Healing democracy through conversations

[marmar]

Trying to heal democracy one conversation at a time
The U.S. seems hopelessly divided. These Americans think otherwise

By Chauncey DeVega
Senior Writer
Published May 12, 2026 6:45AM (EDT)


(Salon) America is a broken political family. On the ground, this means that Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals, do not live in the same neighborhoods or belong to the same organizations. They do not pray or worship together. They do not date or marry each other. They are not friends. Technical terms like “negative partisanship” and “polarization” are just fancy ways of saying that the American people do not like each other very much right now.

In America’s political imagination, Democrats live in big cities, are racially and ethnically diverse, and college-educated. Republicans live in rural America and are working class. Red State America has been fully MAGA-fied; big cities and blue states are dominated by “out of touch liberals,” “the radical left” and “wokeness.”

But this is a flat, stereotypical picture of the country’s political and social life. Polls and other research consistently show that, from healthcare to the economy, rural and urban Americans actually agree on a wide range of public policy issues.

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The Washington Post’s Casey Parks recently profiled a small group of activists in Oregon doing this work by hosting informal town halls and small gatherings where they model respectful conversation, civility, shared problem-solving and a healthy civic life. The effort is led by Steve Radcliffe who, after being moved to action by the 2016 presidential election, signed up to volunteer for Braver Angels, a nonprofit advocating political civility, and became co-chair of the organization’s Oregon Rural-Urban Project, establishing a kind of exchange program where rural and urban residents visit each other’s communities. Radcliffe hoped they would formulate a set of bipartisan recommendations to the state legislature. .................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2026/05/12/trying-to-heal-democracy-one-conversation-at-a-time/