May 26, 2025 • 17 mins
Whether you believe the U.S. is on it’s way to becoming great again, or things are going terribly wrong, most of us would agree, we’re having trouble talking to the other side. Yet, our guest has strategies to do just that: Gabriella Timmis is Director of Communications at Braver Angels, a non-partisan organization with a mission of bringing Americans together to bridge the partisan divide and strengthen our democratic republic. For more, visit braverangels.org.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Get Connected with Nina del Rio, a weekly
conversation about fitness, health and happenings in our community on
one oh six point seven light FM.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Thanks for listening to Get Connected. So are things in
our country finally great again? Or are they going terribly wrong?
Americans are divided on the answer, but whatever side you're on,
I think most of us would agree we are having
trouble talking to the other side. Our guest is Gabriella Timis.
She's director of Communications at Braver Angels. They are a
(00:33):
non partisan organization with a mission of bringing Americans together
to bridge the partisan divide and strengthen our Democratic Republic.
Gabby Timmis, thank you for being on Get Connected.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here.
An adds name Get Connected. It's exactly what we're trying
to do.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Yeah. The website is Braveranngels dot org. To start with,
I did a bit of a deep dive into the organization.
Braver Angels, founded in twenty sixteen. It's hard to remember
we were at the end of Obama's second term, the
beginning of President Trump's first. What was going on? What
was the origins of this project.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Yeah, so I like to say braver Angels really started
with a phone call, and that phone call happened between
two men both named David. So David Blankenhorn, who was
one of our co founders now the president of braver Angels.
David Blankenhorn is based here in Manhattan, where I'm based.
So after the twenty sixteen election, you know, this is November,
right after it just happened, he calls up his friend
(01:28):
David Lapp, who's based in Southwest Ohio, and says, hey, so,
you know, what are folks in Southwest Ohio think about,
you know, the election that just happened. And David Lapp says, oh,
you know, people are delighted and not at all surprised.
You know, this is kind of what we expected. And
David Blankenhorn, you know, looks around at his friends and
(01:50):
family in Manhattan and says, that's interesting because everyone I'm
surrounded by are completely shocked and completely horrified, and like,
how crazy is it that in the same country we
have such a different experience of what's going on. And
so David Blankenhorne is very much so a visionary thinker,
and so he just kind of charges forward and says, okay,
you know, David Lap, what can we do? Can we
(02:11):
get let's can we get ten Trump voters and ten
Clinton voters together in a room for a weekend? Like
what do you think? Like, can we just do that
in Ohio? And David Laps like, sure, I don't see
why not? You know, let's see what will happen. So
they start, you know, planning this this workshop, this idea.
You know, they're just kind of hanging back and forth,
and they mentioned it to a third friend, Bill Doherty,
(02:34):
and they say, you know, yeah, we're bringing together ten
Clinton voters and ten Trump voters right after the election.
This is again so this by by the time the workshop,
it would have been December twenty sixteen, so very fresh
after the election. So they mentioned it to Bill and Passing.
And Bill has a very long and experienced career as
a marriage and family therapist, so he knows a lot
(02:55):
about what it takes to mediate these types of conversations
about bringing people together who disagree, and you know, so
they're mention to him and he's like, are you guys crazy?
You cannot just bring Trump voters and Clinton voters and
put them in the room together after the election and say, okay,
now talk you know, that's just never gonna that's not
gonna go well. And so they say, okay, well Bill,
could you come up with some sort of structure or something.
(03:18):
And so, you know, Bill is fantastic and you know,
I like to say, I think he's a genius. He
goes away for forty eight hours and he's like, you know,
don't expect much, you know, like, you know, we'll see
what I can do. And he returns with this whole
structured event which is now what we call the Red
Blue Workshop, which we do, you know, a thousand times
over across the country. And so that was really the
(03:39):
first Brave Rangel's Workshop. And they did this whole Red
Blue workshop and got the two sides talking and as
David Blankenhorn likes to say, they felt after that first event,
they captured lightning in a bottle. And actually from there
they ended up doing a whole bus tour throughout the
country and that's they grew from.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
There and those Red Blue workshops. You still do. You
have national debates, you have on the website a template
for people to do local debates things like that. Who
were the people who participate in these I mean, it's.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
All about everyday American So where wee Rangels is volunteer led.
