Restoring Civility in our Politics (on The Middle)

Hello everyone, Nick here. It is the holiday season so I'm home with my kids and speaking very quietly and sledding and eating too many chicken wings and watching all the Home Alone movies. I bet you didn't know there were so many. So I thought it was the perfect time to share an episode I was in this winter of The Middle with Jeremy Hobson. Jeremy's show quote, elevates the voices of Americans who live in the middle, geographically, politically, or philosophically. And this was an episode about the state of civil discourse in America and civility in general. I have to say it was an utter joy to be on this show. It was recorded live at the Bank of New Hampshire stage in my hometown of myriald conquered New Hampshire. But before I play it, I want to ask you something. So the last question that Jeremy asked each of us was, do you think politically there is a middle? And I really wonder what you think. Civics 101 listener, is there a middle? Let us know. My mind is very easily changed. Just drop us a line at civics101 at NHPR.org. Tell us what you feel and don't let 2025 hit you where the euphemism euphemism. Enjoy the show. See you next week, next year, etc. Welcome to a special edition of The Middle in partnership with NHPR. I'm Jeremy Hobson coming to you from the Capital Center for the Arts in Concord, New Hampshire. It has been just over two months since the assassination of the political activist and podcaster Charlie Kirk at a campus event in Utah that was focused on debating controversial ideas. And Kirk's murder sparked another national conversation about the tone of our politics and our ability and willingness to talk with and listen to one another, especially when we disagree. Now we're in the state of New Hampshire, which is the center of our national politics every four years when they hold the first in the nation primary. The people of this state, which has been a swing state for the last few decades, are used to being around people with different political views. They're also used to having face-to-face interaction with national political candidates. But like all Americans, they're also on social media, where it's commonplace to unfriend someone who's on the other side politically or start a fight that you probably wouldn't start if the person were standing right in front of you. So this hour, we're going to be talking about what we can do to restore some civility to our politics, our conversations about politics, and even just our interactions with friends, neighbors, and family. I'm joined by three terrific guests here in Concord. Doug Teshner, a member of Braver Angels and a former New Hampshire state legislator. He's also the author of the book Beyond the Politics of Contempt, Practical Steps to Build Positive Relationships in Divided Times. Doug, great to have you with us. I'm delighted to be here, Jeremy. And also joining us is Anna Brown, who's Executive Director of Citizens Count, a New Hampshire nonprofit that promotes civic engagement. She's also Executive Director of the Warren B. Rudman Center for Justice Leadership and Public Service at the University of New Hampshire Franklin Peer School of Law. Did I get all that right, Anna? You killed the title. Good. Nailed it. Thank you. And Nick Capodice with a nice short title, co-host and Senior Editor of New Hampshire Public Radio's Civics 101 series. Nick, welcome to you as well. I'm delighted to be here, Jeremy. So, you know, this topic was actually the first one we did about two years ago when we started the middle, asking people how you talk to people that you disagree with politically. But since then, there have been two assassination attempts on President Trump. There was the assassination of Melissa Hortman, the House Speaker in Minnesota, Charlie Kirk, obviously, many other acts of political violence in this country. Doug, I'm going to start with you. As a former lawmaker, how do you think we got here to this point? Well, thank you, Jeremy. And it's so troubling to see where we are today. Even the latest data saying that 30 percent of Americans think political violence is even going to be possible and necessary. And we can talk about the social media algorithms. We can talk about conflict entrepreneurs, people who are profiting by dividing us, including foreign governments. And we can talk about people who are in silos. And these are just some of the things we talk about in our book. I'm glad you mentioned social media. I'm sure we're going to get to more about that. Anna, how do things look from your vantage point? And you are also on a college campus at the University of New Hampshire. What's the tenor of the political conversation right now? Absolutely. So one thing that I have noticed on the UNH Franklin Pierce School of Law campus is that our law students are surprisingly not very vocal about what's going on. And I had a conversation with a colleague about this earlier today. And obviously, pro-con, love, hate, there's a lot of unprecedented changes going on right now in the law. And the question is, do these students, is it just normalized? Since when they were kids, was when a lot of this really started ramping up. Or is it because maybe there's a tone that's being set that for your professional, your future career, you don't want to say the wrong thing or step out of line or get put in a box. So it's definitely something that I feel there's sort of been that chilling effect on our campus. They're afraid maybe to get in trouble by saying something that's easier to say nothing. Yes. Nick, as we said, you host the Civics 101 podcast or NHPR. How does Civics education, do you think, relate to this? I think it relates a great deal. Like Doug mentioned, when he said, you know, conflict entrepreneurs. That's an expression that we should all be familiar with and should scare all of us. People who make money, people who gain power by breeding conflict among us. Is that just like every podcaster at this point? I wouldn't say that. In my opinion, a conflict entrepreneur is somebody who is, you know, let's just say hypothetically making money, hand over fist from seeing division happening on both the right and the left. And I wouldn't say every podcaster out there, but it is happening on social media. It is happening. Everything we listen to, wherever you turn your radio, you're going to hear these people saying, this is an emergency right now. We have to take care of it right now. And that fear stops us from thinking about the stop sign at the end of our block or local legislation and lets us think about big things over which we have no control. Well, the nationalization of our politics, you know, you talk about the stop sign at the end of the block. Is the stop sign at the end of the block Anna getting as much attention as Trump tearing down the east wing of the White House? I would say no. And this is something that I've observed in my own home city of Manchester and New Hampshire as well. And I think when social media first came out, Arab