depolarization podcast

Two weeks after the 2024 election, left-right tensions are through the roof. In this special “Ask Me Anything” episode, a cross-partisan panel of Trump and Harris voters take on a fiery handful of YOUR toughest questions about how in the world we bridge political divides from here… just in time for the holidays. Join host Moni, April, and our special guests — Angel Eduardo, Shira Hoffer, and Travis Tripodi — as they close out this season of A Braver Way with a conversation you don’t want to miss.

Featuring:
Angel Eduardo, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
Shira Hoffer, Institute for Multipartisan Education
Travis Tripodi, Braver Angels New Hampshire

Remember Election Day — before we knew the outcome and we were all on pins and needles, worried about what might happen if the other side won? On that day, dozens of pairs of Trump and Harris voters stood outside polling places in different parts of the country, shoulder to shoulder with their political opposites. With half our country in pain, and the other half feeling relief, what can we learn from six of these Americans and their radically simple experiment?

How can you navigate this election with integrity? No matter who wins… no matter what? In this special election week episode, Moni and April roll out a survival guide that lends wisdom to all this anxiety. Drawing inspiration from A Braver Way guests like somatic therapist Luis Mojica, trans activist Kai Cheng Thom, conservative podcast host Wilk Wilkinson, and many more, your politically red and blue co-hosts ask what it’ll take to manage the one and only thing we can control this election… ourselves.

Many Americans expect bitterness and mistrust between Democrats and Republicans on Election Day. Here’s something they won’t expect: hundreds of everyday liberals and conservatives pairing off at polling places nationwide to try to show voters — and themselves — that whoever wins, our union can’t lose. What’s motivating these Trump and Harris voters to stand side-by-side in front of anxious voters Nov. 5? We talk to pairs in a red state, a blue state, and a swing state to find out.

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the flood of election headlines and opinions. But does following the news have to drive us crazy…or drive us even further apart? Mónica talks with Isaac Saul, the founder of Tangle — a political newsletter that’s earned trust across the political spectrum — to ask how we the people can take control of our news habits for a clearer, less polarizing view of the campaigns, the issues, and each other. Then, April and Mónica discuss how our behaviors shape our media and why following the news with a “red” ear and a “blue” ear could help us tune in all the better.

It might have been the prayer, the land acknowledgment, the Pledge of Allegiance, or the moment everyone started sharing their pronouns. But opening rituals that disagree with you can leave you feeling shut out. So what do you do when the culture of a group you want to belong to goes somewhere you can’t follow? We talk with Braver Angels leader Steve Saltwick about the clashes that come up for conservatives in particular, and what it looks like to acknowledge someone else’s framework without abandoning your own.

How do you talk across the political divide with someone who might exclude you, fear you, or even believe you shouldn’t exist? And what if it’s your beliefs that seem to paint someone else out of the picture? Award-winning writer, performer, and trans activist Kai Cheng Thom has wrestled with these questions in a more visceral way than most… and in a more universal way than you might expect. Kai shares the groundbreaking ways she manages the tension between advocating and understanding, then April joins Mónica to explore contrasting views on gender and sexuality from the left and the right, and together they face the quagmire at the heart of so many of our toughest clashes: How do you love people well while holding strong to your convictions?

Who is responsible for building the future we deserve? For making sure that no matter who wins the presidential election, our country won’t lose? With so many liberals and conservatives believing that defeat on their side would spell disaster and despair, Moni — with a little help from American Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Yuval Levin and Washington Post columnist Amanda Ripley — makes the case for a daring, more muscular kind of hope.

Getting mad can get results… or get way out of hand. So when everything’s an outrage, how do you navigate your political anger? After 9/11, our guest Wilk Wilkinson found himself incensed by the other side and sinking into a personal crisis. The host of the Derate the Hate podcast shares how he took charge of his anger before it took charge of him. Then, April and Mónica trade notes on the cycles of rage and contempt we tend to see in our politics and in each other, and what to try when anger storms up in someone else.

“It didn’t turn into a fight!” When a family relationship takes a political hit, recovery can be rocky, and every little step counts. So how do you take the first one? We share five real stories from families who have taken risks and seen results — including one where recovery came just in time, and another ongoing struggle where the virtue in highest demand is patience.

