believe, becomes a lot more productive because it’s a lot more honest and hearable. I think about this in particular with the charge of hypocrisy. It is the perennial charge, you know? The left says, the right is hypocritical and the right says, you know, the left is hypocritical all the time. And we keep issuing this charge to the other as if it only belongs to the other.

April:

Uh-huh

Mónica:

Or we think of, you know, charges of deception, divisiveness, sensationalism, manipulation, spin, they’re sowing distress in the system, you know, they’re doing this and that, they’re only voting for these horribly selfish reasons. Look at your own side. Look at yourself. Can you say for sure that not a trace of that exists too in your own side? It is so incredibly difficult. And the fact that Kai could do it really inspired me. 

April:

Absolutely. I mean, she’s an inspiration for like a whole bunch of different ways. And that, I feel like you’re pinpointing something that’s really powerful, which is there’s something incredibly disarming about humility and about saying, “yeah, my side does this too,” and just even thinking about the interactions I’ve witnessed in this work also, just that moment when somebody says, “yeah, you know, my side isn’t perfect either.” It shifts something and the other person’s still like, “oh, I’m talking to a person” not to redness or blueness or republicans or whatever.

And it reminds me that one of the big dynamics around right now, I think, is defensiveness. And I will say that this is true anytime, almost, I’m in a conversation about the election, even with my own side, but typically more when it’s a mixed group. And I think people are scared, so they’re not secure feeling. And then we get defensive. And so to me, I, I still find the question for this episode, how do you talk across difference with somebody who thinks you shouldn’t exist, like that’s still, what that brings up in me is that pointy finger that she talks about. I always am afraid it’s going to get pointed at me, right?

You are the monster, all of that. And so I think that at least for people who experienced that, which I think are probably more often red, but whatever. The thing to do this election season is notice when you’re in a group discussion and you’re acting out of fear of being the monster, or called the monster. And I just can speak for myself and say that like, I have noticed that this is operative in me a lot. And it keeps me from giving grace when I should, and from listening well when I should, because I’m spending all my time defending against this thing I think other people are gonna say I am.

Mónica:

I think you’re so right. It’s about disarming, right? So yeah, if you really want to talk to your uncle about this thing that his side is doing, begin with some admission of how your side is not exactly saintly on it, and see what happens. You really might find that he’ll be a lot more receptive to joining you in an honest contention with whatever that issue is, and then you can really move forward. 

So back in July, the Braver Angels Convention happened the same night as that really consequential presidential debate between Trump and Biden, the one that changed the course of the election, got quite a conversation going. And at the convention, we happened to have hundreds of people equally balanced between liberals and conservatives watching that debate together. That was a remarkable experience and we were there that night talking to folks who were there that night about what it was like and what emerged. So here is a bit from our episode telling that story. 

The first voice you’ll hear is Daphne Burt. 

Daphne Burt:

I’m a preacher and so I have had all kinds of experiences with groups of people responding to the spoken word and some of the most powerful moments for everybody is when people start hearing, they’re hearing different things in the same way or the same thing in a different way but they’re all together. And one of the places that this happens the most is funerals and that’s what we were, you know, that’s what it felt like.

Mónica:

A funeral for what? 

Daphne:

A funeral for, well, someone just said democracy.

What I came here with was the idea that reds were a monolith. And instead, what I felt was we’re all together and we all care a lot about what happens to this country.

Mónica:

Tonight, you could see it.

Daphne:

Yeah, I could see it. I could feel it and I could see it.

Mónica:

Claudia Loiza, again.

Claudia Loiza:

I kept thinking back to points in my life. I had built up my faith in my identity as an American and I actually had both my parents naturalized as American citizens just within the last two weeks. I had such a deep sense of love and honestly patriotism, and I know that that word is really loaded right now. But I don’t think I’ve ever felt as proud in those moments of watching my parents step into that. I was just like, this is this is America like this is what we are about. We are about the ragtag team of people that can get things done in the face of of deep deep challenge and contention 

Mónica:

And here’s Michelle Polino once more 

Michelle Polino:

It was clear that we had different opinions, but tonight afterwards after the debate, not watching CNN, not watching any news analysis. We, the people, got to speak to one another and said, what did we like? What we didn’t like? What really matters to us? That’s what we need more of.

(sfx)

April:

Yeah, I actually think that if there were one episode I would encourage people to go back and listen to, it would be that one. And the reason is that we were talking about anger a few minutes ago with Wilk, and I think that what’s hard is that part of the reason anger is so appealing is because the alternative is actually grief. The alternative is a lot harder. It’s saying, “I can’t fix this, and I’m going to live with it.” And what I remember from that event and that episode was that what people said, what they got up and said was, “I am disgusted that these are our choices. I can’t stand that this is where we are. How did we get here?” And that is actually where I think our commonality lives.