Spring, everyone thought this is going to bring everyone in far flung corners of the world together. But I think that it encourages people to associate with things and identify with a community that is way too far flung instead of the people who are literally next to them. And there's data that shows we are talking to our physical neighbors less than we were decades ago. Right. Right. Doug, you're the politician on this stage, the former politician. Is there a difference, do you think, between the ordinary people and how they interact and the political class? Well, I certainly think that's true. And I think a lot of people are just incentivized from running for politics. You know, when I was in the legislature, we used to have pro-choice Republicans, pro-life Democrats. But now you better hold the party line. It's a lot harder. And also, people on your side are coming after you. If you don't stick to your side and stick to the party line, you're going to find yourself somehow lost in the middle, for lack of a better term. Why do you think that is? Why are people so towing the party line more than they used to? Well, I think it's the power of the conflict entrepreneurs. I think it's the social media algorithms are pushing people to the side. You know, there's a wonderful report that was done and it talked about how people on the extremes are like driving the agenda. But a lot of people are kind of not so worried. They're worried about why so much is going on with the extremes and when people are not hearing about it from sort of the middle and those other voices. Nick, do people have to take civics in this country? Well, civics education is almost, you know, like everything in education. It's on a state-by-state basis. And what's interesting right now, the stat that I love telling everyone and everyone should know it, in 2016, the United States spent $50 per student per year on STEM education, science, technology, engineering, and math. For each student for civics, it spent $0.05. $0.05. Now, that number has been up to $0.50, not bad, times $10. But we have traditionally not funded civics and civics education in the United States. So it falls to the state level to fill those gaps. Well, Anna, connect the dots there. Why does it matter for the tone of our politics if people are not taking classes about how the government works? Well, first of all, it's going to allow misinformation and disinformation to proliferate if you just don't have some basic fundamental understanding. But I think it's also true that humanities, social studies in general, that's where you're going to learn how to disagree with people, how to make arguments in one direction or another, how to relate to stories you might not have heard before. So I think it's not just knowing this sort of A-B, this, I'm just a bill from Schoolhouse Rock, but also these other skills that are part of, okay, we have to live in a society together. Well, and when we talk about this right now, obviously, we're not having this discussion in a vacuum. President Trump has called his opponents political enemies. He's called them enemies. He's called them worse than enemies. But, Doug, doesn't this nastiness go way beyond President Trump? I think it does. I mean, we are accountable as citizens. We're allowing this kind of behavior. And this is where it plays into the social media algorithms. It's not just social media. It's the algorithms because they drive you to the extremes. They drive you to fear. That's all designed to keep you online longer so that you get more advertising. But it's not really encouraging the kind of dialogue that's so important. Nick, one of the things that I love about doing this show is that we get to do topics that are not political at all, whether we talk about artificial intelligence or whether we talk about GLP-1 drugs. Are there things that you find that there's broad agreement on even across the party lines? Absolutely. The one thing that I have seen in doing this show for seven years now that both sides agree upon 100% is that we need more civics education in the United States, which is interesting, right? Which is very interesting because if you'll forgive me for asking, what's the point of learning how a bill becomes a law if that is not being practiced in front of us on the federal level? There are so many things that we learn in civics class and the tried and true, like I took it in eighth grade, that you don't see happening. Rules are being broken. If the Constitution is a legal document, it has been interpreted by brilliant and very wealthy legal minds for 200 odd years, we're going to get to some confusing places where all the things we learned about in eighth grade just don't matter. And then our show, we're just going to have to cancel it. Hope not. I hope not too, Jeremy. Anna, what do you think? Well, it's interesting. I love digging through polls sometimes. And so you're talking about what do people find agreement on. And I love finding these gems in polls. We were just talking recently in New Hampshire where we are now. There was a poll that came out just a few months ago that showed 95% of people in our state agree that we should ban stock trading for members of Congress. It was roughly three quarters. It was over 70% of people agreed in New Hampshire that we should have a bell to bell ban on cell phones in schools. So I think that there absolutely are areas of agreement that we can find and move forward on, but they're just not elevated. And or they would not benefit as you called it, conflict entrepreneurs, you know, in some ways having division, having systems that don't work so well, sometimes benefit people who are donating a lot of campaign funds to our decision makers. Interestingly, by the way, banning cell phones in schools is something that has been adopted in both Republican and Democratic led states recently. So that's right. As long as you're doing it to people under 18, I feel like they can do whatever they want. Like nobody under 18 can have a gun. Everybody okay with that? Yeah, that's fine. Okay, nobody can have their phone in school. I mean, it is interesting though, politicians are more than happy to make rules for young people. Sometimes that's where it starts, though. Think about with cigarettes, right? It started under age 18, and now we have a lot more regulations. That's true. Yes, Doug. When you bring people from different political points of view, they actually find that they agree on more than they realize. People agree on more than the fundamental values of our country, but they're so polarized. And we just have to highlight to people that there's so much more that we agree on than we disagree on. And this is really essential to what's going to take for us to hold our country together. Well, stand by because in a moment we're going to talk about what the rest of America might learn about how politics are done here in New Hampshire. And we're going to hear from members of our live audience. You're listening to a special edition of the middle from Concord, New Hampshire. So food delivery services have been around for a while and I've tried a lot of them, and I loved some and I hated others. I will say that GreenChef is the trusted authority on clean eating. They deliver only real, farm sourced ingredients. So for my choice, I chose the Mediterranean option because I want to live another thousand years. And the standout to me was the fish. Oh, I've had so much trouble with fish in my life. Specifically in this box, the salmon with red peppers and olives, because I don't live by a fishmonger. There isn't one in my town. And salmon, salmon my whole life, it's been a gamble. This salmon from GreenChef, these were vacuum sealed. They were gorgeous cuts of fish. The kind I literally could not get at my local grocery store. And also I haven't made a fish and olive dish in maybe ever. So I learned something and that means it was a good day. 