Speaker 1: Welcome to Go Ask Ali, a production of Shonda Land
Speaker 1: Audio and partnership with I Heart Radio. I don't think
Speaker 1: that there's some one soul mate. It's not like there's one.
Speaker 1: Although bon Jovi is my soul mate, there's always exceptions.
Speaker 1: Are you saying that gossiping is the same as if
Speaker 1: I'm picking lice out of your scalp and eating it. Well,
Speaker 1: you've done both. So what do you think I want
Speaker 1: to give her too much. I don't like her to
Speaker 1: come in with an inflated head, so we won't mentioned
Speaker 1: the Golden Globe. After all we've been through. We deserve
Speaker 1: in orgasm. Cis I deserved? Welcome to Go ask Allie.
Speaker 1: I'm Alli Wentworth. This season, I'm digging into everything I
Speaker 1: can get my hands on, peeling back the layers and
Speaker 1: getting dirty. And for this episode, I'm getting really dirty.
Speaker 1: This is a BIGGI guys, this is a big episode.
Speaker 1: I'm digging into dealing with the other side, whether that's
Speaker 1: blue or red. And as we're sitting down at the
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving table or around the Christmas tree or Manora, it's
Speaker 1: important we understand how to deal with painfully partisan relationships. Hi, Ali,
Speaker 1: my name is Jen. I have two teenagers and my
Speaker 1: husband and I live in Oregon. Hey, Ali, Um, calling
Speaker 1: from southern California. Hi. I do have a question on
Speaker 1: how to foster healthy relationships, especially with the political situation
Speaker 1: going on now. I'm having a real sense of loss
Speaker 1: over UM, wanting to distance myself from friends that I've
Speaker 1: known for a long time, experience of feeling estranged from
Speaker 1: both of my parents actually, but I keep quiet so
Speaker 1: I know it's shutting me down because I don't want
Speaker 1: to fight with anyone. COVID is really shining to light
Speaker 1: that our values and the way we think and how
Speaker 1: we behave are really really different. I feel like everything
Speaker 1: I care the most about is political or connected to
Speaker 1: politics in some way. I'm willing to be shut down
Speaker 1: because I just want to private. I want a good life,
Speaker 1: and the politics is making it impossible. Even my friends
Speaker 1: on Facebook it's um. I just roll my eyes, and
Speaker 1: it really leaves my conversations with my parents pretty impoverished.
Speaker 1: To not be able to talk about any of the
Speaker 1: things I do with my life. I don't know how
Speaker 1: to move forward. I've spoken with these people, have sat
Speaker 1: down with them, I've listened. How would you move through this,
Speaker 1: I hardly know even where to begin, so I don't
Speaker 1: know what to do. Thank you by Lisa Jen, Anna
Speaker 1: von Cindy and everybody that's sent in questions and comments.
Speaker 1: This one's for you. Listen, there's no avoiding we are
Speaker 1: a seething cauldron of anger right now in our country.
Speaker 1: It's very difficult to foster relationships in this political climate,
Speaker 1: not only politically, but this rage about mask wearing and
Speaker 1: how people are dealing with COVID. I know people that
Speaker 1: have given up relationships with friends because people feel that
Speaker 1: some but he is not taking COVID seriously. People get
Speaker 1: angry at fellow parents or neighbors or friends they're wearing
Speaker 1: their masks or they're not wearing their masks, or their
Speaker 1: social distancing, or they're not social distancing. Listen, it's it's
Speaker 1: the wild West right now in our country, and people
Speaker 1: cannot find a way to come together. So how do
Speaker 1: we deal with all this? How do we deal with
Speaker 1: all this vitriol and anger at one another? And that's
Speaker 1: why I want to dig into the subject. It's digging
Speaker 1: with filthy fingers, but it's got to be done. So
Speaker 1: our guest is the person who's gonna come in and
Speaker 1: help us with this. Dr Bill Doherty he's a professor
Speaker 1: in the Department of Family Social Science at the University
Speaker 1: of Minnesota, where he directs the Minnesota Couples on the
Speaker 1: Brink Project. Following the US presidential election, he co founded
Speaker 1: Braver Angels, a citizen initiative to counteract political polarization and
Speaker 1: restore the frank social fabric in American society. He's also
Speaker 1: a practicing marriage and family therapist and co founder of
Speaker 1: the Doughty Relationship Institute. He's a recipient of the Lifetime
Speaker 1: Achievement Award from the American Family Therapy Academy and Dear God,
Speaker 1: we need Bill. Bill. Welcome to go ask Ali. So
Speaker 1: first of all, everything I want to talk to you
Speaker 1: about today could probably take a good nine hours, so
Speaker 1: we will limit it. I want to start off by
Speaker 1: saying that I grew up in Washington, d c. During
Speaker 1: the seventies and eighties, and my parents were all involved
Speaker 1: in political journalism, and I remember as a kid my
Speaker 1: parents would have dinner parties and there would be Republicans
Speaker 1: and Democrats together, you know, White House insiders, Bob Wouldward,
Speaker 1: Carl Burnstein, everybody there. And I also would hear stories
Speaker 1: about how, you know, the Speaker of the House, we're
Speaker 1: getting a huge fight with Congress. They all scream and
Speaker 1: yell each other, and then all you know at the
Speaker 1: time it was tip O'Neill. All go out for beer
Speaker 1: and oysters afterwards. So growing up in DC, my feeling was,
Speaker 1: you know, you can have opposing views, but at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, everybody goes out for oysters and
Speaker 1: beer together. And now, dear God, what's happening on our country.
