(bright music) - Today on "Common Ground," a crash course in the lost art of how to disagree agreeably.

The good news is the key isn't about changing our views, it's about changing the way we see each other.

To start us off, we're honored to welcome Dr.

Orna Guralnik, clinical psychologist, host of the critically-acclaimed Showtime series, "Couples Therapy."

You've been a lifeline for people through the pandemic and now through these troubled political times.

Has it been an amazing experience for you?

- Absolutely.

Yes, I've loved doing this show.

I mean, it's been hard, very demanding, but I've worked with the most amazing couples, like, incredibly brave and honest couples, and the most amazing filmmaking team.

And it's been good to be doing something that adds something good to this world.

- It's really a public service.

- Feels like that.

- Now, your practice is a microcosm of what's happening out there, and it's gotten bad.

People are openly saying they hate each other.

They don't even know each other because they're not of the same political stripe.

Do you find people want to start mending fences?

- Yes, I think, by nature, we all want to mend fences.

I think by nature, we're inclined towards, like, wanting harmony.

We suffer when we're in conflict.

So I think the underlying wish is to find a way to bridge and mend, but we're up against a very different kind of climate.

- It really is much more vitriolic.

It's really in your face.

- Yes.

- I want to talk to you about how people are dispirited and alone and angsted out, and how that's another layer onto what we're talking about today.

- Yeah.

I'm seeing a few different things.

I mean, I very much resonate with the way you're describing it, dispirited and alone.

I think there's a profound sense of, so abandonment by leadership, helplessness, like, a really intense helplessness.

You know, the experience of being a citizen in this country has been really downgraded.

So each individual feels very, like you're saying, alone and, like, very ineffective at producing a world in which they want to live.

And what it's doing is it's causing people to retreat further and further into their kind of individual cocoons.

- Okay, now, you factor in something, and I was fascinated by this, that we all learn in early childhood, Melanie Klein's, a colleague of yours, splitting.

Talk about what splitting is.

- Absolutely, very relevant.

Melanie Klein, she's one of the original British psychoanalysts that really contributed very important concept to psychoanalytic theory, and splitting is one of the most important concepts that Melanie Klein really, I mean, Freud started that concept, but Melanie Klein really elaborated on it.

And the idea is that when we're little and dependent and vulnerable and trying to just establish a sense of self, everything that is threatening to our sense of goodness and our sense of unity is we kind of try to expel outside of us and project it outside of us.

Every bad feeling we have, we kind of spit it out and we put it on the other.

So every time a baby feels hungry, they feel like their mother is depriving them, right, rather than feel bad in themselves.

And that mechanism remains in us.

And every time we're threatened, when we're under conditions of extreme threat, or when it's somehow fed by a certain ideological atmosphere, we can very easily regress into this state of splitting where we are the good and outside of us is the bad.

And we don't own any of our own badness.

We just put it outside of us, and we want to imagine ourselves as pure and good.

And that means that we will experience the world as very black and white.

- Okay, so we pick sides early on.

And so now in this intractable time when people don't want to approach anybody who doesn't think the way they do, they're like, they already know that person's bad.

So you've got an immediate prejudice right away.

Is that it?

- Yes.

That's one way to say it.

I mean, another way to say it is that whenever you have certain feelings inside yourself that make you uncomfortable with what you're thinking or are in contradiction to something else you believe in, you can't tolerate that state of inner confusion.

And you just dump out everything that you are uncomfortable with in yourself.

And you say, "It's out there.

It's not inside me."

You project it outward.

Does that make sense?

- It does make sense.

You're such a diplomat.

It's pretty much, I think, black and white in terms of, you know, people's lexicon.

So what happens if we kick splitting up to the next level?

What happens?

- If you live in the mode of splitting, what you're constantly craving is this state of ecstatic righteousness.

You're craving the state where you're not confused by inner conflict, you're not confused by having to tolerate guilt or shame, but you project all of it outside of you, and you feel yourself to be completely right with full conviction.

And that is a state of ecstasy.

It's not a realistic state.

It's kind of a semi-delusional state where you feel like you have all the answers, you know what's right, you're all good, and whoever's outside of you and thinks differently from you is all wrong, evil, bad.

Now, that is the kind of environment, that is, in a way, the discourse that is being promoted by the current administration.

And it's infectious.

I mean, to feel totally right is an ecstatic feeling.

It's delusional, but it's ecstatic.

- So now we've got a bunch of people walking around thinking they're right, and yet they want to make inroads at communicating with people.

So how do you break through this cycle?

- Yeah, first of all, we all know what it's like to feel ecstatically right, to feel complete conviction that you know what's right and someone else is very wrong.

And probably most of us can acknowledge that when you come down from that state, you realize that things are more nuanced, more complicated, that all of us have different identifications and can empathize with different perspectives if we just try.

So the way to move out of this state of righteousness and estrangement from the other is to try to open oneself up to some curiosity about things that come from the outside.

So listening, listening from a place of interest, curiosity, empathy.

Imagination is a big word for me, like trying to engage oneself in the process of imagining what it's like to be another person, to imagine yourself into the shoes of someone else and try to see things from their perspective, what matters to them.