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Go to quince.com slash civics for free shipping and 365 day returns. That is a full year to wear it and love it. And you will now available in Canada to don't keep settling for clothes that don't last. Go to quince.com slash civics for free shipping and 365 day returns. Hey everyone, it's Nick Capitice here. If you have found yourself asking, can the president really do that? Then you got to check out You Might Be Right. It is the chart topping civics podcast produced by Howard H. Baker, junior school of public policy and public affairs at the University of Tennessee named after Howard Baker's guiding principle to quote, always remember the other fellow might be right and quote, you might be right aims to inspire the next generation of leaders in government public policy and public service by filling a critical gap in today's media environment and offering balanced perspectives without the shouting matches found on cable news. Each episode, former Tennessee governors from both sides of the aisle, Phil Bresden and Bill Haslam tackle timely policy conversations with luminaries like Al Gore, Judy Woodruff and more. Their new season just launched and they are tackling such big questions as is there too much money in political campaigns and should a president be able to take control of a state's national guard to restore order even if a governor resists. Hear balanced perspectives without the shouting matches found on cable news. Follow You Might Be Right on Apple podcasts, Spotify or rarity at your podcasts and make sure to tell them civics 101 sent you. Welcome back to the middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson. We're coming to you this week from the Capitol Center for the Arts in Concord, New Hampshire in partnership with NHPR talking about restoring civility to our politics. I'm joined by Doug Teshner, member of the Braver Angels and a former New Hampshire state legislator, Anna Brown, executive director of Citizens Count and Nick Capodice, cohost and senior editor of New Hampshire Public Radio's Civics 101. And we're going to be taking some questions for the audience. But before we do that, let's talk about where we are, Anna. This is a state, New Hampshire, part of New England, which is a little bit different than the rest of the country when it comes to the tone of our politics. I'll note that New Hampshire has a Republican governor, two Democrats right now in the Senate neighboring Massachusetts recently had a moderate Republican governor who was very popular in that state, Charlie Baker. Now there's a Democrat in charge of Massachusetts, the governor of Vermont is a Republican. What is different here? I think that above all, we have this very independent minded streak. Maybe it's because this is where the revolution started, right? So we were all kind of raised in this culture of being independent. But I also think it is because we have a much more face to face political reality because we're smaller states and because in New Hampshire, for example, we have a citizen legislature. 400 people, they're paid $100 a year plus mileage. So they're basically volunteers. So I often joke that Dunkin Donuts and Market Basket are as much the halls of democracy as our state house because you're probably going to know the person representing you. And we have the first in the nation presidential primary and growing up, everybody I knew, my own age, kids, would go see this or that presidential candidate. And I think that they're that culture of like, oh, we evaluate people for who they are. We don't just vote the party line. Even though every other state tries to take that away from you every four years, but you still got it. I will fight for New Hampshire. Doug, what do you think? You were a member of that citizen legislature. Well, I think, yes, we have certain advantages that were a small state and a big legislature. I think we're lucky in the state in a lot of ways, but we have to work on it. We all have to work on it to keep it better. Nick, what about you? You, like me, are originally from the great land of Lincoln, the state of Illinois. Do you think that things are different here in New Hampshire? Oh, yeah, well, see, I was born in Normal, Illinois, but I moved here. I got out of there at the age of five and I moved here to sunny New Hampshire. I was absolutely shocked when I first, even as a kid, I was shocked at candlepin bowling and I was shocked at the idea of a citizen legislature. The fact that there are, we are one of the largest governing bodies in the Western world, 424 people for the state of New Hampshire. And it's easy for me to sort of, you know, poo poo that and say, oh, that's just kind of ridiculous. But it is very cool to know that I can go down the street and talk to my elected representative. Can this be replicated in other states? I have absolutely no idea. But I do think it's, you're not going to be able to have as much effect on a federal level as you are on a state level, which is why, you know, everything we're talking about tonight, including how to disagree with people, it's got to start with the people you're in a room with, and then eventually it can go to the broader, you know, online world where you're fighting with everybody else. But you've got to start local first. Right. I mean, Doug, one of the things you talk about in your book is that people are less involved in their local communities than they used to be. What do you think are the consequences of that? Well, I mean, this is the one of New Hampshire's own. Robert Putnam wrote the book Bowling Alone and another book, The Upswing, and it's just a decline of social capital. And this is a big, big concern. And he talks about where our eye culture is opposed to a wee culture. And he actually traces this to going back to the Gilded Age to late 1800s up until the 1960s was the rise of the wee culture. And now he's watched a decline again, starting in the 1960s. And what's it going to take to get another upswing? And so it's deeper than politics. I mean, I think you see people, given people the finger on the highway, and you'd see more... That's