We have fifteen thousand members throughout the country. We have
three thousand active volunteers who are the ones planning the debates,
planning the workshops, moderating them, you know, et cetera, et cetera.
It's really all just driven by American people, the folks
showing up again, you know. In some cases its family
and friends. In other cases it's just strangers who saw
(04:27):
an interesting event, right, you know, and they wanted to join,
sometimes as neighbors. But so really it's anyone can get
involved at the local level. Although we do also have
you know, specific areas of focus. So for example, we
have Braver Politics where we work very closely with legislators
and their staff on how to you know, we have
(04:47):
a workshop for them about how to communicate with their
constituents and how to communicate with each other. We have
a Braver Faith where we work with people of faith
in different congregations. You know, oftentimes we see polarization frankly
is seeped into every part of our society at this point.
So I like to say, you know, Braver Angels is
this like mutant octopus that grows a new tentacle all
(05:07):
the time because we're like having to address you know,
any part of society with Braver campuses obviously for college campuses,
you know, at this point, we even have a program
or piloting called Braver Dogs for people to walk their
dogs and have political conversations as they do so. So truly,
any area that you think that you know is affected
by polarization, we probably have some program or another to
(05:29):
try to combat it.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
We're speaking with Gabriella Timis. She's director of Communications at
Braver Angels. They are a nonpartisan organization trying to bring
people together to bridge the partisan divide with conversation and
strengthen our democratic or public. Before working at Braver Angels,
Gabby worked for NBC News as an assistant producer. One
of the things you worked on, which I want to
talk about is managing social media. The website is Braveranngels
(05:53):
dot org. You're listening to get connected on one six
point seven light FM. I'm na del Rio. There is,
as you mentioned on your side, all kinds of different
ways you can talk about how people interact and are polarized. Movies, books, music.
The movie section is kind of cool because there's like
a movie that gets covered every month. As far as
working on social media, social media is so interesting because
(06:15):
you're fed what you already like, as you know, and
it gets us to this whole thing I think about
debating facts. If the baseline of the facts aren't the same,
then we're not really even talking about the same thing.
How do you get or where does the organization sort
of get those conversations started with the facts?
Speaker 3 (06:35):
Brave Rangels, We do not fact check anyone, much to
some people's dismay, you know, during debates or workshops or whatever,
we don't say, hey, you know, set your source. So
that's not true. That's not how we operate. But for us,
what we're really focused on is a couple different things. Firstly,
we're focused on building trust, and we're trying to build
trust amongst the American people. So we're trying to address
this thing of affective polarization. This idea that you know,
(06:59):
ideological polarization is maybe you and I are on opposite
sides of an issue, but affective polarization is because you
and I are on opposite sides of this issue, I
don't trust you I think you're a bad person, I
think you're a moral et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
So anyway, just to say our priority is really rebuilding
that trust. What we understand about what's going on in
(07:20):
the world really depends on who we trust. So again,
for myself, I'm a Blue and Brave ra Angels for
climate science. I don't know. I'm not going out there
and taking temperature. I don't you know, I don't know
the details of what's going on in the environment. But
I'm trusting that these scientists know what they're talking about.
That's for me because that's just my relationship with them.
Some people don't trust big institutions. Some people don't trust experts.
(07:42):
So you know, if an expert says something, you know,
that's not going to be part of their opinion. It's
not going to be something they're necessarily factoring in. So
going to your question about facts and how do we
have conversations when our facts are different, and again that's
partially because we trust different people. What my colleague Monica
Guzman says, and I think it's really helpful. She said,
the conversation about what's true is not the only conversation
(08:05):
we can be having, and it's often the conversation that
we get stuck in because again, you know, if you
and I believe two different things, how are we going
to get at the bottom of the truth. And again,
I think for a lot of people, that's very frustrating.