And so, you know, I would say to anybody, really almost anyone out there. As you are going through this process, as you are sitting with people who disagree, as you’re watching results come in that kind of break your heart, remember that in where it seems like we could not possibly be together, the place that I think we’re together is that. It’s saying, “I want something better.” And I just think that if we can still believe in that in our fellow citizens, that’s where we’re going to find our answer. And I say that partly because I think that this is not a happy time for folks. This is actually very hard, and we need something that has the sobriety of that awareness to get through it. 

Mónica:

Yes. And we do need to see it in each other because it’s difficult to see humanizing things when you believe that, you know, the other side really is not just opposing you but threatening, and is dangerous to the country and, you know, again, not to dismiss the issues. There are some right answers and some wrong answers. And for a bunch of questions, one or the other side is wrong. But what you’re saying is so important and so overlooked. We talk about common ground and how important common ground is. Find that piece of common ground and to think that shared grief could be the common ground, a shared sense of disappointment. And you might think well, that’s just gonna bring along more despair. But that’s what happened that night. We saw that that’s not what happens. Like I was in that room and I have never experienced anything like it in my entire life. It changed me because I saw shared despair, and out of it grew actual hope. 

And it turns out that even though we are voting for different people, we have different ideologies, we do really share a deep and profound investment in this place we call home, and a shared disappointment in how messy things are. And that’s where we can begin to find our agency. And that’s what happened with folks in that room. I think if it had all happened on TV, they might have ended up in despair, but because they saw each other and they saw how much each other cared, despair sort of seemed silly. But it’s our democracy, right? Yeah, of course it is. I mean, duh. And you’re owning it together. You’re owning it. It just, I have never experienced something so powerful growing out of something that I would have thought would be so disempowering. 

April:

Exactly.

Mónica:

It turned out to be the opposite. So share in your grief, right? Bring out the points of commonality if you disagree with someone around the election in huge ways. Maybe bring up like, “Gosh, you know, the media can be so sensationalistic.” Or, “Gosh, these political parties just seem like they’re getting us, you know, versus the other.” “Gosh, I’m sick of that. Are you sick of that, too?” They’re sick of that, too. They are. They actually are. Start there.

(music up and under)

Mónica:

Before we move on, I want to tell you about another supporting partner, Living Room Conversations. Do you avoid talking politics with friends and family? Are there things you wish you could talk about? Living Room Conversations‘ easy-to-use dialogue model brings people together to practice listening and understanding across difference. As we move from election season to holiday season, getting ready for those conversations can go a long way. Learn more about Living Room Conversations and their upcoming events at livingroomconversations.org. To learn more about Braver Network and the movement for civic renewal, go to braverangels.org/abraverway.

(music change and under)

All election week, Braver Angels is offering a series of events dedicated to bringing people together, inspiring hope, and combating polarization this election. We’ll have workshops, debates, conversations, movies, music, theater, and more. It will all culminate with a big Braver Angels online gathering on election night, where you’ll hear from volunteers all across the country who are working hard to hold America together. And 24 hours after that, a Braver Angels national meeting, where you’ll hear leaders and supporters reflect on the state of the election. Speakers include folks like former presidential candidate Dean Phillips, Batya Ungar-Sargon from The Free Press, Jim Robb from NumbersUSA, and many more. Learn more about all these events and sign up soon at braverangels.org/electionnight.

(music out)

So in an earlier episode this summer, we went all the way back to the 1790s and the story of Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson, two founding fathers who hated each other, disagreed on everything, and thought that the other would destroy the country if they got their way too much. So here is a clip from historian Lindsay Chervinsky talking about some of the lessons we can draw. 

Mónica:

Do you think the nation is better off because they spent that time together in the cabinet ticking each other off that long? 

Lindsay Chervinsky:

I do. 

Mónica:

Tell us more about that. 

Lindsay:

I do. I think that there was a risk that had either view been predominant in especially in the first couple of years, the nation could have gone down one of the more extreme paths. And Washington was much better off and much better president, made better choices by having both perspectives and often finding a middle line in between the two of them. 

Mónica:

Yeah, as you say, thank goodness that those giant personalities were able to stand the heat for as long as they could because of those tensions between the visions that they had are still with us. Aren’t they? 

Lindsay:

They are, they really are. You know, one of the questions I often get is like who’s vision won?