in Massachusetts, I think. Okay. But people, you know, more people are angry and upset and disconnected from people. And we need... It's deeper than politics, but politics is obviously where the front line of this battle is being fought. So, you know, we've heard a few times about social media this hour. And Nick, I want to ask you about that. And the role specifically that social media is playing on all of this, because even if you're having a conversation now, and I'm a member of, you know, I have been a member in the course of my life of these Facebook groups in the neighborhood that you live in, which are like just cesspools of hatred towards parking, and the local restaurant doesn't accept this or that, or how could the price be this high for this? It's like, that has nothing to do with politics, but it gets pretty ugly now. And that's your local community. Oh, yeah. Well, I love those cesspools. They're fun to watch, but my next door is binging as we speak. Right. But I mean, I think it starts in childhood. And this is why I've always, I've been talking with my cohost, Hannah, a lot about how we need a new word for civics, because we hear civics and it sounds a bit dull, and we think it's how it becomes love. But civics is really just that, like being able to talk to somebody else, being able to respect somebody else, I was rewatching Witness the other night, building a barn together, right? So like things that we do together in our community, that is what citizenship is. The word citizen just just means person in a town. Like a citizen is just somebody who is part of their community. An online community is no replacement for that. I have a neighbor I disagree with every day, but he picks up my mail when I'm out of town, right? That is what civics is. Civics is second grade learning how to share toys. Civics is everything that we do. And I think we need to sort of embrace that. And then that will lead to civil discourse if we follow a couple rules, which are not being followed online. Okay, let's get to some audience comments. I'm sure that our New Hampshire audience is not going to be shy about coming forward to tell us what you think about this. You can just come right down here and Zoe will bring the mic to you. Here we go. Why don't you tell me your name and what town you're coming from? My name is Laurie Carey. I'm from Bosque in New Hampshire. First of all, thank you, Doug. You taught me at Braver Angels, and I am a member. But my question is this, should we get rid of political parties because is that part of what is dividing us? Wouldn't it be better if we were just independence? All of us. Great question. Anna Brown, I'm going to go to you. Sure. Well, that's interesting because one of the things that I think New Hampshire does well, a little bit of our secret sauce again, we haven't talked about open primaries, where you do not have to be a member of a party to go in and pick up the ballot. If you're registered independent, you can show up on primary day and say, I'm going to vote for the Democrats. I'm going to vote for the Republicans. There's also a group in New Hampshire together that came up with this idea of we should have a ballot of all the parties together. So you can, in the congressional race, vote left. Maybe in the governor, you want to pick out of these Republican candidates. So I think there are ideas to do that that are helpful because certainly also in primaries, you get that extrusion to more extreme voters, more extreme candidates. That being said, completely getting rid of the parties, I almost want to toss this to you, Nick, because I feel like there was so much writing among the founding fathers about the dangers of factions, but how also they're perhaps inevitable. Yeah, factions are Federalist 10. The Federalist paper, Federalist 10 is all about factions that they're terrible and they are inevitable. As long as we have winner take all first past the post voting in the United States, we are going to have two parties. There's a famous law. It's not really a law law, but it's a law called Diversure's Law, which is we are destined in the way that we do voting now in the United States in elections to have a two-party system. I would love to get rid of hyper-partisanship, but I don't think the elimination of the parties is possible unless we have a new constitution. Doug, what do you think? Oh, I think it's really difficult because the parties have ingrained, they're ingrained in the political system. And do I, I mean, I think things like open primaries could be interesting, but I think it's going to be really hard to get rid of the parties from a practical point of view. You know, we had a guest on our show over a year ago who was the Senate, I believe, co-majority leader in Alaska, a Republican, very moderate, who said that she would not have been able to be elected if it weren't for the ranked choice voting that they put in place in Alaska that there was then a big movement to get rid of. And in fact, in many places where they put it in, the party that suffers from it ends up not wanting it. Nick? I just have a follow-up to that, which is, so the reason we vote on a secret ballot in the United States, we used to call it the Australian ballot, we stole it from Australia. But I think Australia could teach us a thing or two about democracy because they have ranked choice voting, they have very diverse parties, and everybody has a holiday for elections, and they have a democracy sausage, or everybody from different parties grills sausages and makes fun of the other person sausages. It's like a holiday with drums and pageantry and fun. I would argue that we took a lesson when we took the secret ballot from them, we should maybe consider some other lessons as well. Okay, let's go to another audience question or comment. Hello, my name is Chip Underhill. I live in Alton, New Hampshire, and I agree that politics is the front line of this conversation. I agree that politics is actually far larger than that, and the larger part is the morality and ethics. Two words I never hear used in this conversation, and I think that we as a society have abandoned any social contract. So if you are a parent, if you are a neighbor, go to the social contract. My God, what is ethical? What is moral? I've lost friends because they think I'm Democrat and they're Republican. I could be a Republican in five seconds, but the morality difference between the two is so extreme right now. Where do you think that that should come from? What part of our society can instill the morality and the ethics? Are you talking about a religious organization, or like where should people be getting that from? Fabulous question. It starts at the top, and that's where it's ending right now. But meanwhile, on a local level, we're all so private, we're all so territorial and worried about our own investments and defenses, and we have given up. We've just sort of become numb, and I challenge us all to become more aware of the ethics and the morality of this and make a decision