Speaker 1: It is worse than the hat Fields in the McCoy's.
Speaker 1: Let's start with the fact that you are a couples
Speaker 1: therapist amongst a million other things. Have you found that
Speaker 1: all your couple therapy research and work has informed how
Speaker 1: you now deal with the Blues versus the reds? Yeah, nowadays,
Speaker 1: if people went up for beer, the Conservatives would have
Speaker 1: bud light and the Liberals would have a craft beer. Right,
Speaker 1: so we don't even drink the same beer and oysters
Speaker 1: is pretty upper crust, So let's just start there. But
Speaker 1: that leads me to say that we have taken political
Speaker 1: phil aleation political beliefs, and they have become core parts
Speaker 1: of our identity such that we become strangers to each other. Yes,
Speaker 1: it used to be that politics was you know, I
Speaker 1: had to put on and off. You could put it
Speaker 1: off sometime, right, you know, change clothes and when we
Speaker 1: both change close We're now just regular people. But we
Speaker 1: have sorted ourselves into these identity silos, and my goodness,
Speaker 1: when they come into like a marriage. The therapists are
Speaker 1: seeing things that we've never seen. I've been doing this
Speaker 1: work for over forty years, never seen people split and
Speaker 1: threatened divorces over who they voted for in the last election.
Speaker 1: I have so many friends who don't speak to a
Speaker 1: parent or got divorced, or there have a fractured relationship
Speaker 1: with a kid over politics. And while Donald Trump is
Speaker 1: no longer in office, the divisions are still growing and
Speaker 1: they're still fracturing relationships today. My question to you is
Speaker 1: is it political or is it just an undercurrent of
Speaker 1: kind of human issues that we've always had. They've just
Speaker 1: been ignited. Well, we always tend to divide, we tend
Speaker 1: to tribalize. Okay, yes, look at that. You know the
Speaker 1: hundred years war in Europe over Catholic and Protestant. Catholic
Speaker 1: and Protestant is no longer a big division issue in
Speaker 1: the US. Okay, it's still in Ireland, but it's not here.
Speaker 1: So at different times in history, different aspects of our
Speaker 1: identity become more prominent, and then we divide from one another.
Speaker 1: So there's a way in which this is human nature.
Speaker 1: But it has now in our country over the last
Speaker 1: third years, so not just since since Trump. We have
Speaker 1: crystallized ourselves into warring factions over our politics and it's
Speaker 1: very dangerous for our country. We can't get anything done.
Speaker 1: I mean, do you think it's the polarization of wealth
Speaker 1: in our country? I mean, what do you think has
Speaker 1: has spawned us? Well, many many factors that the political
Speaker 1: scientists look at, many way, income, inequality. Whenever you get that,
Speaker 1: you get more division, you have more social media the
Speaker 1: Internet have been huge in this. Everybody agrees on that one.
Speaker 1: The proliferation of news outlets so that now you can
Speaker 1: get your news from an outlet that that will only
Speaker 1: feed your own views of the world. Just more economic insecurity,
Speaker 1: in a more competitive world. Just many, many factors have
Speaker 1: fed this. And it's not just in the US, It's
Speaker 1: happening in other countries. A lot of historians think that
Speaker 1: we are more polarized now politically than we've been at
Speaker 1: any time since the Civil War. I think that's true.
Speaker 1: I mean, besides the politics, to the subgroups of rage
Speaker 1: around the country right now, are are the schools opening,
Speaker 1: the masks, the vaccinations. I mean, I've never seen so
Speaker 1: much victual and anger about this fight on online. I've
Speaker 1: seen you know, parent teacher meetings or school meetings, and
Speaker 1: these parents are enraged on both sides, enraged. Or you
Speaker 1: see documentaries right now where you know, people are fists
Speaker 1: and punches over wearing a mask or not. And I
Speaker 1: just think, what is all this anger about. Well, some
Speaker 1: of it is about the stress of this COVID pandemic.
Speaker 1: So yes, let's just keep that in mind. You know,
Speaker 1: violent crime is up everywhere, and parents are doing verbal
Speaker 1: violence and you know sometimes physical Look what's happening on airplanes.
Speaker 1: So we've been under massive stress as a country. And
Speaker 1: then whenever an issue becomes polarized around politics, whenever it
Speaker 1: becomes what I call colorized red or blue, we can't
Speaker 1: deal with it anymore. So masks, all this stuff with
Speaker 1: Trump wear a mask and making fun of masks and
Speaker 1: other people wear a mask. The vaccine, social distancing. I
Speaker 1: was I was at a small town and color out
Speaker 1: of recently and on a store has said masks not
Speaker 1: welcome here, and then it said don't be a mask
Speaker 1: hall okay. And so you know somebody's politics there with
Speaker 1: some people. Some people never want to go along with
Speaker 1: what the government says. I mean, nine eighteen there were
Speaker 1: massive you know that people didn't like like masks and
Speaker 1: social so there's always a residual on this. But then
Speaker 1: you add in politics, you add in core identity, and
Speaker 1: then you add in our perpetual debate about the role
Speaker 1: of the federal government. And so for a lot of people,
Speaker 1: the masks are about the government telling people what to do.
