Speaker 1: I realize I'm a talk show host and everybody's like
Speaker 1: you're a part of the problem.
Speaker 2: But I'm actually.
Speaker 1: Mostly nice, and I try to keep our discussions on
Speaker 1: policy not personal right, and I try to talk about
Speaker 1: the issues rather than the people, and I'm very purposeful
Speaker 1: about that, and sometimes I'm better than others. I'm certainly
Speaker 1: not perfect, and it's always a work in progress. But
Speaker 1: my guests right now are working within two different organizations
Speaker 1: with a similar aligned goal, and the first one that
Speaker 1: I want to talk to. We've got Lori Leander from
Speaker 1: Braver Angels first of all, and Sandra Brownrigg from Restoring Civility.
Speaker 2: But we're going to start with Lori because Lourie Braver.
Speaker 1: Angels came onto my radar pretty quickly after it was created,
Speaker 1: and I've had somebody on from braver Angels a while ago.
Speaker 1: But why don't you tell my audience, who might not
Speaker 1: have heard of braver Angels, what exactly it is and
Speaker 1: what you guys do.
Speaker 3: Sandra, do you want to go ahead? Oh?
Speaker 4: Sorry?
Speaker 3: I did you back?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Backers, Sorry, Sandra, I tell you it's the vacation brain.
Speaker 1: It's Jack. That's my excuse. Sandra brownrig is with Braver Angels.
Speaker 1: Let's try that again. Go ahead, Sandra, all.
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, you I think you had. I'm gonna butcher
Speaker 3: the name. But Karen O'Connor on in twenty nineteen from
Speaker 3: Braver Angels. We started in twenty sixteen after President Trump
Speaker 3: was elected because we wanted to bridge the divide and
Speaker 3: strengthen our constitutional republic. And I got involved in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty two because I was volunteering within the school district
Speaker 3: in Douglas County and the political polarity was causing harm
Speaker 3: to the schools, to the students, to the teachers. So
Speaker 3: I look for an organization that could help with that
Speaker 3: and I found Braver Angels.
Speaker 2: Tell me, just tell me a.
Speaker 1: Little bit about what the mission of braver Angels is,
Speaker 1: because it's pretty simple.
Speaker 3: It's the largest grassroots organization in the nation dedicated to
Speaker 3: bridging the divide and strengthening the constitutional Republic. So we
Speaker 3: heal the divide. That's what we do. We bring people
Speaker 3: together to have scratchy conversations on issues like you said,
Speaker 3: versus assuming that people should stay in their echo chambers
Speaker 3: and mindlessly agree with other people who they think think
Speaker 3: like them. So we bring people in to bridge that
Speaker 3: divide and have those conversations. So we do it through debates,
Speaker 3: We do it through workshops, we do it through book
Speaker 3: clubs and film screenings, whatever it takes to build that
Speaker 3: connection and remind people that we have more commonality than
Speaker 3: we do differences. And when we do have differences, how
Speaker 3: do we disagree?
Speaker 1: I want to ask a little bit of a follow up,
Speaker 1: because everyone that I know who has been involved with
Speaker 1: Braver Angels has definitely been a right leaner. Do you
Speaker 1: have the same level of participation from people on the left.
Speaker 2: I know that there are.
Speaker 1: People on the left who want to have a higher
Speaker 1: level of dialogue, who have the same feelings about it
Speaker 1: that we have. Are you able to bring them into
Speaker 1: the fold for these events so we can truly that process.
Speaker 3: Actually, yes, the up until the twenty twenty four elections,
Speaker 3: we had many more people who leaned left we'd call
Speaker 3: them blues than we did reds. Especially in Colorado, there
Speaker 3: was kind of an intentional desire to pull back from
Speaker 3: reaching across the aisle, and the Blues were leaning in
Speaker 3: partly because I think they thought they were going to
Speaker 3: win the election, and they really were trying to heal
Speaker 3: that divide, but then the election disrupted that and now
Speaker 3: we're seeing people on each side come back in. The
Speaker 3: Blues retracted for a while, but they're coming back in.
Speaker 3: So at our event over the weekend, we had a
Speaker 3: balanced group of reds and blues discussing how skills to
Speaker 3: families and politics, and then we had a debate on gender,
Speaker 3: id and schools, and it was fascinating to see people
Speaker 3: come together and have those discussions.