based on that. Thank you so much for that. I'm gonna, yeah. I just want to get a thought from Nick about that, since you helped teach people about the things they ought to know to survive in society. What about that? Do you have to have done shows on nodding along? Well, no, but I mean, have you done shows on ethics and morality? Well, you know, not particularly, but what's interesting is we do a lot of shows on the concept of originalism, the concept of natural rights, and these things, it may sound like it's unrelated, but when we're talking, we're about to have the 250th anniversary. When we are looking at things like what did the framers intend and what did they want? A lot of the things they intended and wanted were moral and ethical things, you know, natural rights, who are we, how to be kind to your neighbor, how to have a conversation with your neighbor. We are a nation built on protest and disagreement. That's how we got here. So to do that ethically, to argue ethically and with morality, it's something that the people who built this country would have wanted, and I agree, we do not see that much at all. We want people to look at your own values, look at yourself, look at your heart. That's where it's going to start. It's going to start with, are your values important to you and are you living your values in terms of how are you treating other people across politics and otherwise, but it starts from inside each of us. Anna? I just want to jump in here because this is another interesting dynamic is there was a state legislator who put forward a bill a few years ago that was going to require a philosophy course for high schoolers. And when I first said this, I was like, this is going nowhere because the idea of mandating additional things in high school in New Hampshire is not popular, but when I read the rationale, it was very interesting because he said we are a very non-religious state and so how are we teaching kids to evaluate right and wrong and so on. And so that really is really compelling to me. And I think that there's also, as you said, I mean, Jeffrey Rosen from the Constitution Center just wrote a whole book about how when the founders talked about the pursuit of happiness, they were actually talking about the pursuit of these virtues in a very like classical philosophical sense. And so I think that there is something there about are we teaching our kids to value things if it's in the absence of organized religion, what does that look like? And also everyone going to church regularly, that was more of that social capital, right? So I'm not claiming everyone should suddenly start going to church, but there's a piece there. Well, and I think one of the things that we've learned in recent years, as sort of norms have been tested, is how much of our democracy relies on people operating in good faith. That there might not be a law that says you can't do this, but we've just, that's just the way it's been done. So it's worked that way. Yes. So many of our checks and balances we've seen and guardrails have been about courageous people standing up and standing on principle in the face of others, people who are looking to erode that or trample on that. And most democracies fail not because of a military coup, but because of people working on the inside and slowly just taking power and people don't stand up to them. Let's go to another audience question or comment. Hi, my name is Cynthia Nichols. I'm from Grantham. I am worried about the silos, the silos of information that we're getting and thinking about what you were just talking about. I wonder if we had more critical thinking in schools and more philosophy, people could evaluate that information better. And then the polarization of the way people are living, they don't understand each other's lives. So I'm an RN care manager and I take care of people on both ends of the spectrum. So people with a lot of wealth don't understand what it's like to be without that wealth. So basically the silos, how do we bridge the gap between that? Doug, go ahead. Well, this is the key. I mean, and this means we've all got to get outside of our bubbles. I mean, you know, at the conclusion of our book, we said the most important thing you can do is go find somebody on the other side, go ask them about their life, ask them about their hobbies, ask them about their work and ask them about how they came to their political views and then share the same. And we talk about this as change in the country to people at a time. I just think this is so vital for people to go beyond their silos. Yeah, Nick. It's just a follow up to that. I absolutely agree, Doug. We were recently talking to a gentleman named Ben Clutze who teaches, I believe it's a Minneapolis and he says, to be able to talk to somebody with whom you disagree, who you might not even be in the same political frame as them. Three rules must be followed and they are like at a man time, right? You've got to follow these three rules. Number one is respect. If I'm talking to you, I must talk to you with respect no matter how much I disagree with you. I must treat you with respect. Number two is honesty. You have to tell the truth about why you feel the way you feel. Don't shroud it in some, well, I'm worried about this or that. Tell the truth about what you feel. And number three is curiosity. You can't fake it. You have to know why the person feels this way, why they want X to happen at a political level. If you obey those three rules and nobody's trying to win, you will actually be able to have a conversation with somebody else. Let's go to one more comment here from another listener. Yeah, thanks very much. My name is Eric Turr and I am one of those volunteers slash minimally paid state representatives here in the state. Thank you for your service. And representatives Manos and Corman are here as well. There's a conflict between what I think I hear people wanting when I go around knocking on doors, which is, you know, what are you going to do to lower the tension? What are you going to do to solve this conflict? We don't like the way it feels and that's on both sides. But then you turn around to run for office and, you know, the algorithms are all, as you said, pushing, you know, conflict, they're pushing, you know, division. And it's very hard to raise the profile, I guess, of non division because it's hard to see. And I didn't know maybe through shows like this, maybe through things like a caucus, but any other ideas for basically how to make non division more visible and more shareable online. Can I just ask you a follow up question? Do you find that it's difficult to be a braver angel in the legislature? Do you have a hard time recruiting other members? Do people want us, do they find it's easier to be a politician when you just go to the extremes and do the click bait and play the algorithms? I mean, I'll say so far, it's been interesting why people come to this, you know, because we're not a legislative caucus that takes positions on bills. So people come to it