Why are they doggedly invested in whatever they're invested?

What is it about for them to get out of the mode of, like, what do I think and what do I believe in?

But try to have an actual interest in something outside of yourself.

That is the key.

- Okay, let's talk about some of the stressors in society that make this problem even worse.

Social media, for example.

- Well, the problem we're having is not simply with social media.

Social media could have been many things.

The problem is, you know, what we like to call the algorithms and sort of what is driving social media If it was just driven by people's curiosity, that would be fantastic.

Probably, it would be a very different world.

But social media is driven by the need of the companies to make profit by grabbing our attention.

And the easiest way to grab our attention is by feeding us the thing that will make us the most excited in the moment and produce the least internal conflict and confusion.

So the more social media throws us into rabbit holes that grab our attention, the more we're fed just exactly the same thing we're interested in that second and the least amount of information that will broaden our perspective.

So we become narrower and narrow consumers of information.

So we become dumber and more extremist in the way we are fed information, and we become enemies.

- For those who want to make a start at this, you talked about empathy, seeing past perceptions, seeing past the political labels.

What else can you advise people who really want to go up to somebody and say, "Look, I know we don't agree, but could we talk?"

- I think the simplest advice that goes the furthest is to say to oneself, "I know what I think.

I know what I believe.

That is not interesting.

I want to learn something about the other person I'm talking to.

I want to learn about what matters to them.

I don't need to keep convincing other people of what I believe.

I know what I believe.

I want to learn something new from somebody outside of myself."

That's really the whole thing.

Tell me something about you that I don't know.

- I have to tell you, I mean, I run my own little study.

You have a lot of conversations with people, never ask you anything about you, But I would imagine that's common.

- Yes, and it's when you make that switch, I mean, I often talk about how there are actually different parts of the brain that are engaged in speaking versus listening.

Like, the Broca area is involved in the act of speech, which is really an act in repeating oneself.

And the Wernicke area is involved in taking in and listening and taking in information.

I mean, emphasize the Wernicke area.

Emphasize listening.

I mean, what else is there to do?

- I have to ask you a question at this point because I really want to know the answer.

Is it true that your own parents were your first couple in terms of treating them because they had a wacky, tumultuous marriage?

- Yeah, it's very true.

- How did that go?

- It took me many years.

Well, my father died two years ago.

- Oh, sorry.

- But he died a good death.

And you know what, he holding my mother's hands and saying how much - Aw.

that's lovely.

- He loved her.

So I think I did a good job at the end.

- Very good.

Very good.

Okay, we're going to move on now.

We're going to go to the next segment.

Joining us now, John Kasich, former governor of Ohio, two terms, 18 years in Congress, spent all that time working across the aisle.

And that is why you are here today, John Kasich, because you know how to talk to people who don't agree with you.

How do you do it?

- First of all, I look for things that I agree with them, you know, on it.

And there are a lot of friends I have who philosophically didn't agree with me, but I'd look for areas that we could agree.

And when it comes to people who really, really disagree with me, you know, I probably would talk to them about baseball or something.

I don't know that I'd get into so much politics, but I do want to hear what they have to say.

I do ask them at times when they're vehement, why do you feel the way you feel?

And that's something that the previous speaker talked about.

Secondly, when it comes to, you know, like, people living their normal lives, I absolutely believe that when people get involved in a project and try to do good, that their politics doesn't matter that much.

And I tell this little story.

If a couple of my friends and I were, you know, were driving down the road and there were people behind us who we disagreed with on virtually everything that we really didn't know very well and we saw a car stuck in a, you know, in the snow, you know, we would all get out of the car and try to push it and push it.

We'd push it.

It'd rock.

It'd come back.

We'd push it, rock.

And then we'd push it, out and everybody would cheer.

We'd give high fives, and then we'd probably go have a beer.

And then we wouldn't care about the politics 'cause we were sort of semi-buddies at that point.

And I like the other thing that the doctor said, and that is, put yourself in somebody else's shoes.

You know, we look at people, we think everything's going great in their lives.

And first of all, we ought to know their story, and we ought to know their successes, and we ought to know some of their hurts.

And when we hear all that, we're just human beings together.

And I think that's just a really good thing.

It's a beautiful thing, frankly.

- Let me just go back though, Governor Kasich, to where we are in the country.

You know, we did a show on Evangelicals last week about how Christianity is being conflated with politics.

There's so much ugliness out there, and people are doing it.

They're weaponizing religion.

We're not in a place like we were 30, 40, 50 years ago where you disagree about tax policy or something.

You know, this is hardcore stuff.

- I mean, basically, and you know, I've just written a book, my second book about faith, this one called "Heaven Help Us."

If you are a person of faith, you got to love the other people.

You got to listen to them.

You have to agree with them, but you can't hate them.

And you certainly can't use religion to try to shove, you know, religion down people's throats.

That's not the way to do it.

And frankly, the most effective way to discuss religion is to have no words.

It's basically by what you do, your kindness.

- Your deeds, right.

- The fact that, you know, that you don't get all, you know, worked up against the other person.