But what Monica says, which I find very helpful, is
she said, there's a conversation behind what's true, and that
conversation is what is meaningful. And so that to me
(08:29):
has been a really helpful reframe. And so oftentimes what
she'll kind of encourage folks to do is not ask
people what you believe, but ask people what led you
to your beliefs, what's the journey, what's your life journey
that led you to your beliefs? Why are you red?
Why are you blue? You know red being conservative and
blue meaning liberal and brave angels speak. People are experts
(08:49):
in their stories. They can tell you all about their
story and you can learn a lot from that, whether
or not that you actually will end up agreeing on
the facts, there's still a lot for you, guys talk about,
and a lot for you to learn about one another.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Before we had this conversation, Gaby, I did the depolarizing
e course, one of them on your website. It's really
interesting for anybody who wants to do them. They're free.
They are the same for both red and blue, they
just use different examples. But one of the things he
talked about maybe gets to what you're saying a little bit.
He talked about the nuance between not equating someone's position
on a policy with a core value.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Yeah, well that's even another thing. And again, yeah, both
Bill and Monica talk about this idea, which is, well, firstly,
we think that what we voted against is what someone
voted for, you know, as in like, if I'm against
this thing, but you voted for it, then you must
have voted explicitly for that thing. Which with values, it's
more often than not, it's not that we have different values,
(09:45):
it's they're stacked differently. So maybe freedom is ahead of
community something like that. Maybe being honest is more important
to you than unity or something like that. You know,
we all have these values and we all decide for
ourselves how to prioritize them. It's one of the stickiest
hardest conversations and debates in America, frankly, which is childcare
(10:09):
for trans youth but both sides will say I care
about children, I want children, I'm doing this for children's
best interest, whether or not you agree with that, whether
or not you believe that, etcetera, etcetera. Both sides feel
very motivated by the same thing. They just have a
different way of getting there. And that's true for a
lot of a lot of our political issues.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Frankly, something else to you and I talked about just
a minute ago was the idea of the stereotypes too.
You said that sort of broke open the idea of
understanding between groups. That realizing that some kernel of the
stereotype you believe about another group with they care about
what they don't care about, that actually might be true.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Yeah. So the stereotyping exercise is something we do in
our Red Blue workshop, and it's really interesting. It's actually
kind of fun because so in all of our Red
Blue workshops it's Red Blue balance. So again, we have
let's say seven reds and seven blues, and we come
together and in the beginning, the Blues will go off
and run room and the Reds will go off in
the other and they start talking amongst themselves about what
(11:08):
are the stereotypes The other side have of our side.
So again, I'm a Blue, So if I'm in the room,
I might say, well, they think that we bisically, you know,
we're just bisically irresponsible, or maybe they think that we
don't care about the unborn, or maybe they think that
that we just want to change everything and we have
no regard for tradition or you know whatever. So you
(11:29):
kind of come up with these different stereotypes again, and
the really you really come up with crazy names. So
it's like, you know, baby killer or yeah whatever, like
these these harsh, harsh insults that you maybe have had
thrown at yourself. Sometime the reds come back. Oftentimes they'll
come back with things like racist or homophobic or you know,
things that maybe they've had hurled at them. And so
each side will go up and present not just what
(11:50):
the stereotype is, but then you know why it's not true.
You know, as a Blue, you know, it's not that
I don't care about babies or children, ear et cetera,
but I also really care about women's health, you know whatever.
You kind of explain that position. But then it happened
super organically during one particular workshop. It actually might have
been the first one was that was supposed to be
(12:11):
the whole exercise. You get the stereotype and then you
kind of explain why it's not true. But actually, a
group of Reds in an early workshop said, well, listen,
there's actually a kernel of truth to this stereotype, and
maybe we should acknowledge that kernel of truth. And so
that actually became something that was baked into the workshop
because as soon as those Reds said, let's acknowledge the
kernel of truth here, the Blues immediately softened and we're
(12:32):
super open to hearing what the Reds were saying because
they were being humble. So now that's a part of
the standard workshop where folks will say, okay, so here's
why it's not true, but here's where it is true.