This week, we’re going to re-share the most personally vulnerable interview Mónica’s recorded for this podcast. As the election creeps closer and closer, we’re hearing daily from listeners who struggle to talk politics with family on the other side. In this special episode first aired in season 1, Mónica — a liberal — joins the two people she’s argued with most — her conservative parents — for a candid conversation about one family’s struggles with a political divide that cut right through their own home. Looking back on the biggest disagreements that tested their relationships, like Moni’s pro-choice stance on abortion and her parents’ votes for Donald Trump, they open up about the strategies that keep them talking.

If you want to push for change in politics, it can feel like you have to choose either activism or dialogue. But what if that’s a false choice? Following up on last week’s conversation with Shira Hoffer, a Jewish rising senior building bridges at Harvard, we hear from Jadd Hashem, a student leading Arab-Israeli dialogue at the University of Texas at Austin who is also a proud Palestinian-American peace activist.

If you’re strongly on one side of a high-stakes issue — like the conflict in Israel and Gaza — why should you listen to the other? And if you don’t know where you fall, or even what to think, how do you begin to learn without inviting attack? As a Harvard undergrad, our guest Shira Hoffer started an anonymous text hotline after October 7 that gives people of all perspectives a non-judgmental place to bring their questions. After hearing her story, Moni and April dig in, exploring how the strategies Shira’s learned map to the political Left and Right, and why the tension between staying informed, staying involved, and staying humble animates more of our politics than we realize.

“You could be wrong.” It’s a phrase that greets students in Bill Jordan’s high school classroom, and poses a challenge to everyone with a political opinion these days: Since no one is right about everything, how do you stay open to shifting your own beliefs? Bill opens up about his own journey, then we hear from listeners who tell us how they’ve changed their minds on some tough issues, like gay marriage, abortion, and more.

Whether it was about foreign policy, the economy, or the best route to the grocery store, chances are you have changed your mind about something. What happens in your brain when you do, and what does that teach us about how we can change someone else’s mind on a political issue? Mónica talks with David McRaney, a leading voice on the science of persuasion, about how minds change — or don’t! — and why. Then Mónica and April open up about some times they’ve changed their minds — and challenge each other on how all this stuff does or doesn’t apply when we encounter people with the darkest ideas.

Say hello to David Kaufman, a conservative from South Carolina who’s made a serious habit of talking politics with liberals — with both sides learning loads as a result. Then join us in celebrating some of the people in YOUR lives who make tough disagreements worth having.

Free speech – Free people – Free food. That was a tagline for a cross-partisan discussion forum Sam Rechek started as a freshman at the University of South Florida. In this episode, Sam shares what he learned from those tough weekly conversations, like the importance of humor and humility, and making sure every student on campus can be heard, no matter their politics or their discussion persona. Then Monica and April unpack the lessons from Sam’s experience and talk about how the divisions on college campuses – both real and imagined – shape our own perceptions of politics.

Political violence and heightened rhetoric has turned up the intensity of an already tumultuous election season, adding to the fears and uncertainty on both the Left and the Right. Is there a way to stay grounded through this moment? We are joined by Dr. Bill Doherty, a “citizen therapist” who offers insight to help understand not just our own fear, but the fears held by the other side, and shares concrete strategies people on all sides can use to give voice to our deepest concerns without succumbing to the most dangerous tendencies of our divided nation.

Is it the facts that get in the way in our politics, or our stories? Baratunde Thurston is a renowned comedian, activist, and PBS host who knows a lot about how the stories we tell about ourselves can either unlock our civic power… or make us forget we even have it. We’ll zoom in on two unforgettable times Baratunde crossed big divides and what those clashes can teach us, and we’ll hear his four pillars of “how to citizen” — as a verb, not a noun — to help us wield that power daily. Then Monica and April close us out with a clash of their own, unleashing their own stories about citizenship to see where their different politics lead them to think differently about the concept and the many issues that surround it.

A Braver Way was in Kenosha, Wisconsin, when hundreds of liberals and conservatives experienced the most polarizing event of the election season… together. Organizers prepared for the worst. What actually happened changed the game for everyone.

Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton were our nation’s first fierce partisan political rivals. What lessons can the famously long-winded hothead and his calculating, duplicitous political opponent offer our political brawls today? Historian Dr. Lindsay Chervinsky explains, and then we reflect: What makes some clashes more productive than others? And with passionate disagreement baked into our system of government, how do we make sure, in 2024, that we’re truly fighting right?