Speaker 1: That's very encouraging. That makes me very very happy because
Speaker 1: I don't think, I know for a fact, there are
Speaker 1: a lot of people on the left who are just
Speaker 1: as tired of the vitriol and nastiness. Unfortunately, the nastiest
Speaker 1: on the left and the right are the ones that
Speaker 1: suck up all the oxygen on social media and in
Speaker 1: other places. So it gives the impression that there are
Speaker 1: everybody's on the same level of nasty, when I actually
Speaker 1: think a much larger section of people are like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we should be able to have a discussion and not
Speaker 1: you know, call the other person evil or or you know,
Speaker 1: the worst thing ever. So I'm actually super pleased to
Speaker 1: hear that, Sandra, that you guys have seen that rebound.
Speaker 2: Let me go to Lori.
Speaker 1: Lori Leander is a founder. Let me see if I
Speaker 1: can get this right of reclaiming civilitation, not giving you
Speaker 1: the wrong organization.
Speaker 2: Yeah, tell me, I'm the co founder.
Speaker 3: I have that. Yeah, go ahead. I'm sorry.
Speaker 4: I have a business partner named Lisa Brandt who couldn't
Speaker 4: be with us today. But it's interesting you're talking about
Speaker 4: the loudest voices on either end, and we're hearing a
Speaker 4: lot about this exhausted majority in the middle, people who
Speaker 4: hired the incability and don't want to just complain.
Speaker 2: They want to do something.
Speaker 4: People who don't want to be afraid to bring their
Speaker 4: authentic opinions to the table for fear of losing relationship
Speaker 4: or repercussions in the workplace. And we're here to link
Speaker 4: arms with those people and teach them the skills to
Speaker 4: help them develop warm connection, to how fruitful dialogue over difference,
Speaker 4: and even to de escalate conflict. And those skills range
Speaker 4: anywhere from emotional intelligence to the power of basic manners
Speaker 4: like saying please and thank you.
Speaker 1: I will tell you I My wonderful friend Deborah Flora
Speaker 1: and her husband and so many other wonderful people have
Speaker 1: created an organization very Douglas County specific. Right, it's called
Speaker 1: Douglas County Citizenry, same thing that you guys are trying
Speaker 1: to do. But the only reason I bring it up
Speaker 1: now is we went I got to moderate a conversation
Speaker 1: about this home rule initiative, and what I found striking
Speaker 1: was that there was oddviously people in the audience that
Speaker 1: are on the left, but they were able to get
Speaker 1: their questions answered. And aside from some snide commentary from
Speaker 1: one of the commissioners that I thought was uncalled for, it.
Speaker 2: Was a very everybody was open.
Speaker 1: Everybody just wanted to learn right, They wanted to find
Speaker 1: out more, And it just really underscored for me what
Speaker 1: both of you ladies probably know far better. And there
Speaker 1: is this first there's this hunger to be able to
Speaker 1: have those conversations without worrying about getting socked in the nose,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean rather rhetorically or actually so now, Laurie,
Speaker 1: is your organization locally because I know Braver Angels is nationwide?
Speaker 1: So is your organization local or is it also nationwide?
Speaker 4: Well, we actually said we are launching on July twenth.
Speaker 4: We're helping our launch event here where we're having an
Speaker 4: astronaut speak on stability in the space station, and we
Speaker 4: really want to reach out to our local community. But
Speaker 4: we're part of a nationwide initiative called jex Stivility, and
Speaker 4: we were actually part of planning two nationwide conferences. So
Speaker 4: all those events can be found on our website for
Speaker 4: people who are interested.
Speaker 2: Now let me ask this question.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if your better positioned, Sandra, or
Speaker 1: if you can address this LORI. It's easy to be
Speaker 1: magnanimous when you've just won, right, it's easy to say
Speaker 1: we need to elevate the dialogue when your team is
Speaker 1: in charge. Did you find a consistent number of people
Speaker 1: on the right, And Sandra, gus will direct this question
Speaker 1: to you during the Biden administration when they were not
Speaker 1: in charge, when it was far more tempting to drop
Speaker 1: back into those sort of, you know, vitriolic positions. And
Speaker 1: I'm wondering because you said there was a little bit
Speaker 1: of a pullback after the election. Is that a natural
Speaker 1: ebb and flow? Do you think or can we get
Speaker 1: to a point that everybody, regardless of who's in charge,
Speaker 1: is pursuing these same goals.