Then they begin to say, "Oh, well, that's pretty good."

"And by the way, maybe I could help you a little bit."

They're like, "Really?

Why?"

You know?

And so that's where your faith shines through.

If you're using faith to go and attack somebody else, then you need to go back and talk to your minister, your pastor, whatever, to find out where all that anger's coming from 'cause that's not good.

And oftentimes, when people get angry like that, it's not about the issue they're talking about.

It's really about something else - Something else.

- That has them very angry.

And that's where we, to a degree, we have to be patient.

Now, people who are just going to be unrepentant, I mean, sometimes you got to leave them alone.

Just go get away from them.

There's not everybody that I talk to in politics.

There's some people that I just said, frankly, there's nothing productive that's going to come.

And by the way, sometimes in the scripture it says, you know, don't cast your pearls before swine.

And you know, if somebody's just a completely unrepentant and angry, I got to let them kind of get over it once I feel that.

- Okay, but the problem is, Governor Kasich, as you know, that a lot of the people who claim to be teaching God's words are marginalizing vulnerable people.

They are intolerant.

They are out there vilifying people, and they take up a lot of oxygen.

- Well, maybe they take up oxygen in the media.

But look, I think there's been an incredible outpouring towards this Pope.

I think, first of all, they liked Francis and his approach, but there seems to be a special something that's connected to Pope Leo.

And it's his kindness.

It's his inclusiveness, his willingness to say, "We don't have a right to marginalize people."

I mean, he's giving off a vibe that I think is really, really not only good, but it's cool.

So, you know, I think that's where people want to be.

And he's being, not with everybody, but he's been sort of universally acclaimed for the way that he's conducting himself.

So, you know, for those who are angry and all that, there's something deep-seated in them that makes them so angry.

And I feel sorry for them.

You know, I don't know why they're that way.

Maybe they feel as though they didn't get the healthcare treatment they needed, or maybe their parents were not treated fairly or whatever.

I understand that kind of anger.

But it is healed, really, I believe it's healed largely over time with professional help and with the sense that, ultimately, God is in charge.

And He makes all things work out best for those that love Him.

And I happen to believe that.

And so I know it's a tough time.

I know people, you know, we're polarized.

I know it seems crazy.

Like, if you're a Republican and your son marries a Democrat daughter, you're up.

That's just so stupid though, right?

And so I think what we need to do is be patient with them.

And if we're patient with them, listen to them, you know, they'll come along.

I've got a lot of people like that that I know.

I got a lot of people who just really don't agree with me.

And it's fine, but I'm not, like, worked up about it 'cause I'm secure.

- All right, I want to bring Dr.

Guralnik in because you've been, I've watched your face throughout Governor Kasich.

You must have some comments.

- Yeah, I do.

First of all, lovely to meet you.

I will speak from a position of being a secular Jew.

So I don't refer to God, but I do agree that the human condition is such that we live better under conditions of harmony, and that's what we really want.

But I do actually believe that the, let's say the ruling party, like the governments that we are led by, has a great deal of responsibility as to in what direction the public is going to orient.

Is the public going to orient towards justice, towards mutuality, or towards defending oneself?

And I think the government has a great deal of responsibility for the vibe in the public.

- Well, you know, let me just say that, first of all, because somebody is not embracing faith, they're agnostic, whatever, that's okay with me.

But I don't think that a country does very well with 300 million people if you don't have some sort of guidance, some sort of compass.

But I would never say that somebody that doesn't have faith cannot do good and wouldn't do good.

I also would agree that it's the problem with negative populism.

In some ways, I'm populist myself, but I'm a positive populist.

A negative populist says the reason why you have a problem is 'cause somebody else caused it.

And that creates division.

And so when you have leaders at all levels, whether it's in the government, whether it's in business, whether it's in the media, it doesn't matter where it is, when you have people that operate in this negative populist situation, you know, then you're going to have division.

And it's unfortunate, and it's something that I have argued against and stood against in ways that have been very clear.

- Governor Kasich, I do want to ask you about the fact that you also wrote a book, "Courage is Contagious" - [John] That's right.

- Some years ago.

Well, in this day and age, not so much because you see people who know that conspiracy theories are being promulgated.

You see people who know they're lying.

You see people who know they're endorsing people who are lying.

And these people are elected leaders, and they're all in lockstep.

Now, I understand this puts you in maybe a tough position, but you got to wonder, the great silence, when you see that, how do they sleep at night?

- Well, you know, some people actually believe this stuff.

So that's one thing.

But let me ask you a more basic question, and I'll get to that and I'll answer it.

So you work for an insurance company, you know, and they turn down 80 or 90% of the requests for certain health treatments.

And we know that there are people that aren't going to make it 'cause they can't get the treatment they want, and you work there.

Well, how do you live with yourself?

See, we tend to have a tendency right now.

As Robert Putnam would say, we are living in a I culture.

We're not living in a we culture.

And while I respect people that don't have faith and they can navigate this on their own, they're agnostic and they can search for things and do good, I appreciate that very much.

I do believe that the Judeo-Christian ethic that we have in this country that we were basically founded upon talked about our personal responsibility to one another.