Mónica:

Yeah. 

Lindsay:

And the truth is that they both won because if we look at the world we live in, it’s very much Hamilton’s world. We have technology and infrastructure and the internet and cities and trade and we live in this international community. But when we talk about, you know, there’s always the like ‘average American’ or the ‘ideal American’ and that ideal tends to conjure up white picket fence, little house for every family, yard. And that is very much Jefferson’s creation. And so in some ways they are both really responsible for the American identity.

(sfx)

Mónica:

There’s several things that jump out to me. And one of those things is the knowledge, again, sitting on a quarter millennia, that no matter who loses the election, we don’t lose. We don’t lose. We’re still building this thing. Jefferson and Hamilton fought so hard, and in some cases, un-civally. They threw contempt at each other in some remarkable ways that would be hard to imagine even today, believe it or not. So go back and check that episode if you can. This divisive period we’re living through, it’s easy to believe that it is evidence of, we have already lost something and there’s no recovering whatever we think we’ve lost. But what if that’s not the case at all? What if the same way that Jefferson and Hamilton’s fights made the country smarter got them through that friction to go even farther to articulate what their visions meant and therefore sort of populate decades of disagreements to come. What if the extraordinary explosion of divisiveness of the last many years today is, is our kind of paying attention to the material that exists in the fault lines that matter in American life? And that all these fights and even the contempt we’ve thrown at each other really has made us have those arguments out? And what if in the next decades of American politics and American life actually benefit from that, despite all the pain. 

This thing that Lindsay said in that episode was like the freshest place that I found hope. We’re still building this country. We are still building it. We haven’t lost. Whichever side loses the election will have lost the election. That’s it. There’s other things to win. 

April:

I want to agree with you, Móni, but forgive me, do you really believe that? Like, obviously, yes, we’re still building the country. Yes. But do you actually believe that, like, all the campaign acrimony and like the vicious hashing out, like, that that’s actually a gift like that? 

Mónica:

Mmm-hmm

April:

I don’t know, I’m having trouble.

Mónica:

I do. 

April:

Help me.

Mónica:

Well, I wonder, April, if you’ll agree with this thing I’m about to propose, which is that I think that sometimes repair in a relationship is the thing you need to bring you closer. 

April:

Mmm-hmm

Mónica:

And it is what you need. There’s a lot that has broken in the last several years that has led to us seeing things that we didn’t see before. And it does hurt. But so long as we can engage in the process of repair, I think we’re going to come out stronger in the other side. So I guess it’s about whether you have faith that that repair can happen and that we are capable of it, or if you think we are actually not capable of that, which brings me back to that beautiful concept you introduced me to of the anger of hope and the anger of despair. 

There’s a lot of ways that the divisiveness of the last several years has looked like the anger of despair, absolutely. But maybe this is about the ultimate outcome. So I can absolutely see a universe where, kind of like with my preteen, you know, who yells at me and shuts the door. And sometimes whatever he yelled at me is what I needed to hear to finally understand what he’s been trying to tell me. You know, and then maybe the next morning, we’re able to talk. And then we learn something and we move on. That’s repair. So I think that the invitations to repair have been plentiful. And so long as we accept some of them, I think we can only learn and grow from there.

April:

Yeah, well, that I do actually find inspiring. I do think repair can be transformative. I guess I’m stuck on the idea that like, are we fighting so badly that repair will be impossible? And I, okay, I don’t think it’s impossible. All right, you’ve pushed me low enough. And I’m like, yeah, all right, it’s not impossible. Like, okay. And yeah, I do think that it’s also partly about alternatives, right? Like, if we were to not have elections, would that be like, right, that would be worse. And so, and maybe, boy, I have trouble right now with the idea that like, whatever your preteen, i .e. the other party in my case, yells at me is what I actually needed to hear. Like right now, I’m like, I don’t know. Maybe what I’m yelling is what they need to hear. But, but I will just say, you’re right about repair. And I think that that is actually the responsibility that we all have. It’s like take a breather, take a break, but come back because we’re still gonna have a country one way or the other, and so better to be part of the future.

Mónica:

Well, could not think of a better segue to our final clip, which comes back to perspective. We’re gonna hear again from Will Ford, but this time a little more context about the story that brought Will and his friend Matt to the podcast. So Matt is White, Will is Black, and what these two friends discovered many years into their friendship is that Matt’s family had once owned Will’s family as slaves in America. And that made them confront some pretty harsh realities about our history, about their history, about their lineage, about their legacy, and about what they wanted to do with their friendship and with the story that they found. So let’s hear from Will. 

