Strengthening Civil Discourse

Three groups trying to bridge the political divide Up North

It’s no secret that Americans are divided politically these days. Fomented by social media, cable TV pundits, and overall economic woes (among other things), the chasm between red and blue seems to widen further with each passing year.

And while political disagreements are nothing new, it’s the increasingly nasty “us vs. them” mentality that troubles plenty of observers.

Take a 2023 Pew Research Center study that showed that 72 percent of Republicans and 63 percent of Democrats viewed the other party as immoral, up substantially from 47 and 35 percent in 2016. And just this summer, more than 8 in 10 respondents to a PBS news poll said political and cultural divisions are a serious threat to democracy and the country’s future.

Far from being a purely national problem, these issues impact countless adults at a far more personal level. From the home to the workplace, from school halls to the town hall, political and cultural divisions are making it harder for people to merely coexist.

Here in the Grand Traverse Region, three groups—Purple Assembly, Common Ground, and Braver Angels—are actively working to bring people together and bridge this gap. As another divisive election approaches, how are they doing?

In Search of a Better Way

Sam Getsinger saw it in herself first. The retired kindergarten teacher and Leelanau County resident felt a creeping disdain for people who didn’t think like she did, and it really bothered her.

“I didn’t want to hate anybody,” she says. “So when I noticed I was starting to put people in categories, I thought, ‘Oh, that’s definitely not the way I want to leave this planet.’”

Getsinger had not long ago attended a local workshop by Braver Angels, a nationwide group dedicated to healing partisan divisions through conversation. She decided to create her own group in Leelanau County called Common Ground to focus on purely local issues. The group—which, like Braver Angels invites people on both sides of the divide to meet and engage in conversation—has met six times this year.

“We want to get down to basic humanity,” Getsinger says. “We all live in Leelanau County and love Leelanau County. We might have a different view about what’s going to make it good, but wouldn’t it be nice if [we could discuss things without] animosity and anger?”

A separate local group, the Purple Assembly, also sprang up not long ago with the same goals. They’ve hosted three events and plan more in the future. Kathy Grinsteiner, one of the group’s organizers, says she wants people to be “less certain and more curious.”

“Our goal is to really create a community where people feel like they’re seen and heard and valued even when we disagree,” she says. “We want to have this coordinated community approach to strengthening civil discourse. And we’re not trying to change anybody’s opinion about anything. That’s the thing that makes us, I think, unique.”

Braver Angels is also still around, though it has been conducting most of its recent events at the invitation of various churches or community groups. Like the other groups, the Braver Angels folks believe the path forward is to focus on strong communication and shared values.

“Our democracy was based on a divergence of opinions, a variety of opinions, and we need to get back to that,” Braver Angels organizer Terry Donahue Cousins says. “We don’t always have to agree with people, but we do have to understand their perspective and spend time with them and respect them. And I think it’s more important nowadays because relationships are being impacted, progress is being impacted, systems are being bogged down.”

Though the groups vary in the structure and frequency of their events, the common goal is constructive dialogue and open communication with those who share different views.

Making Progress?

All three groups report positive reception so far.

“After our last meeting, I heard from several people things like ‘Oh, I’ve just met some other people that I’m bringing next time,’” Getsinger says. “To me, that’s success.”

But all three groups also report the same two sticking points: Not enough young people or conservatives are attending.

“I really want the people who are going to be here longer than us to carry the torch,” Getsinger says. “And it’s easy for me to get liberals, but it’s really hard to get the more conservative folks in the room.”

The Purple Assembly specifically engaged with the Traverse City Young Professionals, sending a survey to that group and then to the larger community. After three events, the group is going to invite respondents to their surveys (and anyone else who’s interested) to provide feedback about the nature and frequency of events going forward in order to best engage people and make the most difference.

“Our minds are already spinning around: What does it look like from a process perspective? How do we frame this in a way that would be appealing? How do we communicate it so that people know what we’re doing?” Grinsteiner says. “We’ve got ideas on the direction that we want to go, but our intention is to hold a convening of those who have expressed interest in being part of crafting the future of the Purple Assembly.”

Like Getsinger, Grinsteiner hopes for a lot more red in the mix. After all, isn’t that the whole point?

“We have a lot of liberals who have responded to our survey and have come to our events. We don’t have as many conservatives. We want to attract them. We want them to not be suspicious of us,” she says. “We are absolutely not partisan in any way.”

Part of the goal is to humanize others and to get people to dispense in harmful preconceived notions.

“We have division that occurs because of assumptions that people make, the stories they make up in their heads about other people’s intentions, about their motives, and honestly about their values,” Grinsteiner says. “If you knew that I’m pro-choice, you might make a whole lot of other assumptions about me. If you know I’m pro-gun rights, that’s a whole different [set of assumptions], right? But I’m both. We’re all complicated beings.”

Along those lines, these groups hope to make progress with getting people to actually listen to what other people have to say.

“Active listening is a very hard thing to get some people to do. They like to talk a lot, but they don’t listen much. Even when they listen, they’re listening through a filter that says, ‘You’re baloney,’” Getsinger says. “We want people to feel heard, but also to hear.”

And beyond just getting people together, the groups want to teach them how to have actual, productive dialogue.

“What we want to do is to create opportunities for people to be curious, to ask good questions, to understand, to seek to understand,” Grinsteiner says. “We really believe that people often lack the tools to navigate disagreements productively.”

Photo: At a Common Ground meeting, Leelanau residents of all ages and political parties gather to talk about issues that affect us in northern Michigan.

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