That's kind of what I believe.

And so when we went through the Gilded Age in the last century, it was the social gospel movement that sort of beat that back and changed the culture from an I culture to a we culture.

That's according to Putnam's book called "The Upswing," who I would encourage you to interview.

And we have now drifted away from it so that if there's only one bit of air left in the capsule, I just took it, and I didn't care about you.

We need to have somewhat of a little bit of a revolution.

And I kind of call it a spiritual rebirth where all of a sudden I have to respect other people and where I work together as a we and not an I and that I can resist the idea of getting bitter against somebody who shortcut me and kind of laugh it off a little bit and chuckle about it and realize at the end, the scales will be balanced.

- Okay, Dr.

Guralnik?

- Yeah, I would love to ask you a question, Governor Kasich.

- Sure, sure.

- How do you think our extreme capitalist economic system could possibly support that idea of being concerned with others?

I mean, it's pushing for a very different outcome.

- Well, I'll tell you why I say that.

There was a great theologian, philosopher, political scientist by the name of Michael Novak.

He wrote the theory of democratic capitalism.

He was a liberal, became a conservative, worked at AEI.

I got to meet him.

He was, like, a professor, and I just loved to spend time with him.

He said a market system or a capitalist system that is not underlaid by a set of values is bankrupt.

And I happened to subscribe to that.

I think you can make plenty of money by doing good.

I don't think you have to be shafting everybody and being like that guy in "A wonderful life," Mr.

Potter.

- Mr.

Potter.

- You know, you don't have to be Mr.

Potter to be successful.

You know, it's the first time his name's come up probably in a long time.

But I do think that there has to be an element of conscience involved in terms of making money.

And I don't think that's inconsistent with making money, which is why I've had arguments with people in business, and I'm in business myself now.

There's just some things I'm not going to do 'cause I don't feel right about them.

So I don't think you take away from the success of capitalism if you have that underlaying set of values.

If you don't have it, then I think you are involved in rugged capitalism that ultimately will be eroded.

That's my view.

- Right, but don't you think that that's where we're at?

- I think, again, it's back to, no matter who we're talking about now, there has been a tendency to take care of me, take care of myself without having to think of others.

And that's why I keep bringing the faith question in, 'cause I think with the faith question, if it is a legitimate question, here's what the notion is: love God, love your neighbor.

I mean, that's what it means, essentially, in all the Abrahamic faith, whether it's Christian, whether it's Jewish, whether it's Muslim.

You know, love God, and love your neighbor.

And from that standpoint, I think you can get into a position of where people can start thinking about the good of others, and we will be rewarded by it.

And I want to be clear, just because you don't have that faith doesn't mean you won't act that way.

I believe you can.

I believe that people have a conscience, and I believe they can do it.

I just believe that faith sort of accentuates it and is valuable.

- We're all trying to get to the same place.

- Yeah.

- We are.

- Our next guest defies political gravity and wins long-shot elections because she finds common ground with people by seeing past their politics.

Welcome, Senator Elissa Slotkin from Michigan.

- Yes.

Thanks for having me.

- It was very clear from the get-go, you were running in red districts.

You were going to have to find a way to talk to people.

How did you find that way?

- Well, look, I mean, I think, first of all, it helped that I didn't come from a background in politics when I first decided to run.

I had no idea how to do it, but I was coming from the national security world, right?

I'm a CIA officer by training.

I did three tours in Iraq, and I worked very proudly for presidents of both parties, right?

I worked for George W. Bush.

I worked for Barack Obama.

You know, and national security is a place where it used to be completely taboo to even talk about your political affiliation.

So if that's your training and then you come home to a state like Michigan, where I grew up, my dad was a lifelong Republican, my mom a lifelong democrat.

You know, I've never won my town, I've never won my precinct, I've never won my neighbors.

You know, you just sort of say to yourself, like, how do you connect with people on something other than crazy politics?

And I think the good news is Midwesterners are still very practical, reasonable people.

They just want, like, someone to be playing for team normal.

And so you just got to go to the places where they're spending their time and, to be honest, and just, like, shut up and listen to what is keeping them up at night.

And so I tried to do that.

My strategy was to go into areas that they haven't seen a Democrat show up in 40 years and just show them that I don't have horns and a tail, and I'm a reasonable person and I care about what they care about, and the conversation goes from there.

- All right, let's back up a little bit 'cause your father was a Republican.

Your mother was a Democrat.

Were you the referee?

- No, actually, I think most people who grew up in Michigan, in my era, I'm 48, it was never a topic that my parents ever argued about.

And frankly, Michiganders were more likely to argue Michigan versus Michigan State than they were Democrat versus Republican.

It was kind of, like, there was a ton of mixed families.

There was a ton of people who would kind of, you know, rib their friends if they were from another political party, but that was it.

So I think most Michiganders can't stand that our country has gotten so polarized and so toxic.

So no, I literally, my parents were divorced, but not because of that, not 'cause of politics.

- Okay, what was the toughest, I know you talked about going into those red districts.

Your father didn't want you to go to Howell, for example, because you are Jewish, and that was a KKK hub.