Speaker 1: Then you're a big government person if you want that.
Speaker 1: And then of course that would be the red side
Speaker 1: of this, and the Blues come across completely arrogant, telling
Speaker 1: everybody their bunch of idiots and and Neanderthals, and that
Speaker 1: just feeds the frustration. Intention So do you think this
Speaker 1: kind of tribal warfare is cyclical? Do you think it's
Speaker 1: just something that human nature does. After a certain amount
Speaker 1: of time, History would say, we go through periods of
Speaker 1: increased tension, often at least a war That's what I'm
Speaker 1: worried that if we can't deal with our differences peacefully,
Speaker 1: we fight. This is what we do as humans, and
Speaker 1: so we have to be very very careful about this
Speaker 1: this time we're in now. I mean, I think about
Speaker 1: it in terms of sort of everything you talk about
Speaker 1: in your background. And I've said this to my husband
Speaker 1: that I sometimes feel like our relationship, meaning Americans, is
Speaker 1: getting worse and worse, and we might have a very
Speaker 1: contentious divorce which looks like civil war. I mean, I
Speaker 1: know that's an extreme idea, but if it seems like
Speaker 1: we're getting further apart and not coming back together, we
Speaker 1: have a kind of Cold war now, okay, And in
Speaker 1: the Cold War, the other side were enemies and you
Speaker 1: do whatever you have to do. Live cheat steel is
Speaker 1: something huge. When people on the other side are not
Speaker 1: just opponents their enemies, we can justify almost anything, right.
Speaker 1: Oh gosh, all right, So figure show suggest that American
Speaker 1: voters felt largely misunderstood by voters from the other side.
Speaker 1: So husband and wife come to you and they say,
Speaker 1: we're just not getting along. We every time we go
Speaker 1: anywhere near politics, we start screaming at each other. I
Speaker 1: do want to say right now. I remember when George
Speaker 1: worked in the Clinton campaign, Mary Mattlin and James Carvil,
Speaker 1: who were from opposing parties, ended up having an affair
Speaker 1: and getting married, and they're still married. So there is there,
Speaker 1: at least in the old days, there was hope for
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. But but how do you deal
Speaker 1: with a couple that comes into you and says, um,
Speaker 1: I can't love this person anymore. Well, the first thing
Speaker 1: I want to find out is when did this become
Speaker 1: a problem. When did their political differences become a problem.
Speaker 1: Because usually when they dated, they knew where each other were,
Speaker 1: and they may have gotten along okay for quite a
Speaker 1: long time. So why now, right, Because if if you're
Speaker 1: dating somebody and you don't like their politics, you just
Speaker 1: say goodbye. Right, So they formed a love relationship, maybe
Speaker 1: they had kids, and it may be in fact, what
Speaker 1: I've seen clinically, it's it's apt to have spiked around
Speaker 1: the time of Donald Trump's rise and to elections with him.
Speaker 1: So you want to kind of pinpoint why differences that
Speaker 1: they handled before they can't now. And usually it's one
Speaker 1: person who is leading the conflict, if you will, it's
Speaker 1: usually somebody finds the other's politics unacceptable now. And what
Speaker 1: I have to say is it can go both ways.
Speaker 1: I've seen it both ways. But more commonly it is
Speaker 1: a Democrat somebody leaning more liberal, who when their spouse
Speaker 1: says they support the President Trump support now the Republican Party,
Speaker 1: that that now becomes a huge obstacle for that other person,
Speaker 1: And so one of the things I try to do
Speaker 1: with them is help them disconnect their spouse from Trump
Speaker 1: or from Pelosi, or for some politician. You are not
Speaker 1: married to that politician, but you can undo your marriage
Speaker 1: if you over identify that person with that politician. So
Speaker 1: it's justically not both. It's usually somebody says you're no
Speaker 1: longer acceptable to me. It seems like with blue and
Speaker 1: red and couples, somehow there's a loss of empathy, meaning
Speaker 1: there's a loss of understanding from the other side. I
Speaker 1: know that when I see parents get enraged and fight
Speaker 1: each other at these school meetings that you'll see on
Speaker 1: the news or in YouTube. I try to have empathy
Speaker 1: for both sides and think these people believe they're doing
Speaker 1: the best thing they can for their children, and so
Speaker 1: when I start from there, I'm not enraged, but so
Speaker 1: you start with that, with the kernel of when you
Speaker 1: started your relationship, you loved each other, and the politics
Speaker 1: I mean, wasn't the reason you fell in love, so
Speaker 1: it probably shouldn't be the reason you fall out of love.
Speaker 1: Where I start is with that they fell in love.
Speaker 1: But then the next thing is what they have in common.
Speaker 1: Underneath the political differences, there's often a lot in common.
Speaker 1: They both care about the next generation of children. They
Speaker 1: both want Americans to have good health care, want our
Speaker 1: country to be safe. Just take divisions over policing, for example.
