Why I keep building bridges even when I’m full of doubt 

This article Why I keep building bridges even when I’m full of doubt  was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

Monroe County, Indiana has been described as “a blueberry floating in tomato soup.” Even though Trump won the state handily in 2024, the county is so liberal that Bloomington, its main city, does not have a single elected Republican. Relationships between red and blue politicians in Monroe are charged and often erupt in vitriolic exchanges on social media. 

Weary of this division, local activist Don Byrd decided a few years ago to try an experiment. He brought together 11 Democratic and Republican politicians in Monroe County — including a state senator and representative — to spend a day building a house for Habitat for Humanity. The group met at 8 a.m. and worked side by side all day on a home for a woman, her two children and their grandmother. And it went beautifully. They had such a great time that their first question at the end of the day was: When are we going to get started on the next house?

I am lucky because, unlike many Americans, I hear stories like this every week. For the past three years, I have volunteered for the communications team of Braver Angels, the largest grassroots, bipartisan organization in the country dedicated to depolarization. Each Friday, one of my tasks is to sift through that week’s media clips about the organization, which means that I’ve read, listened to, or watched close to 1,500 stories about Americans coming together to find common ground and better understand one another. It is a welcome antidote to the endless stream of headlines about the growing hatred and division in our country. 

Braver Angels was co-founded in 2016 by David Blankenhorn, a “blue” political activist from Manhattan and David Lapp, a “red” Republican from Ohio — colleagues at the Institute for American Values, a civil society think tank — along with their friend Bill Doherty, a marriage counselor whose expertise they drew upon to design their workshops. (Braver Angels uses the terms “red” and “blue” since they are less politically loaded than “Republican” and “Democrat.”) 

One of the trio’s first acts was to bring together an equal number of reds and blues to spend a weekend in a barn in Ohio talking about politics. Although they had voted differently in the recent, very divisive election, the participants were startled to realize how much they had in common. (There is a moving documentary about the weekend, “Braver Angels: Reuniting America”.)

Afterward, the workshop was covered heavily in the news and the fledgling organization was flooded with requests to hold similar workshops around the country. Since then, Braver Angels has held 5,800 in-person and online workshops and debates for nearly 70,000 participants. Given that the participants at each event are typically half red and half blue, you might imagine them erupting into shouting matches. In fact, they are remarkably peaceful. 

As is the Braver Angels leadership team, which is also half red and half blue — thinkers such as Mónica Guzmán, a leader in the constructive dialogue space and a proud liberal, work alongside the likes of John Wood, Jr., a former vice chairman of the Republican Party of Los Angeles who once ran against longtime Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters. Each of the 124 alliances across the country is led by a blue co-chair and a red co-chair: A new alliance can’t form without each. (Don Byrd, the activist who organized the Habitat for Humanity experiment, was the blue co-coordinator for Indiana.)

When I tell people about my volunteer work with Braver Angels, some are intrigued. But most respond along the lines of, “I’m glad you’re doing it, but I could never stomach that.” One woman simply wrinkled her nose and said, “Ew.” 

It’s fascinating that simply engaging with people from the other end of the political spectrum and not solely my own very blue little bubble seems so radical. And it’s also fascinating that people assume I don’t feel conflicted about it.

I do actually feel quite conflicted. And now more than ever. 

I spent the past 20 years working as an educator and administrator, helping adults earn their GEDs and helping immigrants learn the English and citizenship skills they needed to become American citizens. I am full of despair and anger at how immigrants are being persecuted by ICE right now; that more than 73,000 are in detention, that at least 37 have died there; and that people trying to protect them are getting arrested or injured or killed. 

I worry that by volunteering for an organization that makes space at the table for every voice, I could be legitimizing values that are antithetical to my most deeply held, core beliefs and everything I have worked for in my life. 

Yet I am also afraid of what will happen if Americans stop talking to one another. The stakes couldn’t be higher right now. More than 50 percent of Americans fear the country is on the path to another civil war. One in five believes violence may be necessary to “save” the country. Braver Angels understands the gravity of statistics like these. Two years ago, they held their national convention in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on the grounds of the biggest and bloodiest battle of the Civil War. 