And that's a dangerous place, theoretically, or could be, but you went there anyway.

What did you find?

- Well, first of all, I mean, yes, Howell had a history in the past of having some very unsavory characters.

Some antisemitic and racist characters come and move and retire there.

But to be honest, you can't just go by a reputation of a place.

It is true that when I was growing up in Michigan, my dad said, "Don't go to Howell.

They don't like us in Howell.

You know, avoid that place."

But then when you're running for office, you can't live like that.

And I spent a lot of time in Howell, and downtown Howell is a really cute little downtown.

And one of my proudest moments of any election I've ever had was in 2022 when we won Howell by something like, you know, 25, 30 votes.

I mean, it was by a hair.

And that was because we kept going there and going there and talking to people and engaging and, you know, talking about what was keeping their small town up at night.

And so I just reject this idea that even when a place maybe has a reputation, you got to actually talk to the people who are living and trying to change that place today.

- Are you always successful?

Does the pitch always work?

I don't want to say it's a pitch, but are you always successful in, no, you're not, okay.

- No, I mean, I think that, like I said, if you don't win your own precinct in your own town, right, and my neighbors, we can talk about anything and they're the first ones I call if my dogs get out, if there's a tree down or something, but we just can't talk about national politics.

But I'll give you an example.

You know, Trump just got sworn in.

I went to his inauguration as a brand new senator, and I got to bring a plus one, and I brought my town supervisor, George, from my town.

He's a huge fan of Donald Trump, and I called to invite him.

He just started crying the minute I invited him.

And, you know, him and his wife made their way to Washington, and it was a huge thing for him.

And George and I can work on a million different local issues.

We're worried about the same things.

We just have really different views of who should be the president of the United States.

But if you stop there, if that's the only conversation you're willing to have, then you don't see someone as a human being.

You don't look for the common ground where you can work together.

And in my state, being from Michigan, people expect me to try and find common ground where I can, but then defend, intensely, my values when I feel like they're being threatened, right, by President Trump or anyone else.

So that's my that constant decision every single day.

Where do I compromise, and where do I refuse to compromise?

- One of the places, apparently, you refuse to compromise, you're not a fan of political identity.

- Identity politics, I think we learned, I mean, in data, in facts from this last election, that you can't just treat a certain racial group or ethnic group a certain way and assume they all vote the same way, right?

You can't just say, "Well, Latinos are going to do this," or, "African Americans are going to do that."

That's just patently false.

And I think that it doesn't help anyone to sort of say, well, because they are from this group or they grew up in this way, they're going to be a Democrat or a Republican.

It's not right.

And I think we saw, this was a pocketbook election.

We saw voters vote their pocketbooks, no matter what racial group they're from, ethnic group they're from, religious group they're from, minority group they're from, and I think we have to really take that lesson to heart.

You can't treat people like a big group.

- Okay, at this point, I am going to bring in the advisor at the organization Braver Angels, Monica Guzman, who also is the author of the book "I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times."

Monica, you're listening to Senator Slotkin's story.

You probably have some familiarity with that 'cause you also grew up in a household with divided political loyalties.

Tell us about that.

- That's right.

I am a Mexican immigrant.

I'm the daughter of Mexican immigrants.

And when we became American citizens in the year 2000, they went immediately to the Republican side.

And I was on the Democrat side going, whoa.

And so, you know, hilarity ensued, and much drama as we watched- - Hilarity.

- Oh, my, much drama through many years and many conversations.

It never got more heated than during the 2016 presidential campaign where political divides tested my family, like they tested so many families across the country.

- Now, is it harder to negotiate with your own family or with people you don't know in terms of getting them to sort of see your point of view?

- Isn't that interesting?

It really depends on where your expectations are because negotiating with your own family, you're also battling your own expectations of them.

How could my mother believe this?

How could my daughter vote for that?

So you're wrestling with that internal turmoil as well as this other person whom you love and whom you have a relationship with, but that means you want them to be a certain way.

And one of the things that really gets in the way of us connecting across divides, understanding, even seeing what the divides are really about is just that, that we tell ourselves, until they change, I can't be okay.

Governor Kasich was saying a beautiful thing about maybe it is possible to find some security within ourselves, lean on a bit of constitution and say, well, that person believes what they believe, and maybe that's sacred to them.

And maybe if I get curious, as Dr.

Guralnik was talking about, I can learn something from them and they can learn something from me.

Shaming and blaming and hating isn't working.

- We understand that, for sure.

At this point, I am told that the senator has to go off somewhere for something very important, I'm sure.

- Vote.

I'm sorry.

- And vote, of course.

I want to ask you one last question though quickly.

Your late mother, Judith, was heralded as somebody who brought people together, as a leader who embraced diversity.

Do you ever feel like you're channeling her?

- Well, you know, I think that my mom was someone who did something very brave.

I mean, she went through cancer at 31 and lived another 30 years before cancer got her again.

My mother came out in 1986 and lived the rest of her life as a gay woman.

And when we hid it, and it wasn't a popular thing to do in the '80s in suburban Detroit, but I think she also really believed that, especially on, you know, gay rights issues, that you had to bring someone along, right?