Speaker 1: Everybody wants safe communities. Safe community a good for everybody,
Speaker 1: including the place. So what happens is people get caught
Speaker 1: up in their differences, and by the way, this happens
Speaker 1: in marriage a lot. You know, we could be common
Speaker 1: in our values, but oh my goodness, one of the
Speaker 1: things I try to do is to help them get
Speaker 1: to their level of values, their aspirations for people, for
Speaker 1: their fellow citizens, for the country. And they're usually not
Speaker 1: strangers there. Although they may have different views about how
Speaker 1: we get to good education for our children, they may
Speaker 1: have views of strongly different views about how much the
Speaker 1: government should be involved in solving problems. So help them
Speaker 1: identify a you fell in love and be there's common
Speaker 1: values that you have. You help them articulate those. Now
Speaker 1: you have a basis for talking about differences. It's easier
Speaker 1: to have now empathy for you supporting somebody who I
Speaker 1: am appalled by if I have first done the exercise
Speaker 1: in understanding how we are connected. Let me ask you
Speaker 1: about a different kind of relationship. I have an abundance
Speaker 1: of friends who aren't speaking to their parents. So their parents,
Speaker 1: who are in their eighties, they're not speaking to them
Speaker 1: because of their political views, and both sides can't deal
Speaker 1: with it. And rather than and I'm talking about the
Speaker 1: people in my generation, rather than looking for the empathy,
Speaker 1: they've just said I can't deal with my father or
Speaker 1: I can't deal with my mother, and so now there's
Speaker 1: just no relationship at all. They're not speaking. So how
Speaker 1: do you address that. Well, it's tragic when that happens.
Speaker 1: I mean, the grandkids get cut off and this is
Speaker 1: terrible stuff. And so here's what we call the prime
Speaker 1: directive in the family dynamics and politics. The prime directive
Speaker 1: is don't try to change another family member. Don't try
Speaker 1: to change them. You can only change yourself. And so
Speaker 1: what happens is people say it's unacceptable to me that
Speaker 1: you have these beliefs, and I can't feel emotionally in
Speaker 1: equilibrium unless this person I love changes their mind. Well,
Speaker 1: that's on me. That's on me. Now. Behavior is another thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't have to sit for your tirades
Speaker 1: about you know, politics. I don't have to let you
Speaker 1: lecture me. I can deal with that, okay, like, no,
Speaker 1: we're not going to do that. You know. I don't
Speaker 1: want to get into this discussion with you. No others.
Speaker 1: I can set boundaries around behavior. But the underlying thing
Speaker 1: is what's driving and that is that I can't live
Speaker 1: with the fact that you're that different from me, right,
Speaker 1: that your beliefs upset me so much because you're my parents.
Speaker 1: That's a lack of what we call self differentiation self regulation.
Speaker 1: So the beginning part is, don't try to change somebody
Speaker 1: except that this is who they are now, while setting
Speaker 1: some limits on what you'll talk about if it's too difficult.
Speaker 1: And what if you have a parent or sibling and
Speaker 1: they've just been eaten up by extremism and Q and
Speaker 1: on and everything, and it's it's so extreme and by
Speaker 1: the way, on each side, Um that you can't even
Speaker 1: get to any middle ground with them. You can't even
Speaker 1: get to you know, Okay, we're thinking differently. Let's come
Speaker 1: to the table with uh, you know, a sense of
Speaker 1: values or are certain things that we both think about
Speaker 1: in life when somebody is again in the extreme. I
Speaker 1: have actually know somebody that had a colleague he worked
Speaker 1: with who was very deeply ensconced in Q and on
Speaker 1: and you know, believed that Hillary Clinton drank infant blood
Speaker 1: and everything. And he got fired for it because his
Speaker 1: coworkers didn't know how to work side by side with
Speaker 1: somebody with such extreme ideas. I mean, what's to say
Speaker 1: that he's not quote unquote allowed to have his ideas
Speaker 1: and everything. But their feeling was it was a toxic workplace.
Speaker 1: It's not the beliefs, it's the behavior that is the problem.
Speaker 1: I could be working side by side or have a
Speaker 1: relative who believes in the flat earth theory and and
Speaker 1: that the world's going to end in eighteen months because
Speaker 1: the universe is going to call laps. Okay, as long
Speaker 1: as that person is not haranguing me with that and
Speaker 1: telling me I'm an idiot for not you know, just
Speaker 1: quitting my job and enjoying myself. That's not a problem.
Speaker 1: The problem is the behavior, not the beliefs, And so
Speaker 1: we can set limits on behavior as opposed to this idea, Allie,
Speaker 1: that somehow everybody in my life should want to come
Speaker 1: to the middle with me. Now, I'm the sort of
Speaker 1: person I always want to find the middle ground, unless
Speaker 1: not everybody's that way, And particularly if you have really
Speaker 1: extreme beliefs, you feel that the middle ground is compromising.
Speaker 1: It compromises your integrity, it compromises the truth. Okay, So
Speaker 1: there's some people who do not want to reason with
Speaker 1: you and go to the middle ground. Accepting that if
Speaker 1: it's a loved one, Okay, if it's a friend, well
Speaker 1: I just their next friend for a while until they
Speaker 1: calm down. But if it's a loved one, I have
Speaker 1: to accept that that's where they are, that we're not
Speaker 1: going to ever, at least for the time being, have
Speaker 1: a rational conversation because they're trying to convince me, you know,
Speaker 1: that I'm wrong. So hey, I'm not going to try
Speaker 1: to talk them out of it. Just give that up.