So let's say again on the blue side, let's say
it's elitist. You know, no, it's not true that all
Blues are elitists, and there's plenty of working class people
who vote for Democrats, et cetera, et cetera. But you know, yeah, like,
I totally understand how some people have felt like liberals
(12:54):
have talked down to them in the past couple of years,
and you kind of acknowledge that and then it gives
the other side to kind of see you, some humility
and all of that. So it's a really great way
to kind of open up the conversation.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Just to wrap up, can you talk in a practical
sense how this work is applied or should be applied.
Have you seen it applied in a useful way? Oh?
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Yes, And I've applied it myself. You know, I'm from
Michigan initially, so I'm from a swing state. My half
my family's conservative, half, my friend's family's liberal. Same with
my friends. So I'm applying this all day long. I
will say, the number one thing that changed the way
that I engage in a political conversation is a brave
ra angel's rule that we are not going into these
(13:32):
conversations to change anyone's mind. And I can say for me,
every single time I used to go into a political conversation,
I actually felt like, not just like I could or
I should change people's mind, but I had to change
people's mind. It was my duty.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
You know.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
I was serving my country by changing people's minds because
they had to think like me. And as soon as
I let that go, not only did I have a
lot more just capacity in my mind, to listen to
the other side and actually hear where they're coming from.
But you actually get to learn a lot more. So
are the full purpose of our conversations at Brave Angels
again is not to change anyone's mind. It is to
(14:06):
learn from the other side. And so then that gives
you an opportunity opens up what Bill calls questions of
curiosity that you can say, you know, you said this
isn't this you know, key, tell me about how that relates.
You know, you start to open up and soften and
to be able to ask true questions of curiosity, not
gotcha questions, not you know, gotcha question kind of sounds
(14:27):
like do you really think that? Sounds like that's the
tone of a gotcha question? That's not a true question
of curiosity. Question of curiosity is oh my gosh, tell
me how that experience impacted you. I'd love to hear
you know how that shaped how you see this issue.
You know, that's a true question of curiosity. So not
trying to change the other side's mind is number one.
(14:47):
We also have something that we call the lap Skills LAPP,
and that is listen, acknowledge, pivot perspective. So again it's
that idea of you're listening, you're acknowledging what that person saying.
Again Bill, as I said as a marriage and family therapist,
So a lot of this, a lot of these techniques
you might might feel a little bit familiar. But it's
funny because people don't think to apply them to political
(15:09):
conversations even though they you know, they're really well applied here.
So you know, you might be hearing, so what someone's saying,
you might say, oh, I totally understand why you're you're
nervous about that. That makes a lot of sense. So
your acknowledging what they're saying. So that's l A A
is the acknowledge p is pivot because sometimes, and again,
I've been in this situation where I'm asking, you know,
I'm asking all the good questions of curiosity, and maybe
(15:30):
they're not being reciprocated. Maybe that person's not bringing me
into the conversation, they're just venting at me. So what
you can do is you can say, hey, do you mind?
Do you mind if I share where I land on
this issue or you know, what's relevant for me? You
ask their permission, which is kind of a weird, you know, again,
a weird thing, because you know, people might say like,
I don't need permission to share my perspective, and certainly
you don't. But again, it's another softening technique that as
(15:52):
soon as this other person feels like, oh wow, like
they're asking me if if I want to hear their
opinion and then they say yes, well now they're bought
and they just said yes, they want to hear your opinion,
and so then that's when you do the last step
of perspective. So that's a good technique. And the last
thing I'll just say here is again and this is
very therapy one on one, but using ie language and
speaking for yourself because again, some of the most polarizing
(16:16):
language comes when we're like, you know those Republicans are
those Democrats, and you know, that's just how a conversation
goes off rails. But if you can say listen, I'm
really freaked out about what's going on in this specific way,
that's just your own experience and you're speaking for yourself.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
There are so many opportunities to have these conversations. Listen
to these conversations via their virtual and free event events.
The National Debate Series a toolkit for having local conversations
at the website of Braver Angels Braveranngels dot org. Our
guest has been Gabby Timish's director of Communications. Such a
pleasure to meet you and thank you for being to
get connected.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
Thank you so much for having me on. This is
a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
This has been get connected with Nina del Rio on
one IO six point seven light Fm. The views and
opinions of our guests do not necessarily reflect the views
of the station. If you missed any part of our
show or want to share it, visit our website for
downloads and podcasts at one O six seven lightfm dot com.