There was an era where you couldn't make the assumption that your neighbor was okay with you being out.

You know, that's why we hid it for so long.

And so my mom just would really want people to feel like, hey, you can't ice someone out because they don't understand who you are.

You got to really work on them and bring them along.

- Senator Elisa Slotkin, thank you for joining us, for your wisdom.

Go vote.

We'll see you next time.

- Thank you.

Thanks, everyone.

- Okay, and now still here, I want to go back to Monica for a minute because you are dealing with people all over the country in terms of trying to get them to talk to each other.

Is it easier, really, in the Midwest?

I'm just going back to what Senator Slotkin said.

- I loved what was said about, we just want someone on team normal.

Is someone playing on team normal?

And the governor also was saying, look, we may be getting signals from media.

Some of the most extreme voices do get the most airtime.

That's just a feature of our divided politics and a culture that we hope to change over time.

But I think the main thing to remember is, I'm okay believing that folks in the Midwest maybe have this a little closer to heart than others, but that's just an opinion, that we're just people at the end of the day.

And maybe one of the ways that we can help change this culture is to change the ratio for ourselves.

How much time are you spending online talking to avatars versus time you're spending in the real world talking to people?

The internet is a non-place that makes us into non-people.

So it's really easy to spin up out of reality and start to believe that debates are what they're not.

So if we're in reality, then we can really solve some problems.

- All right, well let's go back to Dr.

Guralnik for a second because I want to talk about, you've heard a lot in the last few minutes.

In terms of people dealing with reality, we were talking about being self-delusional.

How do you start to get people to see the reality of trying to approach another person?

- That's a very good question.

I think what people need, first of all, to calm down, to get to a place where they're emotionally calmer, is some level of recognition.

That's, like, the basic thing people need.

So some level that whoever they're talking to offers them some recognition of their humanity, of the validity, of their perspective, something that will allow them to calm down the need to convince and argue and state.

And once people feel, to some degree, recognized, they can lay down their arms and engage in what you, Monica, just said, and engage in the business of listening, engage in the business of actually learning something from outside of themselves.

So recognition, some degree of acknowledgement, and then take a deep breath, try to actually get curious.

- Okay, Governor Kasich, who have you found are the most resistant people to any kind of overtures to try and change their point of view?

is there a category of people?

- Not really, I mean, I don't sit around thinking, okay, well, this is a person who's just, you know, it's just what I run into.

But I'll tell you, I think one of the answers is, it's funny, I was having a conversation with somebody recently who was, you know, trashing Nancy Pelosi.

I mean, this person doesn't know Nancy Pelosi.

So I said, "Hey," I said, "I really like Nancy Pelosi."

"Really?"

I said, "Well, let me tell you a story."

I said, I was in New York, I was walking down the street with a couple very liberal people, and you know, they kind of look at me and kind of chuckle about, you know, this is not our guy, whatever.

Nancy Pelosi comes out of this restaurant.

She sees me.

She comes over, she gives me a big hug.

And she said, "Boy, we really miss you."

- Aw.

- And I told this story to this person the other day who, all of a sudden, "Oh, really?"

I think those kind of personal experiences, 'cause you know, we get in our minds what somebody is as painted by the media or whatever, the social, you know, the culture, but we don't really know them.

And so when we know somebody who knows them and we hear a story about, you know, I ran into this person and they were really lovely, it kind of begins to say, oh, well, maybe I need to think about that.

It's been my experience on a number of people.

Another one that I've talked about is Hillary Clinton because she's always kind to me.

When my wife and I got engaged to be married, she came.

She must have been there an hour.

She was just nice.

But if they say, "Well, do you agree with their policies?"

I say, "Well, no, just because I like them doesn't mean I have to agree with them, because if I don't agree with them, doesn't also mean I have to dislike them or hate them."

I can find a common ground.

I can find some things that are really, ah, that can get us together.

One other thing that I found, it's a little bit like what the senator said.

When I was running for president in New Hampshire, you know, I'm out there, I'm going to balance the budget, I'm going to cut taxes, we're going to do this.

And what I realized, and remember, I beat everybody there in that primary, all of them except for Trump, people didn't want that.

They wanted you to listen to them, to share the pain and the success that they have.

When you take a little extra time and you talk to somebody who's in pain, it's amazing.

Or when you just listen to their story, it's just amazing where you can get.

The problem is we're also, we're in such a big hurry, and I'll be number one.

I mean, in fact, I got to go, I can't keep doing this show.

I have other things I got to do.

- I know.

- The fact is, if we can slow down just for a few minutes, and I'm not good at it, okay, but I know I should be, then I can be more effective and have a better relationship, and then we can move forward.

- Let me just ask you, if you had one piece of advice for somebody who's been watching and saying, "Well, this all sounds great, but," what would it be?

- Do something in your community that you feel strongly about that you think needs to be made right, and you'll do it with other people.

And if you do, you will find satisfaction.

And remember this: People are always worried about politics at the high level.

And what I like to say is, if the Secretary of State and your trash man both went on vacation, who would you miss more?