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There’s a new silent majority — and they need to be activated 

The reason I keep volunteering for Braver Angels is that I believe its mission — to build bridges across the partisan gulf and help us find shared values, create trust and build an expanded sense of belonging — is critical to organizing the unlikely coalitions that will drive the change we desperately need. 

I look to the marriage equality movement as a north star.

The decade of organizing that culminated in Obergefell v. Hodges was led not just by LGBTQ+ activists but by libertarian organizations like the Cato Institute, Log Cabin Republicans and Young Conservatives for the Freedom to Marry; corporations like Google, Apple, Microsoft and Disney (who were among the 380 companies that signed the brief); Ted Olson (a former advisor to Ronald Reagan and solicitor general to George W. Bush); and faith groups like the Reform Judaism movement, Episcopalian clergy and the Nuns on the Bus. 

I believe that, similarly, to get ourselves out of the crisis we are in, we need to create the largest pro-democracy coalition the country has ever seen. We need a coalition that welcomes any and all political, civil rights, faith, corporate, labor and public health groups — as well as any individuals from any walk of life who want to see the country restored to a place where the rule of law, a respect for human rights, and the values of security, connection, kindness, and solidarity are paramount.  

Research from other bridge-building organizations shows us how much fertile common ground there is for us to build such a coalition on. The vast majority of Americans agree on a wide range of things, including that teachers should be paid more, landlords should be prevented from increasing rent, abortion should be legal in many cases, PACs should not be able to receive large donations and the government should offer medical debt forgiveness. Most Americans also believe that Medicaid, Medicare, disability insurance, and SNAP are critical programs. Websites like Americans Agree show that most of us agree on at least 80 significant issues — many more than you’d guess from the average social media feed. 

Yet for decades, conflict entrepreneurs have profited massively from what divide-bridging group More in Common calls “the perception gap” — the difference between what people actually believe versus what people think others believe. 

News outlets generate headlines that are as inflammatory as possible to get us to click on them. Algorithms on social media boost the posts that provoke the most outrage. The hosts of partisan cable TV, radio and podcasts routinely present their opinions as facts. Politicians on the fringes appeal to fear and rage to attract voters. And, as recent reports have shown, it turns out that many of the loudest and angriest voices on social media, and X in particular, are bots and users from other countries posing as Americans. 

Unfortunately, it looks like it’s up to us ordinary people to close the perception gap. 

Shortly after I joined Braver Angels, I decided to try their 1:1 conversation program. These conversations bring together two people from different worlds — red vs. blue, rural vs. urban — for video chats. I chose the option of talking with a red. I felt nervous going into it. What if she said something offensive? What if it got tense and we ended it early? In actuality, she was lovely and very thoughtful. As we each sat in our chairs sipping coffee in our fleeces, we had such a pleasant conversation and agreed on so much that it was almost boring.

The conversation was not without a few flashpoints, however. We disagreed on whether climate change is one of the biggest threats to the world right now; I think it is, and she thinks issues like unemployment are more urgent. And at one point, when we discussed someone who had been recently “canceled,” she seemed startled to realize I was dismayed by it. “I thought all liberals love cancel culture,” she said. 

That is what I tried to explain to the woman who said “Ew” when I told her about Braver Angels: that without these interactions to humanize one another and find out what we actually think, I don’t know how we will ever move forward. 

I also explained that I build bridges because, as a white U.S. citizen, I have the luxury to do so. As the Greater Good Science Center says in the excellent Bridging Differences Playbook, “It’s ethically dubious — and, research suggests, often counterproductive — to ask people to bridge differences when they’re being discriminated against or otherwise denied social power.” 

For me, building bridges isn’t about agreeing with others. It isn’t about changing other people’s political stances. And it certainly isn’t about pretending all ideas are equally valid. It’s about realizing it’s up to each of us to show up to work on the house we live in, together.

If you’re interested in learning more about bridge building, AllSides, Make America Dine Again (MADA), Living Room Conversations, The Listen First Project, Not in Our Town and Braver Angels are all doing great work. You can find a comprehensive directory of organizations transforming polarization on Columbia’s Teacher College website. 

This article Why I keep building bridges even when I’m full of doubt  was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

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Source: https://wagingnonviolence.org/2026/01/braver-angels-building-bridges-despite-doubt/