Thanks for listening.
Welcome to Get Connected with Nina del Rio, a weekly
conversation about fitness, health and happenings in our community on
one oh six point seven light FM.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Thanks for listening to Get Connected. So are things in
our country finally great again? Or are they going terribly wrong?
Americans are divided on the answer, but whatever side you're on,
I think most of us would agree we are having
trouble talking to the other side. Our guest is Gabriella Timis.
She's director of Communications at Braver Angels. They are a
(00:33):
non partisan organization with a mission of bringing Americans together
to bridge the partisan divide and strengthen our Democratic Republic.
Gabby Timmis, thank you for being on Get Connected.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here.
An adds name Get Connected. It's exactly what we're trying
to do.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Yeah. The website is Braveranngels dot org. To start with,
I did a bit of a deep dive into the organization.
Braver Angels, founded in twenty sixteen. It's hard to remember
we were at the end of Obama's second term, the
beginning of President Trump's first. What was going on? What
was the origins of this project.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Yeah, so I like to say braver Angels really started
with a phone call, and that phone call happened between
two men both named David. So David Blankenhorn, who was
one of our co founders now the president of braver Angels.
David Blankenhorn is based here in Manhattan, where I'm based.
So after the twenty sixteen election, you know, this is November,
right after it just happened, he calls up his friend
(01:28):
David Lapp, who's based in Southwest Ohio, and says, hey, so,
you know, what are folks in Southwest Ohio think about,
you know, the election that just happened. And David Lapp says, oh,
you know, people are delighted and not at all surprised.
You know, this is kind of what we expected. And
David Blankenhorn, you know, looks around at his friends and
(01:50):
family in Manhattan and says, that's interesting because everyone I'm
surrounded by are completely shocked and completely horrified, and like,
how crazy is it that in the same country we
have such a different experience of what's going on. And
so David Blankenhorne is very much so a visionary thinker,
and so he just kind of charges forward and says, okay,
you know, David Lap, what can we do? Can we
(02:11):
get let's can we get ten Trump voters and ten
Clinton voters together in a room for a weekend? Like
what do you think? Like, can we just do that
in Ohio? And David Laps like, sure, I don't see
why not? You know, let's see what will happen. So
they start, you know, planning this this workshop, this idea.
You know, they're just kind of hanging back and forth,
and they mentioned it to a third friend, Bill Doherty,
(02:34):
and they say, you know, yeah, we're bringing together ten
Clinton voters and ten Trump voters right after the election.
This is again so this by by the time the workshop,
it would have been December twenty sixteen, so very fresh
after the election. So they mentioned it to Bill and Passing.
And Bill has a very long and experienced career as
a marriage and family therapist, so he knows a lot
(02:55):
about what it takes to mediate these types of conversations
about bringing people together who disagree, and you know, so
they're mention to him and he's like, are you guys crazy?
You cannot just bring Trump voters and Clinton voters and
put them in the room together after the election and say, okay,
now talk you know, that's just never gonna that's not
gonna go well. And so they say, okay, well Bill,
could you come up with some sort of structure or something.
(03:18):
And so, you know, Bill is fantastic and you know,
I like to say, I think he's a genius. He
goes away for forty eight hours and he's like, you know,
don't expect much, you know, like, you know, we'll see
what I can do. And he returns with this whole
structured event which is now what we call the Red
Blue Workshop, which we do, you know, a thousand times
over across the country. And so that was really the
(03:39):
first Brave Rangel's Workshop. And they did this whole Red
Blue workshop and got the two sides talking and as
David Blankenhorn likes to say, they felt after that first event,
they captured lightning in a bottle. And actually from there
they ended up doing a whole bus tour throughout the
country and that's they grew from.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
There and those Red Blue workshops. You still do. You
have national debates, you have on the website a template
for people to do local debates things like that. Who
were the people who participate in these I mean, it's.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
All about everyday American So where wee Rangels is volunteer led.