- There you go.

And the fact is, is when we solve problems with other people, it brings us together and creates friendships.

We all need friendships.

Too many are too lonely.

Let us do something to create friendships.

One last thing.

I'm going to give credit to my wife.

She has a program she'd started herself.

It's not even a program.

She visits her olds.

She just goes and visit people who are older and lonely, and she just goes to see them every couple weeks.

And she has a great time, and they love her.

And it's boosted her, and it's boosted them.

- Governor John Kasich, you were worth the wait.

I've waited a long time to talk to you.

Thank you very, very much.

- We'll talk soon.

Thank you.

- I hope so.

Thank you.

We're going to let Governor Kasich go.

We have Dr.

Guralnik and Monica still with us.

Monica, in terms of the actual, do you have exercises or, like, I don't know, sort of drills that you put people through?

- Oh, yeah.

- You do?

- Yeah.

No, there's so many things.

Some are mindsets, and some are actual things you can do very tactfully in the world.

Maybe the most important, I would encourage all your viewers in this divided time to ask themselves, who do I talk about, but never with?

What kinds of folks do I talk about, but never with?

Because it happens to be a very inconvenient truth in these times that whoever is underrepresented in your life is going to be overrepresented in your imagination, meaning it's going to be more easy for you to believe the hype, to believe the hyperbole, to believe misinformation about people, disinformation, exaggeration, to have and hold misperceptions.

So can you talk to more folks?

Can you get more connected?

Now, here's an exercise.

For any of your viewers who are going, "I'm not talking to somebody like this or that or who believes this or that," okay, well, then here's something you can try.

Next time you see a headline that reflects a widely held view that is entirely opposed to your opinion on a political issue, instead of clicking on that headline and reading the article looking for rhetorical ammo, read the article, asking yourself two questions.

One, what are the deep-down, honest human concerns that are animating this perspective?

And second, what is the strongest argument on this other side?

Just the exercise of you conversing with yourself, trying to exercise curiosity in the face of your own animus and emotional activation is a step in the right direction.

As my friend John Powell at the Othering & Belonging Institute, he talks about long bridges versus short bridges.

You know, nobody's saying you got to go talk to a Nazi tomorrow.

Nobody's saying that.

It's, find your edge and push it.

It's, look for the short bridges.

And you know, as he says, like, he had a pastor who once told him, "John, are you asking me to bridge with the devil?"

And John said, "Well, maybe don't start there.

Start with the short bridges."

- Good answer.

- But after a while building short bridges, you may ask yourself who you're calling the devil.

- Dr.

Guralnik?

- I love what you're saying, Monica.

This is beautiful.

Really, I know the work of Braver Angels, and it's just so deeply psychologically insightful.

It's based on a lot of very deep psychoanalytic principles that I resonate with.

I guess I would want to ask you, Monica, 'cause the way I think about what you're describing is that what you're looking for, ultimately, is you're looking for the complexity inside, the ways that we barricade ourselves against more complicated moral, ethical, emotional questions inside, and we project stuff on other people.

Does that make sense to you?

- Absolutely, because as you mentioned earlier, we look for comfort.

We don't want discomfort.

We want to chase that away.

But at the same time, we're going to chase away complexity, which chases away nuance, which chases away reality.

And we end up living with projections, fighting ghosts.

It's not even real.

The most pernicious assumption we make about people across the political divide, I've made it, maybe you all have too, lots of people make it, is the idea, if they oppose what I support, they must hate what I love.

And 'cause think about all the ways that we assume.

We know all the variables that went into somebody's political choice without having talked to them, without having met them, without knowing their lives, hearing their story, as Governor Kasich was saying.

It's like, there is so much we're missing.

So that's another thing, Jane, that I talk about is, ask yourself what you're missing.

The assumption baked into that question is you're missing something.

I've been married to my husband many years, and he's still a bottomless mystery to me.

There is a lot we can talk about.

So we're all profound mysteries.

We're not puzzles that you just have to find a piece and put it in its place.

Every time you get an answer, it begs more questions.

That's how humans work.

We're profoundly complex, and as has been said many times today, we just want to be heard.

We just want to be heard.

And in fact, here's the key: People can only hear when they're heard across a big divide, whether it's suspicion and mistrust.

They can only hear when they're heard.

- Here's the problem: We're not living in an age of nuance.

We're living in a post-truth era where we're battered and hit with a cudgel, with misinformation that travels faster than the speed of, I mean, and that's what people hear.

And that's the problem I have is how we start to crack through this.

You're going to say one conversation at a time, which is the obvious answer and the right answer.

But Dr.

Guralnik, can you- - Well, I mean, this is getting way beyond the psychological here, but that's what I was trying to actually provoke Governor Kasich about.

I mean, this is also part of a certain kind of economic, technological system.

It's not just about each of us individuals who are held in the grip of a certain economy, economy of attention, economy of, like, you know, there's a certain way that we're allowing a distribution of resources in a way that, part of what's driving all of this is, you know, a certain kind of oligarchy that is making its way into our very private lives.

I mean, what we see online is driven by an economic machine.