Speaker 1: Give that up. Okay. So if I'm engaging in conflict
Speaker 1: where they're trying to change me, and I'm trying to
Speaker 1: change them. I'm part of the problem. So how do
Speaker 1: I accept they're in a whole other world in terms
Speaker 1: of their beliefs. I'm not going to try to change them,
Speaker 1: but I am going to tell them that they can't
Speaker 1: keep bringing this up. So coming over, you know, be
Speaker 1: invited to your granks his birthday party. And here's the
Speaker 1: ground rule. Ground rules. We're not going to talk about politics,
Speaker 1: because every time we get in there we have a
Speaker 1: big fight. But you know, it's how I said that.
Speaker 1: I said we're not going to talk with poxes. I
Speaker 1: did not say it's because you are so darned unreasonable, right, No,
Speaker 1: I didn't say that. I said we get into arguments
Speaker 1: and I don't want to have that at my party.
Speaker 1: You're welcome to come, you know, with that understanding, it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, welcome to come, and you may smoke, but
Speaker 1: you can't smoke at my house. But I'm not saying
Speaker 1: what you're you're dirty smoker, right, because that pushes that
Speaker 1: that makes me and it's how aganist. So my point
Speaker 1: is that we do not have to be antagonists with
Speaker 1: family members and loved ones who even have extreme views,
Speaker 1: but we don't let ourselves get pushed around by them either,
Speaker 1: which is great. You just kind of have to leave
Speaker 1: it at that. Let's not talk about politics period. There's
Speaker 1: a lot more to come after this short break. Welcome back.
Speaker 1: So now I want to talk about Braver Angels because
Speaker 1: you're you're helping liberals and conservatives understand each other, which
Speaker 1: to me is the biggest couple therapy marathon in the world.
Speaker 1: So can you sort of tell us a little bit
Speaker 1: about the history of Braver Angels, why you started it,
Speaker 1: and what you're doing. Well, we started really just on
Speaker 1: a whim. It was about ten days after the two
Speaker 1: thousand sixteen elections, and two colleagues of mine, David Blankenhorn,
Speaker 1: New York City David Lapp, who lives in Southwest Ohio.
Speaker 1: We're on the phone talking about how people in their
Speaker 1: various hometowns were feeling after the election. Upper East Side
Speaker 1: of Manhattan. It was a funeral, okay, a stressful funeral,
Speaker 1: and in Southwest Ohio, hope and change dancing in the streets.
Speaker 1: And they decided just impulsively that they would try to
Speaker 1: get ten Hillary Clinton voters and tin Donald Trump voters
Speaker 1: together for thirteen hours over a weekend in southwest Ohio
Speaker 1: in December, like you know, three weeks later, and then
Speaker 1: they called me and I said, WHOA, that's that's pretty brave.
Speaker 1: What were you thinking of doing with them? And they
Speaker 1: said they didn't know, but they thought I could figure
Speaker 1: that part out. And I remember thinking, well, I hope
Speaker 1: I'm not free that weekend. I hope I'm not free
Speaker 1: that week I'm sorry, guys, but I was. And so
Speaker 1: we got together. The goals were to understand and each
Speaker 1: other beyond stereotypes, see if they could find some common
Speaker 1: ground with a ground rule, nobody's here to convince anybody
Speaker 1: to change their mind. We're here to speak our minds,
Speaker 1: listen to others, and not trying to change anybody. And
Speaker 1: so we had a powerful experience. It began with asking
Speaker 1: people why they came and and they said, we can't
Speaker 1: run a community with all this divisiveness. We have schools
Speaker 1: to run in hospitals and roast the bills and all that.
Speaker 1: We just can't keep fighting each other. So we thought
Speaker 1: it was going to be a one off, but they
Speaker 1: didn't want to stop, and we decided together we had
Speaker 1: something here. We had to keep going and that that's
Speaker 1: how Brave Angels got started. In a Braver Angels workshop,
Speaker 1: you kind of and I'm doing this in a very
Speaker 1: simplistic way, but you kind of break it down into structures.
Speaker 1: So take us through that. The first one is kind
Speaker 1: of a one on one conversation. So we have a
Speaker 1: Red Blue workshop, which is our cornerstone workshop. It's a
Speaker 1: set of structured activities. And the first activity is what
Speaker 1: we call all the Stereotypes activity, and that is that
Speaker 1: in separate rooms, Reds and blues separate rooms. They're about
Speaker 1: seven or eight people on each side on this and
Speaker 1: they're all strangers, right, they don't know each other. They're
Speaker 1: all strangers. They come up with the top four negative, false,
Speaker 1: exaggerated stereotypes they think people have of their own side.
Speaker 1: So what are reds think, Blues think about reds? What
Speaker 1: a blue stink? Reds think about Blues and reds the
Speaker 1: top on his racist. They think we're racist, they think
Speaker 1: anti science, don't care about the poor, militaristic, and Blues.
Speaker 1: I think that red think they're arrogant, elitist, into big
Speaker 1: government for its own sake, encouraging dependency, baby killers. We
Speaker 1: encourage people to put it out there. What are the stereotypes?
Speaker 1: And then answer to questions. The first is what's true instead?
Speaker 1: If you're not racist, if you're not you know, into
Speaker 1: big government for its own sake? What's the truth? Then
Speaker 1: the second question is the humility question, and this is
Speaker 1: really big in Brave Rangel's work. That question is what's
Speaker 1: the kernel of truth? There's usually a kernel of truth
Speaker 1: in a stereotype. Okay, and so this is true of
Speaker 1: a subset of your group. This is this is a
Speaker 1: blind spot of your group. This is something historical that's
Speaker 1: carried over. This is true of how your group comes
Speaker 1: across in public. So what are the stereotypes? What's the truth?