We have fifteen thousand members throughout the country. We have
three thousand active volunteers who are the ones planning the debates,
planning the workshops, moderating them, you know, et cetera, et cetera.
It's really all just driven by American people, the folks
showing up again, you know. In some cases its family
and friends. In other cases it's just strangers who saw
(04:27):
an interesting event, right, you know, and they wanted to join,
sometimes as neighbors. But so really it's anyone can get
involved at the local level. Although we do also have
you know, specific areas of focus. So for example, we
have Braver Politics where we work very closely with legislators
and their staff on how to you know, we have
(04:47):
a workshop for them about how to communicate with their
constituents and how to communicate with each other. We have
a Braver Faith where we work with people of faith
in different congregations. You know, oftentimes we see polarization frankly
is seeped into every part of our society at this point.
So I like to say, you know, Braver Angels is
this like mutant octopus that grows a new tentacle all
(05:07):
the time because we're like having to address you know,
any part of society with Braver campuses obviously for college campuses,
you know, at this point, we even have a program
or piloting called Braver Dogs for people to walk their
dogs and have political conversations as they do so. So truly,
any area that you think that you know is affected
by polarization, we probably have some program or another to
(05:29):
try to combat it.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
We're speaking with Gabriella Timis. She's director of Communications at
Braver Angels. They are a nonpartisan organization trying to bring
people together to bridge the partisan divide with conversation and
strengthen our democratic or public. Before working at Braver Angels,
Gabby worked for NBC News as an assistant producer. One
of the things you worked on, which I want to
talk about is managing social media. The website is Braveranngels
(05:53):
dot org. You're listening to get connected on one six
point seven light FM. I'm na del Rio. There is,
as you mentioned on your side, all kinds of different
ways you can talk about how people interact and are polarized. Movies, books, music.
The movie section is kind of cool because there's like
a movie that gets covered every month. As far as
working on social media, social media is so interesting because
(06:15):
you're fed what you already like, as you know, and
it gets us to this whole thing I think about
debating facts. If the baseline of the facts aren't the same,
then we're not really even talking about the same thing.
How do you get or where does the organization sort
of get those conversations started with the facts?
Speaker 3 (06:35):
Brave Rangels, We do not fact check anyone, much to
some people's dismay, you know, during debates or workshops or whatever,
we don't say, hey, you know, set your source. So
that's not true. That's not how we operate. But for us,
what we're really focused on is a couple different things. Firstly,
we're focused on building trust, and we're trying to build
trust amongst the American people. So we're trying to address
this thing of affective polarization. This idea that you know,
(06:59):
ideological polarization is maybe you and I are on opposite
sides of an issue, but affective polarization is because you
and I are on opposite sides of this issue, I
don't trust you I think you're a bad person, I
think you're a moral et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
So anyway, just to say our priority is really rebuilding
that trust. What we understand about what's going on in
(07:20):
the world really depends on who we trust. So again,
for myself, I'm a Blue and Brave ra Angels for
climate science. I don't know. I'm not going out there
and taking temperature. I don't you know, I don't know
the details of what's going on in the environment. But
I'm trusting that these scientists know what they're talking about.
That's for me because that's just my relationship with them.
Some people don't trust big institutions. Some people don't trust experts.
(07:42):
So you know, if an expert says something, you know,
that's not going to be part of their opinion. It's
not going to be something they're necessarily factoring in. So
going to your question about facts and how do we
have conversations when our facts are different, and again that's
partially because we trust different people. What my colleague Monica
Guzman says, and I think it's really helpful. She said,
the conversation about what's true is not the only conversation
(08:05):
we can be having, and it's often the conversation that
we get stuck in because again, you know, if you
and I believe two different things, how are we going
to get at the bottom of the truth. And again,
I think for a lot of people, that's very frustrating.
But what Monica says, which I find very helpful, is
she said, there's a conversation behind what's true, and that
conversation is what is meaningful. And so that to me
(08:29):
has been a really helpful reframe. And so oftentimes what
she'll kind of encourage folks to do is not ask
people what you believe, but ask people what led you
to your beliefs, what's the journey, what's your life journey
that led you to your beliefs? Why are you red?