Speaker 3: Well, I think I'll answer that tangentially US. Forty nine
Speaker 3: percent of the citizenry in Colorado is unaffiliated. And so
Speaker 3: the interesting phenomenon that I've seen for our Braver Angels
Speaker 3: initiatives is that those unaffiliated come to them because they're nonpartisan.
Speaker 3: So we're having a debate on gun laws in July
Speaker 3: and a debate on religion in August, and they know
Speaker 3: that's nonpartisan, so they'll come to the event. They'll hear
Speaker 3: the speakers who may be partisan, but you have all
Speaker 3: of the people in the room. So it's for the
Speaker 3: left and the right. It is about who's in charge
Speaker 3: as far as the willingness to engage. But it should
Speaker 3: be a math problem that everybody wants to talk to
Speaker 3: those people who are not speaking up, not being heard,
Speaker 3: to find out what they think. And I don't think
Speaker 3: anybody is just fully on board with whatever platform a
Speaker 3: party has put out there. We all have radical ideas.
Speaker 3: We might be what do you call yourself a concerned libreservative.
Speaker 1: I got myself a liberservative for the last time I
Speaker 1: said I'm a libertarian. But there are certain things where
Speaker 1: I have gotten more conservative over the years after seeing
Speaker 1: the outcome of some of the truly libertarian positions I
Speaker 1: have definitely shifted on some of my positions, but I
Speaker 1: think I think there's a lot more people like me
Speaker 1: right who may be a liberal liberal know so then
Speaker 1: are just kind of a little bit squishy depending on
Speaker 1: which issue you're talking about right.
Speaker 3: And that's kind of where I've landed, is that we
Speaker 3: use left and right so that we can actually categorize
Speaker 3: our stereotype people who we think are different from us right.
Speaker 3: And so if you suspend that, you simply come in
Speaker 3: and say, well, what do you think about us and such?
Speaker 3: Then you find you find alignment almost immediately, and from
Speaker 3: there you can proceed to how you differ. So I've
Speaker 3: got something on my Facebook page, my personal page, about
Speaker 3: what happened about the bombing, and I've got people from
Speaker 3: all different political perspectives on there and they're having a conversation.
Speaker 3: And I look at that and I think, Okay, we
Speaker 3: need more of that, please, because it's civil. It's very definite,
Speaker 3: but it's still very civil.
Speaker 1: Laurie, tell me about your event coming up. You've got
Speaker 1: an astronaut coming to talk about civility. And when I
Speaker 1: first saw this, I was like, it didn't even occur
Speaker 1: to me that if you're going to be on the
Speaker 1: space station for six months, you better be able to
Speaker 1: get along with everybody because talk about close quarters.
Speaker 2: How did you get this guy right?
Speaker 4: Well, it's someone that we know from the community, and
Speaker 4: he was on the International Space Station and had this
Speaker 4: you know, spoiler alert. He had this amazing interaction with
Speaker 4: the Russians over coffee, and so he tells his story,
Speaker 4: and the point is that as human beings, we have
Speaker 4: more in common than in contrast. You know, one of
Speaker 4: our heroes is a man named Daryl Davis. He's a
Speaker 4: black man who made friends with a Grand Wizard of
Speaker 4: the Ku Klux Klan and through that friendship.
Speaker 3: The Grand Wizard gave up his position.
Speaker 4: To date, Darryl has collected over two hundred robes, medallions,
Speaker 4: and hoods of people who have changed their mind because
Speaker 4: of friendship. So we really believe that it all starts
Speaker 4: with relationship. And no matter what side of the aisle
Speaker 4: you're on, people are craving that.
Speaker 3: You know, I understand your question.
Speaker 2: For Sandra, there could be.
Speaker 4: A ping, you know, based on who's in charge, but
Speaker 4: I think it's just a general We're tired of this.
Speaker 4: Good people who really want to be civil. They want
Speaker 4: to treat people respectfully. So we're starting to see the
Speaker 4: needle shift and there's kind of momentum going, kind of
Speaker 4: a movement towards back towards We call it reclaiming civility
Speaker 4: because there's been evan flow all through history from the
Speaker 4: very beginning. We want to reclaim that civility that wants
Speaker 4: was there.