Will Ford:

Yeah, he had slave owners in his family. And they were releasing these, like, what would we call generational curses, and really making this family what the meaning of their family is. This is what they were. But no, he also had a revivalist abolitionist that was releasing generational blessings, and had another narrative going on in the same family. Like I have family members, unfortunately, in prison. I’ve done stupid stuff. Thank God for the blood of Jesus. So it’s like what our nation is right now. We have these dominating themes of storylines that are in our families, are also in our nation right now. I feel like what God is shoutin’ to America right now is this, what storyline do we want to be a part of? The healing of the hurt, the blessing of the curse, what storyline do you want to be a part of?

(sfx)

April:

Oh my, yeah. Well, I, oh goodness, it’s so beautiful. And also, I wrestle with it. I have to admit that sitting where I sit right now when he says, “What story do you want to be a part of?” A part of me says, I don’t get to pick that. I am part of this story and it’s not a great one right now. But the response is, well, what were these folks dealing with?. Again, literal slavery, literal slavery and a painful discovery inside of their friendship. And I guess to me, it all comes back to the fact that you do have a choice here. And this sort of comes back to what we were talking about earlier around, do you sit in despair or not? I think the answer is you acknowledge, you face what’s awful. And then you choose, what future do I want to be a part of? What future do I want to live? And that is not something that is erasing the realities of the dark part. 

And so I guess the final thing I’d add here is just, I do think there’s something to know around what to ask of yourself right now, versus what to ask of yourself later, because that can vary. And right after a bitter loss, like waking up the next morning and realizing that like, remember, I don’t know if you have that moment, Móni, where like, I have a moment where like, I don’t remember right after I wake up and then I do. And something bad has happened. So if that’s, if you’re waking up to a world you didn’t, that wasn’t the world you wanted, right? Wasn’t the world you were trying to choose. I think giving yourself grace for that period of time is good. The trick is you will make a choice about which future you’re going to be part of. And so own that, take it, and frankly, make the right one. Because, yeah, all of us have that responsibility.

Mónica:

Yeah, exactly. One of the things that’s in this question that Will asks that I love is the incorporation. So he says, what storyline do you want to be a part of, which assumes you really are. you really are part of a story. This is not happening to you. It does feel that way. Sure. 

April:

It’s both, yeah? 

Mónica:

But you’re not absent here. And the thing is, you know, coming back to that, you only get one measly little vote, you know, and millions and millions of votes, and you get one citizenship and millions and millions of citizenship. But if we all feel like our one citizenship is worth nothing, and we might as well set everything out, then that’s when we lose our democracy. And this is another place where I get angry, April. I do. Because, you know, being in this place where we’re trying to see the political divide and what’s going on and what one side lobs at the other and the other side lobs back and these things that just keep going on and on, it’s this sense that our Democratic Republic is in the hands of the other side. 

It’s back to Luis Mojica. You know, if they don’t change, I can’t be okay. If they don’t change, I can’t be okay. And what we’re doing is disempowering ourselves. We are putting all of that agency and all of that control of the future over there. Meanwhile, we’re finding ourselves just being victims and kind of being tossed around by the winds of our democracy. What is that? That is to me, that is so abdicating. And that attitude, if it is too far spread out. We are all going to let go of the reins. And that’s how we actually lose our democracy, not because of what the other side did, but because we decided to abdicate. That’s what it actually is.

That is the ride that Wilk Wilkinson was talking about, you know, we’re taken for a ride, we lose our liberty. That’s the ultimate curse. The ultimate curse is if we all get so angry and so other oriented and so hopeless that we actually give up the democracy that was always ours. This has always been ours, nobody else’s. So that’s what is actually the biggest threat to democracy. Because boy, hasn’t that been one of the most anxiety-inducing conversations of the last several years, the threats to democracy. 

The biggest threat to democracy is if each of us believe we don’t own it and that we can’t be part of a story. Like we can’t be. I’ll say one more, which is, because now I’m back in the parenting thing. Sometimes I tell myself when I look at my son or my daughter. I’ll tell myself, “they’re gonna be president of the United States someday”. They’re gonna be president of the United States someday. How do I want to parent the future president of the United States?

And that’s a way that I get myself I check whatever judgments I have of them or one whatever they just did the deserved punishment where it’s leading them. No, no, no, they’re going to be President of the United States. So how do I parent the President of the United States right now in this moment, in this challenge? And I don’t know. That helps me remember. 

April:

I love that. 

Mónica:

We don’t know what’s going to happen, but we actually have some control. So let’s pick up the reins and take it forward. 