Why are you blue? You know red being conservative and
blue meaning liberal and brave angels speak. People are experts
(08:49):
in their stories. They can tell you all about their
story and you can learn a lot from that, whether
or not that you actually will end up agreeing on
the facts, there's still a lot for you, guys talk about,
and a lot for you to learn about one another.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Before we had this conversation, Gaby, I did the depolarizing
e course, one of them on your website. It's really
interesting for anybody who wants to do them. They're free.
They are the same for both red and blue, they
just use different examples. But one of the things he
talked about maybe gets to what you're saying a little bit.
He talked about the nuance between not equating someone's position
on a policy with a core value.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Yeah, well that's even another thing. And again, yeah, both
Bill and Monica talk about this idea, which is, well, firstly,
we think that what we voted against is what someone
voted for, you know, as in like, if I'm against
this thing, but you voted for it, then you must
have voted explicitly for that thing. Which with values, it's
more often than not, it's not that we have different values,
(09:45):
it's they're stacked differently. So maybe freedom is ahead of
community something like that. Maybe being honest is more important
to you than unity or something like that. You know,
we all have these values and we all decide for
ourselves how to prioritize them. It's one of the stickiest
hardest conversations and debates in America, frankly, which is childcare
(10:09):
for trans youth but both sides will say I care
about children, I want children, I'm doing this for children's
best interest, whether or not you agree with that, whether
or not you believe that, etcetera, etcetera. Both sides feel
very motivated by the same thing. They just have a
different way of getting there. And that's true for a
lot of a lot of our political issues.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Frankly, something else to you and I talked about just
a minute ago was the idea of the stereotypes too.
You said that sort of broke open the idea of
understanding between groups. That realizing that some kernel of the
stereotype you believe about another group with they care about
what they don't care about, that actually might be true.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Yeah. So the stereotyping exercise is something we do in
our Red Blue workshop, and it's really interesting. It's actually
kind of fun because so in all of our Red
Blue workshops it's Red Blue balance. So again, we have
let's say seven reds and seven blues, and we come
together and in the beginning, the Blues will go off
and run room and the Reds will go off in
the other and they start talking amongst themselves about what
(11:08):
are the stereotypes The other side have of our side.
So again, I'm a Blue, So if I'm in the room,
I might say, well, they think that we bisically, you know,
we're just bisically irresponsible, or maybe they think that we
don't care about the unborn, or maybe they think that
that we just want to change everything and we have
no regard for tradition or you know whatever. So you
(11:29):
kind of come up with these different stereotypes again, and
the really you really come up with crazy names. So
it's like, you know, baby killer or yeah whatever, like
these these harsh, harsh insults that you maybe have had
thrown at yourself. Sometime the reds come back. Oftentimes they'll
come back with things like racist or homophobic or you know,
things that maybe they've had hurled at them. And so
each side will go up and present not just what
(11:50):
the stereotype is, but then you know why it's not true.
You know, as a Blue, you know, it's not that
I don't care about babies or children, ear et cetera,
but I also really care about women's health, you know whatever.
You kind of explain that position. But then it happened
super organically during one particular workshop. It actually might have
been the first one was that was supposed to be
(12:11):
the whole exercise. You get the stereotype and then you
kind of explain why it's not true. But actually, a
group of Reds in an early workshop said, well, listen,
there's actually a kernel of truth to this stereotype, and
maybe we should acknowledge that kernel of truth. And so
that actually became something that was baked into the workshop
because as soon as those Reds said, let's acknowledge the
kernel of truth here, the Blues immediately softened and we're
(12:32):
super open to hearing what the Reds were saying because
they were being humble. So now that's a part of
the standard workshop where folks will say, okay, so here's
why it's not true, but here's where it is true.
So let's say again on the blue side, let's say
it's elitist. You know, no, it's not true that all
Blues are elitists, and there's plenty of working class people
who vote for Democrats, et cetera, et cetera. But you know, yeah, like,
I totally understand how some people have felt like liberals
(12:54):
have talked down to them in the past couple of years,
and you kind of acknowledge that and then it gives
the other side to kind of see you, some humility
and all of that. So it's a really great way
to kind of open up the conversation.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Just to wrap up, can you talk in a practical
sense how this work is applied or should be applied.