So it's very hard to tackle these questions apart from that big question of, like, you know, regulating the social media, regulating the internet, you know, what kind of economic system, taxation system.

It's not just individual choice.

I was going to ask you, Monica, what do you think about that?

Like, how do you tackle that through Braver Angels?

It's like- - Yeah, no, I think you're absolutely right.

There are systems and institutions in place that make all of this so much more difficult and make it sound quite pollyannish to say, "We just got to talk to each other, and it'll all be okay."

The truth is more complicated, as it always is.

And it has something to do with, we need those institutions to change.

We need the incentives in politics to change.

We heard from some courageous politicians today, but you know, it's not always the norm.

We need the incentives in the media to change, to allow more of the economy of attention, to make room for the complexities of who we really are.

All of that is true.

Here's what I think though.

I think that it is impossible to change those institutions without us, as people, reflecting the culture we demand and that we deserve in those institutions.

It's impossible, I really cannot see, I think of these as mirror institutions, politics, you know, our whole culture.

They're very unpredictable.

They're very hard to control.

But there is no way that this kind of change is coming from the top down.

It's not happening.

It's going to have to be all of us together.

And here's the other thing.

I have heard a lot of people say things very similar to what you've, you know, you both have been saying, which are very valid points about the systems we're in.

But once you believe the story that we're trapped in those systems, you take away your own power.

That's it, people start to think that there's nothing they can do, which only cements whatever system might be holding us back in place.

So I'm a little tired, right?

I'm tired of hearing, as I've heard, many highly placed politicians say, "I'm with you, I agree with you.

I think all these things need to change," and then say, "But I can't change it."

You know, and hearing people around the dinner table going, "Yeah, I hear you.

All these things need to change, but I'm not going to change it."

It's like, well, guess what?

It has to start somewhere.

And if it doesn't start with you and you and you and you and me, then what are we going to do about it?

- But haven't you seen the activism that people have started to understand that, you know, the antidote to angst is activism, that people are, whatever side of the aisle you're on, you need to get out there and do something?

And they're like, what do I do?

I mean, that's the next question.

- Yes.

Yeah, and activism is so important.

It is a tried and true tradition in America going back from the beginning.

And boy, am I grateful for it, and I still am.

I think that what's happened though, is that because we're so toxically polarized, it's very easy for activism, like everything else, to become reactive, to become reckless and uninformed.

I want activism that is informed, that is judicious, that takes time to discern between the hyperbole and the reality.

And when we do that, I think we are unstoppable.

But even activism, you know, has fallen victim to the tendencies and incentives of our attention economy, rewarding the most emotionally reactive stuff, and then rewarding the reactions to the reactions to the reactions.

And so we all end up emotionally dysregulated, right?

Like, looking for external solutions to our internal calm.

And I believe that some of the best activists I've met, and I've met many, always reserve some of their energy for some way of bravely meeting the opponent, bravely meeting the enemy, just to check in, just to make sure that what they think the disagreement is actually is what it is.

And that no one's falling for all the signals going on in the media that, let's face it, are entertaining, they're giving us dopamine hits, but are they what real people really think?

Well, you can't know until you spend a little bit of time talking to people.

So those are the most effective activists, and I'm so proud of them.

And I want more of that to be the norm.

- Are you always this upbeat, Monica?

I mean, you seem to have this limitless supply of energy and vibe and jazz, and are you?

- Kind of.

Well, look, you're seeing a personality, right?

This is me.

Hi.

Hi, everyone.

This is me.

This is how I am.

I am so fascinated by people.

I think people are endlessly, endlessly interesting.

And what I've learned is that when I talk to people, even who hold the most unsavory positions, you know, things I just can't believe, once they're heard and once they see, you know, that curiosity is a kind of gift and people kind of take an interest in them, there's this incredible softening that can happen.

And once that softening happens and everyone's sort of calibrated, that's when you can really influence and impact each other.

And it's not going to happen in that same conversation.

It could happen years down the road, weeks down the road.

But seeing that transformative power of a conversation and of the radical act of actually listening, instead of just like, "I'm waiting to speak because my opinion's more important than yours," all I see is reason for hope.

That's all I see.

Now, granted, I have to kind of, you know, meter my media diet, make sure I don't go too, too far out because then my mind will fill with so many negative stories that I'll cease to believe in the obvious dignity and power of humanity.

- Can't do it.

Can't do it.

You are a transformative power.

And we're going to end this, Dr.

Guralnik.

Now, we knew why this show was going to be terrific, was because you were here watching over us.

And I guess I'm going to ask you what you want people to take away from this broadcast.

- I think that the words that came to my mind in the last few minutes were words that, often, I talk to myself in this way, which is, live the world you want to create, meaning in the immediacy of how you relate to everything around you, the people, the animals, the environment, live the world you want to see.

I guess that's what I want people to take from this.

- We want to thank you and Monica for being inspirational, for your insights, Governor Kasich, Senator Slotkin, and to you out there for joining us.

Until next time, from the other Washington, Washington, Connecticut, I'm Jane Whitney.

Take care.

(bright music) (gentle string music) (bright music)