April:

Hmm. Hmm. Beautiful. I wonder if I can apply that to my dog? She’s going to be President of the United States.

I’m kidding, I’m kidding.

Mónica:

June, for president! Yay, June! (laughing)

Oh my God, now we’re talking about dogs, that’s how…

April:

That’s right. I’m tempted to quote our former president, but I won’t. Yeah, no, I mean, just to that point though, like staying together. I can make that joke because I’m in a relationship with you, and like that’s something I think all of us can do, right? So, um, so yeah, just a pleasure, it’s funny -I didn’t expect to say that –  to go through this with you. If we have to go through this, I want to be right by your side. 

Mónica:

Absolutely. Oh my gosh. Absolutely. I think that that’s one of the biggest, just one of the biggest lessons that I’ve taken away from all of this. I don’t, I don’t want to go through this just on one side. I want to see what there is to see when we look together. So, thank you April. Thank you for everything.

(music up and out)

Just last week, I was talking to Bill Doherty, and he pointed out that it’s gotten easier lately for us to see our favorite politicians as saviors. But here’s a thought. If we believe we need an all-powerful hero to save us, what does that say about our belief in ourselves?

In 2016, just after the results came in for that presidential election, I called my mom. I had voted for Clinton and she had voted for Trump. My side had lost, her side had won, and I felt a dread that was new to me and painful. My mom could have done any of a number of things on that call. She could have met me with a sense of superiority. She was thrilled and so relieved, and she is not a shy person. She could have stepped right up after the hellos and poured that joy, that victory, all over me. 

(music under)

But instead of doing any of that, she asked me how I was. And then, when I tried to put that fresh devastation I was feeling into words, she listened, for a while. Even when I said exactly what I thought about her candidate, she didn’t get offended. She didn’t argue. She just kept listening. And when I was done pouring out my despair on her joy, mind you. She told me some things I think I could only really hear then. Things that complicated my certainty about what would happen next. That reminded me that while I had a lot of fear, I did not have all the answers. And that showed me that while she and I had, and still have, very different ideas about what’s best for our country, a country we’ve both proudly adopted, we still share it. And we can still support each other as we keep striving for a more perfect union.

To be clear, that phone call with my mom did not get rid of my pain or my fear. Like many of you coming into this election, I still carry a lot of the latter. But it did reintroduce me to my own power. And I know now, eight whole years later, that it helped put me on a path that led me here, to this work, to this podcast, and to you.

In an earlier episode, scholar and author Yuval Levin said that hope is not optimism. It’s not a sense that everything’s gonna be fine. “Hope says things are up to us,” Yuval said, “and they could be good if we are good.”

How will you receive the result of this election? How will you treat other people in victory, defeat, uncertainty, or crisis?

How will you navigate your fears or the fears of others and what it leads them to say or do? What kind of strength and what kind of grace will you have for them and for yourself?

Whoever wins whatever happens you have the power to choose.

(music out)

And with that, I’m ready to send you brave souls back to your worlds with a song.

(“Not Divided” music under)

It’s called “Not Divided” by Stephanie Sweet, and it was an entry in the 2023 Braver Angels songwriting competition. Take a listen.

(music up)

“Sister I will not be divided from you. Vote your own conscience and live as you choose. Speak your mind freely. There’s nothing to lose. I will not be divided, from you…”

(music under)

Mónica:

Thanks everyone for joining us here on A Braver Way. If you have a question about how in the world we do this bridge building stuff in the post-election thing, whatever it holds, send it in. We’ll be offering our responses in our last episode of the season, airing November 19th. Email your question to abraverway@braverangels.org or join our text line to pass it on. Just text the word “Brave” to 206-926-9955 to get started. 

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. Murdock 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. My disagreement buddy is April Lawson. 

Our theme is by the fantastic number one billboard bluegrass charting hip-hop band, Gangsta Grass. 

A special thanks to Ben Caron, Don Goldberg, Gabbi Timmis, and Katelyn Annes. And to everyone who’s been talking up this podcast, sharing episodes, telling their friends and family, thank you so much. That’s been awesome. I’m your host and guide across the divide, Mónica Guzmán. Take heart, everyone. Until next time.

Braver Angels is the nation’s largest cross-partisan, volunteer-led movement to bridge the political divide, and the organization that produces this podcast. And here’s the exciting part. You can join us in our mission to overcome toxic polarization and strengthen our Democratic Republic. Head to braverangels.org/join to become a member and support our growing movement. And let them know that A Braver Way sent you.