for whatever reason they're there. And I've been impressed at the degree to which some of our hard partisans show up at our events just like people who you'd naturally associate with sort of the middle, you know, and so I don't think everyone has the same idea in their head about what this is, but I think they're all trying to find something better than what, you know, what their experience, that would be that would be my guess. And it was easier when our numbers were close, I will say that. Yeah. Stand by because in a moment we're going to talk about some more solutions. You're listening to the middle coming to you from Concord, New Hampshire in association with NHPR. Spring's blooming at Starbucks. A new season calls for new discoveries, like our iced uber vanilla matcha latte, smooth, creamy and nutty, balanced with notes of vanilla. It's a treat for the eyes too, with vibrant lilac hues to brighten your spring mood. Hot or iced, there are so many ways to love this stunning serve. Uber vanilla pouring now at Starbucks, subject to availability while stocks last. This is the middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson at the Capital Center for the Arts in Concord, New Hampshire this week in partnership with NHPR and we are talking about how we can restore civility to our politics. I'm joined by Anna Brown, Executive Director of Citizens Count, Nick Capitice, cohost and senior editor of New Hampshire Public Radio, Civics 101, and Doug Teshner, a member of Braver Angels and a former New Hampshire state legislator. Before we go back to the audience, let's talk about some of the solutions because I know you've all thought about this. Nick, on an individual level, what do you think people can do to have better conversations with people they disagree with? For me, the most important thing, and I got to give credit to Jen Murcia who was on our episode about political framing. For me, the most important thing is that we don't have to agree on anything, but we have to agree on what we call something. For an example, you brought up the White House earlier on. If somebody said, if somebody referred to what happened to the East Wing of the White House this week, and they referred to it as a, you know, the people's house demolished and paid for by bribes from rich billionaires around the world. Somebody called, said that that person will never be able to have a conversation with somebody who says, this is an important necessary upgrade to allowing our, you know, more people to come to the United States and visit, indignatories to visit the White House. Because one person says an upgrade and the other person says an illegal demolishing. If we don't have the word for something, you know, somebody can call immigration, you know, a human crisis and somebody else can call it an illegal invasion, right? If we don't have the right agreed upon language for what we call, what we are seeing in front of our very eyes, we don't have a truth that we can agree upon that is right there in front of us. There is no way that we can begin to have a conversation with somebody else. But Anna, isn't that now like rule number one for political strategists is just change the terminology. Don't call it, you know, climate change. Call it something that's less scary to people or don't, you know, there are all these examples of like Frank Luntz coming up with a new term of how we can describe something so that it, you know, it's not partial birth abortion. You know, you know what I mean. Oh, absolutely. I think that a sort of call to actions because we're like what can individuals do was the original question, I believe, is just be aware of your own language because it is true that the person listening to you, because our brains love shortcuts, right? For evolutionary purposes, you need to know is this person a threat to me or are they part of my tribe? So you're going to look for all of the cues to give your brain a shortcut to safety. So if you're trying to have an open conversation with someone, just try to make their job a little bit harder, which yeah, it's policing language, it's semantics. But this is, I think this is, this is where we're at is people have been given too many clear cues of, okay, if they said illegal immigrant, okay, they're Republican, right? They said undocumented asylum seeker, they are definitely Democrat. And sometimes when you're just speaking, it just comes out of your mouth and you're not really thinking about that in that way. But here's the other thing I will say that if you want to have these meaningful conversations, you cannot go in with your goal to be that change that person's mind. Humans can, we can smell it, we can smell it like bacon on the fryer in the morning. And it just will not work. So it's this sounds so hard and practicing this as an individual is very hard. But you have to, when you start a conversation with someone, you have to legitimately be open to them changing your mind, or you won't find any common ground with them either. Or you can just listening to what they have to say and being actually curious about it. As usual, my favorite part about the show has been the amazing audience questions and comments. It's wonderful as our esteemed guests are. I want to get to more of these. So come on back down and let's do that. I also love the idea that I have no idea what you're going to say. And we don't know where we're going to go with this. Hi, my name is Bert Cooper. I'm from Concord, New Hampshire. And I don't often get a chance to meet with people from the other side. But I did when we had a local issue in Concord involved schools and people from both sides of the political aisle felt that they had issues that they wanted to deal with. And it was a situation where we had to come up with a compromise amongst the group who were from political extremes. And, you know, it was one of the few situations where you get a chance to talk with the other people. The other opportunity for that is at the polls on election day. I volunteer at the polls as a legal observer at the polls on election day. That's like one of the few times I get to talk with the people on the other side. I mean, it's just, to me, I think the idea of having political events where you're there in person is really important. And I think the idea of having a national election day that's a holiday, that everyone goes to the polls, I think that would help in some small degree to get us talking once again. Because you'll talk about the school issues. You'll talk about the local issues. You'll talk about taxes. Then you'll find out, you know, there's other issues that are in common, too. So I think we should think about that as an important way to gather the population together. That just reminded me of the other thing that we all have to do as our civic duty that makes us come together with people that may not agree, and that is jury duty, where by the way, everybody has to reach the same conclusion at the end. So we have to actually be able to convince each other. Doug, you wanted