After a week that saw big news in the presidential race, we hear from many of you — our listeners from all across the political spectrum — about what you are wrestling with as we approach the 2024 election. What concerns come to the very top for Reds, Blues, independents, and everyone else? And what questions do you wish your fellow Americans would not just reflect on, but act on? Tune in for a snapshot of where we’re all at… and where we might be headed.

In this special guest episode, we’re going to pass the mic to a wonderful podcast, “Kelly Corrigan Wonders,” that recently invited our very own April Lawson to disagree openly and honestly with host Kelly Corrigan about one of the toughest issues out there — abortion.

Their conversation is in-depth, illuminating, and believe it or not — productive. Plus, it puts many of the tools we talk about on “A Braver Way” on full display.

We’re back next week with a new Beat episode, and our first full-length episode of our new season will be up next!

Kelly Corrigan Wonders – https://www.kellycorrigan.com/podcast

We’re back! To kick off our second season, we’re bringing you a totally radical — and totally possible — vision of what election years could look like if we approached them a little differently. First we hear from Utah Gov. Spencer Cox about how election campaigns could leave our communities better off, regardless of the results. Then Mónica reflects on Return Day, a unique election tradition in Delaware that’s been putting these ideals into practice since 1812.

Mónica is joined by four friends in bridge building to answer your toughest questions about our shared mission of connecting across the political divide. Angel Eduardo, April Lawson, Manu Meel and Wilk Wilkerson get real about the challenges, opportunities, and misconceptions about our movement – are we all just a bunch of squishy centrists that brush deep concerns under the rug? And how can we possibly be expected to talk to someone who doesn’t even think we have a right to exist? These are questions with no easy answers and we tackle them head on. Finally, find out what Superman, Taylor Swift and Kirk Cousins have in common as we cap off the first season of A Braver Way.

How do you talk about a monster of an issue when the two sides are so far apart? Mónica brings together two unlikely guests to find out: Dr. Francis Collins, a man who helped shape the U.S. COVID response (and was Dr. Fauci’s boss!), and Travis Tripodi, a New Hampshire resident who believes that response was deeply wrong and misguided. In Part one of this two part story, Francis and Travis describe how they weathered very different challenges during the pandemic, their radically different perspectives on what went wrong during the crisis, and the extraordinary way that their perspectives first collided last summer in Gettysburg. What makes COVID disagreements so painfully divisive in the first place? Mónica and April follow up to unpack the giant barriers that complicate these conversations, and how their experiences both during the pandemic and in its aftermath have shaped their own novel perceptions on power, truth and morality.

In Part two of this two-part story, Dr. Francis Collins, former head of the National Institutes of Health during COVID, and Travis Tripodi, a strong conservative critic of the US COVID response Dr. Collins helped shape, attempt the impossible — sparring on everything from vaccine mandates to natural immunity freely, fully, and without losing it. What does their collision achieve? And what does it leave hanging? April Lawson joins Mónica to break down this extraordinary conversation and figure out what it takes for the rest of us to tackle the hardest political disagreements we face… without getting burned.

Mónica welcomes David Brooks, author and New York Times columnist, to break down an essential and endangered skill for talking politics – hearing deeply and being deeply heard. David shares a bounty of tips and stories from throughout his career, including a public discussion where he says he failed both at understanding another person and at making sure he could be understood. Then April joins Mónica to ask what it all means for liberals and conservatives, and we hear from a man who runs a Pennsylvania barbershop where debating diverse viewpoints is on the house.

Mónica asks author Chris Arnade how he’s bridged one of the trickiest divides in America by going to parts of the country that others dismiss. Chris shares what he sees differently now and what both our big political “sides” are missing when they claim to fight for the working class. Then we hear from Corrie, a wife and mother who shares what the class divide looks and feels like for someone in her position as she struggles to make ends meet.

Mónica talks to Luis Mojica, a therapist who’s learned loads from his patients about how we physically react to intense political disagreement… and what we can do about it. Luis sheds light on what happens to us when we feel “triggered” by something someone says, and the two share tips and bold ideas on everything from how you can feel more secure in tough conversations to where that all-important line might be between what’s painful and what’s harmful. Then Mónica, a liberal, joins her conservative friend April to break down where Reds and Blues seem good and not so good with these strategies… and Moni recounts a tense exchange with a critic where all the trauma responses Luis talked about — fight, flight, freeze, and fawn — showed up big.