Speaker 1: And then what are the kernels? And then somebody presents
Speaker 1: this to the other side. And then when you're hearing
Speaker 1: from the other side, the questions you're gonna respond to
Speaker 1: first one to one and then in the large group,
Speaker 1: what did you learn about how the other side sees themselves?
Speaker 1: And did you see anything in common? Those are our
Speaker 1: classic questions. That starts the whole thing off. It gets
Speaker 1: all of the worst stuff out but in a safe way. Uh,
Speaker 1: and it begins the process of trying to explain yourself
Speaker 1: and listen to the other side, and have you found
Speaker 1: that at the beginning when everybody can sort of get
Speaker 1: out the conflicts or the stereotypes about their positions to
Speaker 1: that sort of ease everybody then into having a constructive
Speaker 1: conversation up. What it does is it gets the stuff
Speaker 1: that everybody's afraid to hear come out, and you get
Speaker 1: to see that these folks are more complicated than I thought,
Speaker 1: and they have more introspection than I thought, they have
Speaker 1: more self criticism. The next exercises a fishball exercise. So
Speaker 1: fish ball is you have people of the same group
Speaker 1: in circles in the middle. Now we do this online
Speaker 1: works just as well online, and the other group sits
Speaker 1: on the outer circle. The group in the inner circle
Speaker 1: is going to have a conversation with the facilitator present
Speaker 1: the outer circle. Your job is to listen and learn
Speaker 1: how these people see the world and look for anything
Speaker 1: in common. And then you'll flip and the two questions
Speaker 1: in the fish ball The first one is why are
Speaker 1: your size, values and policies good for the country, And
Speaker 1: the second is what are your reservations or concerns about
Speaker 1: your own side? So the first one is lay it
Speaker 1: out why is conservatism wise liberalism? However you wanted to
Speaker 1: find these good for our country? Say it. And it's
Speaker 1: powerful to listen to people who I may disagree with
Speaker 1: having a conversation among themselves. They're not in a fight
Speaker 1: with anybody. In other words, they're on the same team,
Speaker 1: and I can listen without having to respond. I'm not
Speaker 1: even making eye contact. I'm just like wow, okay. We
Speaker 1: never get to hear that. And then the two sides flip,
Speaker 1: and then afterwards again the same questions, what did you
Speaker 1: learn about how the other side sees themselves? And did
Speaker 1: you say anything in common? And here's the facilitation process, Alley,
Speaker 1: very structured. Everybody agrees on this in advance. We stick
Speaker 1: to the question on the table. That's all we discussed.
Speaker 1: We don't have people going off on you know, they
Speaker 1: were wrong about that, So we manage the conversation to
Speaker 1: maximize listening and learning and minimize arguing. And have you
Speaker 1: found that that people from opposing parties that come into
Speaker 1: these workshops do you ever see them go out for
Speaker 1: coffee or anything afterwards? Oh? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And then
Speaker 1: we have ways that people can join alliances, so we
Speaker 1: have braver angels alliances, Red Blue alliances going on around
Speaker 1: the country. Some of the best conversations are in the
Speaker 1: parking lot afterwards, I would imagine, yeah, yeah, And what
Speaker 1: I think is so fascinating is that Braver Angels, you
Speaker 1: have a categorization system for different personality types when you're
Speaker 1: dealing with a political discussion. So you have a peacekeeper.
Speaker 1: The peacekeeper tries to avoid any hint of conflict and
Speaker 1: we'll shut down. Yeah, and we'll just not let anybody
Speaker 1: else talk about conflict, right, Okay. So this is in
Speaker 1: our Families and Politics workshop, and we've carried over the
Speaker 1: same characters. So the peacekeeper, say, in the family, is
Speaker 1: the one who just don't talk about politics. You know,
Speaker 1: nobody to talk about politics. I was at a family
Speaker 1: event where a relative and I, who we different politically,
Speaker 1: We're having a perfectly good Braver Angels type conversation in
Speaker 1: the living room and scared the PBS out of somebody
Speaker 1: in the kitchen who wanted us to stop. Okay, that
Speaker 1: that's the peace keeper, you know, it just gets anxious.
Speaker 1: But there's also these other roles we talked about. The gladiator,
Speaker 1: you know, that's the person who's coming to convince the
Speaker 1: other side of how wrong they are. Then the defender,
Speaker 1: and that is as soon as you say something about
Speaker 1: their favorite politician, they go after you. Uh, the sniper
Speaker 1: is one of my favorites. Yeah, it's my favorite too. Yes,
Speaker 1: you know, you're having this conversation and then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden there's a zinger that comes in, like, oh, so,
Speaker 1: how's our favorite little liberal doing today. You know, you're
Speaker 1: you're back from college, right, and they're not really interested
Speaker 1: in what you have to say. They just zanged you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're usually in my experience, they're usually like walking into
Speaker 1: a room out the other room. You know, they just
Speaker 1: kind of walk by and then throw a pot shot
Speaker 1: and keep going. That's right, and so and so we
Speaker 1: have strategies for dealing with all these folks. You know,
Speaker 1: you don't try to gladiate with the gladiator, but with
Speaker 1: the sniper. A little humor helps, right, So you're in
Speaker 1: the humor business, and so some things. I've a good one.