to say something? Well, I just think citizen-led solutions, which is really what he talked about, working in community problems with your neighbors. This is so important. And it's part of the reason now that people aren't so much in churches and rotary clubs. But when people come together to solve problems, it can be so important. Another member of the audience here. Hi, I'm Rachel from Lebanon, New Hampshire. And Robert Putnam came up earlier. And as we know from his work, social and community connection is an early link in the chain that leads to a strong civil society. And so to me, increasing social connection is a way to an action that we can take to combat the us versus them mentality that we're facing these days. So I plan community events where I live up in the upper valley, which is New Hampshire and Vermont. And it seems like people are really desperate for something to do and for human connection. But still, some folks will tell me they sit in their car and they're just anxious to come in to something like a happy hour, you know, which is pretty low-key. And so it can be hard to get them to come off the couch out of their car and into these events. So to me, from my experience, I think that some folks lost like the muscle of being a joiner and going out and trying new things. And also, I think it's just there's really real significant financial and family pressures now that make it hard for people to have their basic needs met, let alone to have time and energy after work to go socialize. So do you think that having a greater social safety net so that people don't have to struggle as hard just to get through the day would allow us to have more energy to invest in our local communities? Great question. And Nick, I wonder though, if we did have more time, would we just waste it doom-scrolling on social media? Or would we actually go out and meet? I'm just... No, we really would. I mean, I spend way too much time on this. I was just thinking kind of wistfully, Doug, when you were talking about how my father and I used to argue about so much stuff. When I was... I grew up in the back of a hondo court listening to Rush Limbaugh. And by the time my father died, he had a... I'd rather be occupying Wall Street bumper sticker. So what he always taught me was the importance of being willing to change and being curious and just going out and having a good time with other people. I mean, that's not what we're here on stage to talk about, but like the abandonment of the third space in the world, not just the United States, is so depressing to me. The bar, the hangout, the after-school place, kids playing with each other in the playground. Like, if we don't have that, we do lose that muscle. We do lose that muscle and it needs to be strengthened. And me playing Slay the Spire on my phone is not helping. So I really... I think we should all work out that muscle. Because if we do, we're going to be able to talk to each other. I just want to bring up the fact that, you know, I know we all want to forget about it now that it even ever happened, but we are just a couple of years out of a global pandemic that did change our ability to go do those things. And that has had a lasting effect. And I wonder five years from now, we'll be a little more back to the way that we were before the pandemic, Anna. I just... When I was hearing that and hearing about, you know, people sitting in their cars and being anxious, maybe think of conversations that we have once again had at the UNH Franklin Peer School of Law about how some law students are coming now, in now, and they're lacking some of those skills that you need as a lawyer to be really, really social and stand up in front of a room and answer questions on the spot, you know, and sort of on the fly like that. And so I don't think that's just law students, right? That's all of us. I think that that was the deficit that all of us are up against. I think about myself. I've struggled with anxiety in my life. And unfortunately, the way out of that is to make yourself uncomfortable, to make yourself do the uncomfortable things. It's not fun, but I think that there is... And also, it's uncomfortable to have a conversation with someone who doesn't agree with you, to be in a room, to play a sport you've never played before, okay? Adults, we hate getting embarrassed. We hate making fools of ourselves. And doing a new activity, trying something new, just like having that uncomfortable conversation, we're going to avoid it. So I think... I hate to say it, but it's kind of on all of us to do the uncomfortable things. Let's get to another comment here. Hello. My name is Dee and I'm from Kentucky, New Hampshire. I find it fascinating that we talk about bringing people together. And one of the number one ways that I had students come together in my office was food, because they have to be quiet to listen when they put something in their mouth. But at the same time, it gave them time to think about what was actually being said. And it was something that really brought them together to think. And often, sometimes it was just a listening, learning experience for me. And sometimes the moderation, but mostly listening. And I think that's a piece that we've been missing. But what I often heard from them was frustration, because they were told things like, that might be your truth, but it's not the truth. They were told that they don't understand their world. And what was frustrating for me is I would listen to them speak, and then I would listen to the adults, that they would try to bring their situations and thoughts and concerns to think about what there's being said to them through the lens of how they grew up, the lens of their politics. And they didn't truly listen. Sometimes I think the adults needed to be eating too. So my question is, how do we create an environment for the younger generation where we don't have to put food in people's mouth just to get them to listen? And what steps would you suggest? Well, that's a great, you know, one of the great books of our time is Stephen Covey, The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People. And he talks about listening to understand. We don't listen to understand. We listen to reply. And we aren't teaching this in schools. Listening is so vitally important with humility and curiosity. We have met with teachers all across the country, specifically social studies and civics teachers. And if there is one group of people that is teaching America students how to listen to understand, it is them. Like they are doing the Lord's work out there. And there are people who are teaching them to listen to reply, and it's not the people in their schools. It is the people on Discord and on Roblox and on YouTube that are teaching them to listen to reply, to win a fight as opposed to have a conversation. Let's get to another comment here. Hi, my name is Ross. I'm from Nashua. I had a question around, as it seems that we are moving further and further away from a shared reality within the United States