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Hello.

Thanks for joining us for sustaining us here on KLCS PBS.

I'm David Nazar.

How do you get people with diametrically opposed viewpoints to simply talk to each other as opposed to talking at each other or through each other without really listening?

Not an easy task, to say the least.

Who doesn't have an opinion these days about anything and everything?

Politics left or right.

Presidents Trump or Biden covered.

Fact or fiction.

Vaccines mandated or voluntary masks?

Should we?

Shouldn't we?

Climate change solutions or energy independence and oil drilling?

There are so many differing opinions that are dividing Americans these days.

So how do we bring people together to find solutions?

The billion dollar question.

Well, there's a new nonprofit known as Civic Genius, trying to do just that.

And we're going to hear all about them in just a few minutes.

First, though, we took our cameras to the streets to hear what everyday folks had to say about all that divides us these days.

I have close family members.

You know, I just really don't talk about politics with at all because it's just such a loaded thing.

And it's very emotional, too, when you get into it most of the time as well.

And when you try to bring up, you know, your side of things like you know, release reason why, you know, you believe what you do, it tends to get a little bit too heated.

I definitely am not a Biden supporter.

I didn't vote for Trump.

I didn't have a problem with him winning this election or the first election.

I thought he was going to win the second one.

But I think that's another one of those things that people are pretty divided on.

Because you've got the pandemic that just happened and they're trying to recover from that.

You've got violence.

It's going on.

You've got the Ukraine war.

There's just there's so much going on right now.

And you've got Trump doing his best to stick his nose in where it doesn't belong.

It's political.

We've got Democrats and we've got Republicans.

This has been going on for years.

I almost wish we didn't even have a political party that would be very neutral ground.

But because of our separation of political parties, they never can agree on anything.

The war is in the White House, as far as I'm concerned, and everything that trickles down from the White House winds up in our society today, and we're all affected by it.

That's unfortunate.

As far as climate change, we're seeing it all the time.

Glaciers are melting.

Our climate has changed dramatically in the last ten years.

And it's it's all over the world.

It's not just California.

Climate change is normal.

I think just scientifically, humans are speeding it up.

So it's a totally normal thing.

We have phases of cold, phases of hot.

I think the division really is if you peel it all the way back, is we've we've lost the willingness to accept the fact that other people have different opinions.

We've turned it into like a super value, moral, ethical, cultural thing.

I think it's that simple.

We just are not willing to accept people have different opinions and be okay with it.

Obviously, a lot of people have struggles with financial problems right now and.

Part of that is.

Affecting the way they think partly is media, either right or left and the way that things are directed and run by the people who own those media companies affects what they put out into the American public and it seems to be affecting people more and more that they are listening to what is being told to them instead of making up their own ideas, even COVID.

You would think it would have brought us a little bit closer together.

And then I think it actually divided us a little bit more because everybody was on their own for a long time.

And coming out of COVID, a lot of.

There's a lot.

Of different people that came out okay.

A lot of people lost their businesses.

So obviously that, you know, was a tough time for all of us.

I think the country is so divided right now, really because of social media.

When you see a headline that's like outrageous or really polarizing, those are the things that start blowing up and start getting shared.

You don't really see that those moderate stories being popular.

So I think that social media really makes those polarizing things blow up.

It's intrinsic in American blood to be divided about.

Ever since there's been a country and to call it a United States has been division, you know, and I think we're at the I don't say we're at the epitome of it.

I think we're headed a new level where younger people are understanding what's going on.

And not only is there division in races, there are division and ages, you know, and young people are asking why, why, why did you let it get this far?

All people are saying is now your problem.

You know, blacks are saying that it's the white man's problem.

Whites are saying that it's, you know, if we could just get rid of all of these other things, whatever those things may be, and I know I don't I just don't even understand how a country that promotes itself to be a country for all citizens, for all people, is so divided and we get more divided by, you know, just by the things we say or don't say.

So people have opinions and they stick with them, right or wrong.

I think we should all just be nice to each other.

And as long as we are continuing at the rate we're going, it's it could literally destroy our nation.

And joining me now to discuss this further is Jillian Young, but Jillian is the executive director of the nonprofit organization Civic Genius, which are about to explain.

Jillian has a political background.

She's from a family of conservatives.

And yet, interestingly, she began her career working in New York.

Local Democrat politics then relocated to D.C. to work with controversial Democrat Congressman Jerry Nadler.

Then Jillian worked in a Bloomberg administration focusing on public health.

Then at a tech company focusing on education reform policy.

And now she's with civic genius.

Also joining us is Jillian's colleague, Todd Levinson.

Todd is a director of programs and strategy for Civic Genius.

He's worked on policy at the local, state and national levels, focusing on, well, how to help Americans in various sectors.

Todd has also worked with the United Nations, helping government and community leaders work together to deal with their conflicts, their issues, and advance peace and development.

And Todd has also worked with the New York City mayor's office and with the Clinton Global Initiative, and most recently has studied and taught moral and political psychology at the University of California, San Diego.

Wow.

That is a resume.

Guys, thank you both for being here.

Thank you so much for having us.

I am so humbled when my nothing resume.

Okay.

First, Jillian, and then to Todd.

Tell me all about civic genius Jillian, who are you?

What are you trying to accomplish, having this all begin?

In other words, whose brainchild of sorts?

What was this and why?

Jillian, first to you and then to Todd.

Yeah.

So civic Genius is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to overcoming political polarization.