Speaker 1: Joy that was one of your better ones. Now just
Speaker 1: sort of click it back on. But if you if
Speaker 1: the sniper gets your goat, well that's what they want
Speaker 1: to do exactly. And I think that in a family ecosystem,
Speaker 1: there is probably one of each, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Like I, I can already assign these two people in
Speaker 1: my family. So well, and here's ali, here's what we
Speaker 1: do in our workshop that we ask people to assign
Speaker 1: it in their family and then ask them to assign themselves. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's the humility part. And the way we say it
Speaker 1: is when when you're not at your best, what do
Speaker 1: you tend to do? But by the way, the good
Speaker 1: role is what we call the engager. You know, we're
Speaker 1: I'm willing to engage. Listen, blah blah blah. None of
Speaker 1: us are there all the time. So instead of just
Speaker 1: sort of saying I live with all these neanderal family members, well,
Speaker 1: I'm one of them too, write and so when I'm
Speaker 1: not on my game, what do I do? I'm a sniper.
Speaker 1: I'm admitting it. Your sniper totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And
Speaker 1: so it's good so that the advantage of knowing is
Speaker 1: when it all goes badly and I'm processing it later,
Speaker 1: I can say, well, that's where I did my thing.
Speaker 1: And by the way, just discussing this now, I realized
Speaker 1: I think I'm a sniper in my marriage too. I
Speaker 1: mean I think that's when we fight. I think my
Speaker 1: husband is much more of an engager, but I'm a sniper.
Speaker 1: But anyway, I'm wondering how much of our personality types
Speaker 1: in terms of political discussion is kind of how we
Speaker 1: are in relationships in general. Yeah, it's partly, it's how
Speaker 1: we deal with the conflict. Yes, we're going to take
Speaker 1: a short break and we'll be right back, and we're back.
Speaker 1: If you were in Rwanda years ago, how would you
Speaker 1: do this with the Tootsies and the Hutus? Because I
Speaker 1: look at that tribal warfare which was political, and I
Speaker 1: think these are two groups of people that look exactly alike,
Speaker 1: that are intermarried, that you know, believe pretty much the
Speaker 1: same things. How did it get to be that these
Speaker 1: people who completely peacefully coexisted together, what was that pivot
Speaker 1: that turned into genocide? Well, and then look at Yugoslavia exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I'm not an expert of this. From what I understand,
Speaker 1: you have stress going on, you have economic distress, other
Speaker 1: sorts of distress, so there's tension, and then you have
Speaker 1: a political leader who magnified, who says the source of
Speaker 1: your pain is this other group. You didn't even know it.
Speaker 1: I mean, look at anti semmotism throughout history. Okay, that
Speaker 1: Jewish is just going about their lives. But but you know,
Speaker 1: Germany's understress after the First of World War. And then
Speaker 1: you find a scapegoat, so you look for escape quotes.
Speaker 1: The leader says, those people are the source of your
Speaker 1: pain and your distress, and we have to do something
Speaker 1: about those. I mean, by the way, it's right out
Speaker 1: of the fascist manual. You find the weaker group, or
Speaker 1: you make them the enemy and the scapegoat. The idea
Speaker 1: of the scapegoat is that all of our problems reside
Speaker 1: on that it was just up to us, the world
Speaker 1: would be perfect, okay, and our country would be perfect.
Speaker 1: And so how do you deal with that? Not that
Speaker 1: I'm an expert in international relations, but I've looked at
Speaker 1: it a bit. It's kind of like how we deal
Speaker 1: with it within braver Angels. What you do is you
Speaker 1: find leaders who are open two reconciliation. You find leaders
Speaker 1: who who all identify the gap as the problem, the
Speaker 1: polarization as the problem, not the other group. Uh, and
Speaker 1: then you start with them. I know you've gone to
Speaker 1: Congress to talk about braver Angels, but what's the goal.
Speaker 1: What would you love to see happen and let's say
Speaker 1: ten years. I'd love to happen in ten years is
Speaker 1: that at every level of our society, in our families
Speaker 1: and our communities and our work settings. Uh, and among
Speaker 1: our politicians, we are identifying the enemy as the polarization,
Speaker 1: as the divisiveness, not the other side. Okay, So the
Speaker 1: dream is to have better capacity to come together across
Speaker 1: differences with respect and solve problems together. And I hope
Speaker 1: you know my worries that we in our country we're
Speaker 1: losing our sense of community. It's all going kind of online.
Speaker 1: And do you hope to have a much bigger presence
Speaker 1: in in social media and the internet because that seems
Speaker 1: to be where a lot of the polarization is coming from.