about what is and what isn't important and what isn't actually true. And we're also reaching a point where everybody thinks that certain things are more important and are on a shorter timeframe that need to be addressed now, whether that's the left or the climate change, whether that's the right with immigration. How do you contrast those viewpoints where you have a set period of time that people think something needs to be done at with the realities of the current situation, especially if neither side accepts the other side's basis of fact? That is a very interesting question. Anna, I'm going to ask you to answer that question. Usually when people talk to me about like how do we get to a better place on policymaking and find agreement, my answer is usually to not start with those super high pressure, highly partisan arguments. You don't start the conversation with someone about gun laws or abortion. You start talking about the stop sign at the end of your road. So when we're talking at that level though, and when you're talking about a lack of shared reality, I think of a book I read by journalist Monica Guzman who has actually worked with Braver Angels. And she talks that a lot of times we all share the same values, we're just ranking them differently. So I think that especially when you're in a conversation with a person like that and you're just like completely disagreeing about the timeline, the scope, is it a problem or not, I think you can start from a place of we can both agree that this is a problem, that we do value this. What we're disagreeing is sort of the ranking and the prioritizing. And then I think that's where you can have more of that meaningful policy conversation of what are the immediate next steps. Because it's sort of, then it's that acknowledgement that okay, we actually do both agree these are problems potentially. And granted maybe they'll just say it's not a problem at all, but you can probably still get to them to Doug's point underlying values, right? Do they care about having a clean prosperous environment in the future? That's like a very fundamental I think most people would agree on, right? We have to start at that building block, then we started that building block. But I do believe those building blocks are still there. Let's get to one final listener comment here. Hi there, my name is Lath. I'm from the great city of Concord, New Hampshire. So over the summer I worked for Capital Region Habitat for Humanity. Great organization, met some great people, we do some great work, we build houses, repair houses for people in need. And I found that through volunteering you meet some really great people and can have conversations that you normally wouldn't just out in the wild. And I was wondering if you consider volunteering and I wish there were more visibility for this because you know organizations like this really do need more people. If that's a way to build the sort of foundation to start political conversations, for example. That's a great point. Habitat is also an incredible organization and let me ask you because you talk about doing it in the summer. You're a student. I am, yes. What year are you? I'm a junior. In? In St. Paul's school. In high school? In high school, yes. Wow, great, great. Thank you for coming. Doug, what do you think about that? Is volunteering a way that people can start to have these conversations across party lines and learn how to interact with all kinds of different people? Well, yes it is. I mean this is the whole part of social capital. How do we get people to come out, to find, to connect with people to make it attractive? Because we know it's hard out there. You have two working incomes for the most part and it makes it harder for people, but how do we make it more attractive for people to volunteer? And even in our work with Braver Angels, just give me an hour a week or give me small segments and that makes it not only does it give people hope, but it makes them feel connected to other people and it's so important so I really appreciate that comment. I'm going to just finally do a quick poll of the three of you. Since we're here in New Hampshire and our listeners around the country are able to tap in for a moment into the Granite State, a lot of people ask me when they hear about the middle, which by the way is about the geographical middle, the philosophical middle, the political middle, and also people that want to just meet in the middle and talk to people across party lines, but let's just talk about the middle, the political middle for one second. Do you think, each of you, that the political middle still exists in this country? I just want a yes or a no from you. No. Yes. Oh yes. Sorry. It's two to one. I guess two to one. Well, I want to thank my guests. Doug Teshner, a member of Braver Angels and a former New Hampshire state legislator, is also author of the book Beyond the Politics of Contempt, Practical Steps to Build Positive Relationships in Divided Times, and a Brown Executive Director of Citizens Count and Nick Capiti, a host of NHPR's Civics 101. And to our terrific audience, thank you all so very much. Also a big thanks to NHPR's program director Emily Quirk, the president CEO Jim Schachter, NHPR's events manager Zoe Mitchell, our sound engineer Ethan Todd, to the Clay Pigeon String Band for the great music, and to the crew here at the Capital Center for the Arts and the B&H Stage here in Concord, New Hampshire. The middle is brought to you by Longnook Media, distributed by Illinois Public Media in Urbana, Illinois, and produced by Harrison Patino, Danny Alexander, Sam Burmistaz, Brandon Condritz, and John Barth, our intern is Anika Deschler, our technical director, is Steve Mork. Thank you so much for listening. I'm Jeremy Hobson, and I will talk to you next week. Well I guess, well I worked real hard, and I played my cards, oh wrong it seems when I reflect. Used to curse myself, and my lack of wealth, I still lack wealth, but I've been drinking good hell, yeah to be a friend to all my friends, it's something that I want to be. All right Lou. Sometimes it feels like red and blue states are just as divergent as post-World War II East and West Germany. So what can the US learn from German political history in order to create a more perfect union? Find out on the new season of the future of our former democracy, the Signal Award-winning podcast for a more equitable democracy on large media, posted by me, Colin Cole, and Heather Villanueva. It's time to rethink democracy, so follow the future of our former democracy wherever you get your podcasts. Not all darkness is dangerous. Sometimes it's the doorway to becoming whole. On the brand new podcast, The Shadow Sessions, hosted by me, Hiba Balfaqe, a psychologist and trauma expert, we shed light on the hidden corners of the human experience. Through raw, unfiltered conversations from the edge of healing, The Shadow Sessions invites you to do the deeper work that leads to real change. Follow The Shadow Sessions wherever you're listening now.