Speaker 1: I think people are just exhausted, you know, it is.
Speaker 1: I have one of my dear friends is a left
Speaker 1: wing Democrat, and we've been friends since childhood. And when
Speaker 1: I say dear friends, like she's my ride or die
Speaker 1: on many many issues, right, But we have always been
Speaker 1: able to have respectful conversations about politics because we have
Speaker 1: a foundation of genuine love for each other, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: there's a deep and abiding love there. But at the
Speaker 1: same time, the way she consumes politics and news, it
Speaker 1: is perpetually upsetting to her. And I think she's representative
Speaker 1: of a lot of people who are every day it's whiplash,
Speaker 1: it's every day.
Speaker 2: What's happening?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 2: Every day? What do I have to worry about?
Speaker 1: And I love the fact that you are just focusing
Speaker 1: on the human connections because that those underpinnings. That human
Speaker 1: connection that I have with her is the thing that
Speaker 1: has kept our friendship going for fifty years now, because
Speaker 1: we're first and foremost, we are deep and abiding friends.
Speaker 1: And I love to think that we're going to get
Speaker 1: back to a point where you're going to be able
Speaker 1: to disagree with a family member or disagree with a
Speaker 1: friend without feeling like you have to excommunicate them out
Speaker 1: of your life, which I When I hear of people
Speaker 1: being removed from other people's lives because of politics, I
Speaker 1: find that heartbreaking because there's nothing more hollow than politics
Speaker 1: as a reason to remove someone from your life. It
Speaker 1: really is in my view anyway. So I'll let you guys, Sandra,
Speaker 1: You guys have some events coming up. I did put
Speaker 1: a link to both websites on the blog today. So
Speaker 1: can people join? How do they join your organization? Sandra,
Speaker 1: I'll start with you, all right.
Speaker 3: You can join Braver Angels simply by going to braver
Speaker 3: Angels dot org. It's twelve dollars a year and we
Speaker 3: offer free workshops, free debates, etc. Our local alliance is
Speaker 3: the Colorado Southern Front Range Alliance, which is based out
Speaker 3: of Douglas County, but it goes all the way down
Speaker 3: to puebloam Beyond. We partnered with Reclaiming Civility to host
Speaker 3: two more events. We'll have one on the third Saturday
Speaker 3: of July. We'll have Skills for Disagreeing Better workshop in
Speaker 3: the morning from nine to noon in Colorado Springs, and
Speaker 3: then we'll have a debate where the stopic is Colorado's
Speaker 3: gun laws unfairly in French on personal freedoms for two hours.
Speaker 3: We are looking for speakers pro and con whether those
Speaker 3: gun rights in French gun control laws in French. And
Speaker 3: then on August sixteenth, we will have an apolitical Skills
Speaker 3: workshop where we drill down on lap skills, which is listening, acknowledge,
Speaker 3: pivot and perspective. And in the afternoon the debate is
Speaker 3: the First Amendment correctly prioritizes freedom of religion over freedom
Speaker 3: from religion. And again we are looking for speakers. It's
Speaker 3: a community debate, so we start with four speakers and
Speaker 3: then everybody can engage. So you can find that on
Speaker 3: cos turnewurl dot com, slash Civil twenty five or on
Speaker 3: Reclaiming Civility dot com.
Speaker 1: All right, and Laurie, how can people do in reclaiming
Speaker 1: civility right, so just go to www.
Speaker 4: Dot Reclaiming civility dot com.
Speaker 3: You can also register for.
Speaker 4: The Braver Angels events their sability on the space station.
Speaker 4: The registration link is there on July tenth, or if
Speaker 4: you're interested, if you have a small business or you're
Speaker 4: a manager, or a nonprofit or any kind of group
Speaker 4: that you would like us to come and give a workshop,
Speaker 4: you can reach.
Speaker 3: Out to us that way.
Speaker 1: Laurie Leander and Sarah excuse me, Sandra Brown Red, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for making time and thank you for.
Speaker 2: What you're doing. I wish you all the success in
Speaker 2: the world.
Speaker 1: And please let me know if I can support your
Speaker 1: organizations in the future. By just letting people know what's
Speaker 1: coming up, I think my audience would very much enjoy those.
Speaker 2: Thank you man.
Speaker 3: Thank you