Have you seen it applied in a useful way? Oh?
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Yes, And I've applied it myself. You know, I'm from
Michigan initially, so I'm from a swing state. My half
my family's conservative, half, my friend's family's liberal. Same with
my friends. So I'm applying this all day long. I
will say, the number one thing that changed the way
that I engage in a political conversation is a brave
ra angel's rule that we are not going into these
(13:32):
conversations to change anyone's mind. And I can say for me,
every single time I used to go into a political conversation,
I actually felt like, not just like I could or
I should change people's mind, but I had to change
people's mind. It was my duty.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
You know.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
I was serving my country by changing people's minds because
they had to think like me. And as soon as
I let that go, not only did I have a
lot more just capacity in my mind, to listen to
the other side and actually hear where they're coming from.
But you actually get to learn a lot more. So
are the full purpose of our conversations at Brave Angels
again is not to change anyone's mind. It is to
(14:06):
learn from the other side. And so then that gives
you an opportunity opens up what Bill calls questions of
curiosity that you can say, you know, you said this
isn't this you know, key, tell me about how that relates.
You know, you start to open up and soften and
to be able to ask true questions of curiosity, not
gotcha questions, not you know, gotcha question kind of sounds
(14:27):
like do you really think that? Sounds like that's the
tone of a gotcha question? That's not a true question
of curiosity. Question of curiosity is oh my gosh, tell
me how that experience impacted you. I'd love to hear
you know how that shaped how you see this issue.
You know, that's a true question of curiosity. So not
trying to change the other side's mind is number one.
(14:47):
We also have something that we call the lap Skills LAPP,
and that is listen, acknowledge, pivot perspective. So again it's
that idea of you're listening, you're acknowledging what that person saying.
Again Bill, as I said as a marriage and family therapist,
So a lot of this, a lot of these techniques
you might might feel a little bit familiar. But it's
funny because people don't think to apply them to political
(15:09):
conversations even though they you know, they're really well applied here.
So you know, you might be hearing, so what someone's saying,
you might say, oh, I totally understand why you're you're
nervous about that. That makes a lot of sense. So
your acknowledging what they're saying. So that's l A A
is the acknowledge p is pivot because sometimes, and again,
I've been in this situation where I'm asking, you know,
I'm asking all the good questions of curiosity, and maybe
(15:30):
they're not being reciprocated. Maybe that person's not bringing me
into the conversation, they're just venting at me. So what
you can do is you can say, hey, do you mind?
Do you mind if I share where I land on
this issue or you know, what's relevant for me? You
ask their permission, which is kind of a weird, you know, again,
a weird thing, because you know, people might say like,
I don't need permission to share my perspective, and certainly
you don't. But again, it's another softening technique that as
(15:52):
soon as this other person feels like, oh wow, like
they're asking me if if I want to hear their
opinion and then they say yes, well now they're bought
and they just said yes, they want to hear your opinion,
and so then that's when you do the last step
of perspective. So that's a good technique. And the last
thing I'll just say here is again and this is
very therapy one on one, but using ie language and
speaking for yourself because again, some of the most polarizing
(16:16):
language comes when we're like, you know those Republicans are
those Democrats, and you know, that's just how a conversation
goes off rails. But if you can say listen, I'm
really freaked out about what's going on in this specific way,
that's just your own experience and you're speaking for yourself.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
There are so many opportunities to have these conversations. Listen
to these conversations via their virtual and free event events.
The National Debate Series a toolkit for having local conversations
at the website of Braver Angels Braveranngels dot org. Our
guest has been Gabby Timish's director of Communications. Such a
pleasure to meet you and thank you for being to
get connected.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
Thank you so much for having me on. This is
a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
This has been get connected with Nina del Rio on
one IO six point seven light Fm. The views and
opinions of our guests do not necessarily reflect the views
of the station. If you missed any part of our
show or want to share it, visit our website for
downloads and podcasts at one O six seven lightfm dot com.
Thanks for listening.
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