Speaker 1: We have a number of social media outlets now we
Speaker 1: hope to grow even bigger. But we just finished the
Speaker 1: piloting about how to be an engager in social media
Speaker 1: around politics. This will be an e course and then
Speaker 1: we're going to have skills workshop to follow up. We'll
Speaker 1: give you a red or blue inflammatory response and then
Speaker 1: you have to write out, based on the skills, how
Speaker 1: you're going to handle it. And then we're going to
Speaker 1: have forums where people can actually review each other's post
Speaker 1: if you will. And by the way, one of the
Speaker 1: things I love is a therapist. Now when people talking
Speaker 1: about their family arguments on you know, on texting and Facebook,
Speaker 1: they bring them in and I look at them, and
Speaker 1: it's really quite striking how people were blind to our
Speaker 1: own inflammatory behavior, our own sniper behavior. Right we think
Speaker 1: it's everybody else. So I just want to emphasize again,
Speaker 1: we are all part of this problem, and it requires
Speaker 1: some humility about one's on side and not just attack
Speaker 1: on the other side or being patronized about those poor
Speaker 1: dupes on the other side. Yeah. No, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of blame, blame, blame, blame, blame, blame, and I hope
Speaker 1: that these workshops and Braver Angels will bring the kind
Speaker 1: of empathy we need right now sitting here talking today,
Speaker 1: and there's what's going on in Texas and in Black
Speaker 1: Lives Matter, and I just think, wow, we are we
Speaker 1: are on opposite ends of the lake, and it really
Speaker 1: getting to the point where we got to both dive
Speaker 1: in and sort of meat at the raft in the middle.
Speaker 1: And I'm so grateful for everything Braver Angels is doing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: can I introduce the Trump patriotic empathy. That's what we're promoting.
Speaker 1: I'm doing this work of trying to bridge these advice
Speaker 1: because I'm a patriot. Yeah, okay, a patriot. Isn't that
Speaker 1: our country right or wrong? Or just let's let's fight
Speaker 1: the enemy together. It's like, how do we come together?
Speaker 1: Because if we don't, we're not going to make it
Speaker 1: as a country. And that's a form of patriotism, patriotic empathy.
Speaker 1: I love it. That's my new T shirt. Yeah, in
Speaker 1: the spirit of your message of empathy, I'd like to
Speaker 1: pass the baton. Would you like to turn us around
Speaker 1: now and ask me a question? Oh, this will be
Speaker 1: a gotcha question here? Ready, Yeah, I'm ready. So you've
Speaker 1: got daughters. I have two daughters, two teenage daughters. So
Speaker 1: how long would you recommend they have an engagement, a
Speaker 1: marriage engagement? Yeah? Because I read somewhere that you were
Speaker 1: like working on almost a world record for short engagements. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have a box of rings. Yeah. Um. Well, because
Speaker 1: I was engaged after two months of meeting my husband
Speaker 1: and then married six months later. I am a firm
Speaker 1: believer in a short engagement because I think when you
Speaker 1: prolonged the engagement. I know that historically it's about you know,
Speaker 1: really sensing and feeling if this is the right person.
Speaker 1: You give yourself lots of time. My feeling is you
Speaker 1: you kind of know when you know, and in that
Speaker 1: year or however long you know, you give the engagement.
Speaker 1: It's too much time to fight over the dress, the cake,
Speaker 1: the venue. My feeling is, if you want to marry
Speaker 1: that person, marry that person. Um, you're gonna get a
Speaker 1: lot of mother in laws and mothers involved. It's just
Speaker 1: make it quick, make all the decisions quickly and move
Speaker 1: on with it. Well, my wife and I had a
Speaker 1: five month in engagement as well, see, and we just
Speaker 1: celebrate our fiftieth anniversary. Well, Bill, that's all the evidence
Speaker 1: that we need. That's scientific. That is scientific. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much. Bill. I'm so grateful for everything Braver Angels
Speaker 1: is doing, and I thank you so much for coming
Speaker 1: and talking to me about it. Listen, I think everyone
Speaker 1: can agree that our country is in pain right now.
Speaker 1: You know, I do think we're losing our sense of community.
Speaker 1: And talking to Bill Doherty, I mean, who better than
Speaker 1: a licensed couple therapists to help our country get through
Speaker 1: this and again politically, no matter what side you are,
Speaker 1: no matter what you believe in, no matter what button
Speaker 1: you wear on your jacket. I think that coming together
Speaker 1: should be a universal want and need in our country
Speaker 1: right now. And I think that Braver Angels has has
Speaker 1: the idea you know, of coming together, of having workshops.
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean we're changing opinions, it doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: somehow we're going to convert. It just means that we're
Speaker 1: going to sit down and talk and not lose the
Speaker 1: empathy and the humanity to politics. And then I also
Speaker 1: think that you can implement this idea of communicating with
Speaker 1: almost every polarizing discussion, whether that be in marriage or
Speaker 1: discussions about race, wearing a mask, vaccinations, whatever it is,
Speaker 1: there is a way to come to the table with
Speaker 1: heart because at the end of the day, we all
Speaker 1: lived together on this wonderful ground of American soil. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, I'm about I'm turning into a song. So
Speaker 1: I pray for our country and I pray for us
Speaker 1: all having the ability to come together with patriotic empathy.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to go ask Gali to learn
Speaker 1: more about Bill Doherty and Braver Angels. You can go
Speaker 1: to Doherty Relationship Institute dot com and Braver Angels dot org.
Speaker 1: Be sure to subscribe, rate and review the podcast, and
Speaker 1: follow me on social media on Twitter at Ali e
Speaker 1: Wentworth and on Instagram at the Real Ali Wentworth. Then,
Speaker 1: if you have questions or guest suggestions, I would love
Speaker 1: to hear from you, call or texting me at three
Speaker 1: to three four six six or email Go Ask Gali
Speaker 1: podcast at gmail dot com. Go Ask Alli is a
Speaker 1: production of Shonda land Audio and partnership with I heart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit the I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.