And we're doing that by bringing people from across the political spectrum together in conversation about specific issues where they can take action and make a difference.

So as you said, I'm a former Capitol Hill staffer.

My background is in politics.

And although D.C. is not necessarily known as a place where people go to compromise, I met so many people during my time on the Hill who were there for the right reasons, who really did want to move solutions forward.

So that gave me a lot of confidence to team up with our founder, who's a Rochester based philanthropist.

And as you mentioned, you know, before that I grew up in a conservative community in the South, and I then spent most of my career in New York and a little bit in D.C. and it was always just very obvious to me that these two worlds that seem completely different actually have quite a bit in common.

I always talk about my dad, who has pretty different politics than I do, and we used to have these real yelling, screaming fights where like my sister, who's wiser than all of us, would leave the room and we would hash out whatever it is we were disagreeing on.

And after maybe 30 minutes of that, we would realize we actually agreed on like 70% of whatever the issue was.

We just had to get through all of our questions of identity and how we were relating to each other.

Before we could get to that point.

So that's really what we want to bring out.

Civic Genius.

With that said to talk more about the organization's civic genius and what Jillian was saying, because obviously a lot of organizations, a lot of folks trying to bring people together.

What is your unique formula?

And then we talk issues.

Yeah, I mean, I think there's five things we really try to do in all of our events.

One is we create an environment where people feel comfortable expressing themselves and their points of view.

I'm guessing that a lot of your viewers probably have ideas and beliefs that if they felt they would share it, they would be attacked or shamed in some way.

Maybe on one side that they think if they shared a point of view, they'd be called a racist on the other side.

Maybe they'd feel like if they were forwarding a view on racial equality that they were just playing the race card.

We create an environment where people can share their views.

Two, we make sure that people are working on common aims, on common goals to solve common problems.

Three We're very solution oriented, as Jillian said, we want people to feel like it's practical, like it's impactful, and they walk out of our events with actual solutions that they can move forward together.

Four We make sure that we're not just trying to do some superficial Kumbaya, that we actually get into people's concerns, that it's not just about listening to people, but really hearing diverse viewpoints because we think we get better solutions.

And then lastly, we make it fun.

We know that sometimes dealing with difficult issues in relationships and handling difficult topics, you have to make it fun.

So imagine finding a consensus solution with people who think different while you're playing a game or throwing beach balls around while you're trying to solve a difficult scenario.

We make sure people have fun.

Okay.

So as I mentioned at the beginning of the broadcast to both of you, the U.S. is so divided.

Trump versus by the COVID vaccines masks climate change, oil drilling, energy independence.

Then, of course, there's a silencing and the censorship.

You know, if you don't like what the other has to say, you're canceled.

And let's be fair, let's be honest.

Spoken from possibly the last true centrist reporter in me anywhere on this planet.

You know, many claim this is a liberal thing.

It's a liberal big tech, The silencing of conservatives more often than not, although who knows?

Now with Elon Musk in Twitter, Jillian, how do you bring everyone together given what I just said?

You know, the thing I want everyone to know is that Americans are absolutely not as divided as we think we are.

And that is not just my opinion.

That's a reality that researchers are finding over and over again on issue after issue.

You know, I'll give you just one example.

So there's a great report that looked at how Republicans and Democrats felt about guns.

And the researchers asked people to rate their personal views on a scale of 0 to 100 zero being repeal the Second Amendment, outlaw guns completely, and one being no restrictions on gun ownership whatsoever.

And they then asked people to estimate what the other side thought.

The result is.

Sorry.

The results showed that both sides were actually pretty close to the middle of that spectrum.

And Republicans and Democrats obviously don't agree entirely, but their views overlapped quite a bit.

And what's also fascinating is that both sides thought that the other side was far more extreme than was actually the case.

So it's sort of genius.

We bring this reality into everything we do.

We know that people across the political spectrum support tax incentives for clean energy.

They support sustaining Social Security by raising the retirement age.

They support policies that would bring people out of the criminal justice system and into employment.

So the way that we bring people together is by creating opportunities for people to do two things.

They talk to one another not as social media avatars, but as actual humans who are complex and have nuanced opinions and unique experiences.

And we ask them to focus the discussion on solving problems and taking action together.

Todd Your take on the silencing I just mentioned the censoring and more about bringing people together to sustain the future.

Yeah, I mean, the thing is, is that if we silence each other, we only get to know each other through our sound bites, and then we think that we're each more extreme than is actually the case.

So take, for example, the issue around what do we teach in schools?

On one side, you have folks who have ideas about critical race theory and have worries about it.

On the other side, you have folks who are worried about book bans in schools and the people.

When we just hear the sound bites of people's points of view, we might think that they're extreme.

But if we ask them the reason why they have the views that they have, why they have the concerns that they have, we probably would hear a different story.

And so maybe on the CRT side, you have folks who think, I just don't want my five year old to feel guilty for the historical record that we have in America with regard to race.

Most parents would probably understand that point of view because they wouldn't place those responsibilities on their own five year old child.

On the other side, you might have folks who say, We just want to make sure that when our kids are in class, that their history is represented, that they see their part of history as part of what's being taught.

Now, if you get most people in the room with those particular concerns, I'm guessing that most people in America would understand both of those concerns and could figure out a way where five year olds don't have to feel guilty about, you know, centuries of misdeeds while at the same time they could also figure out a way where people's histories were fairly represented.

Yeah, that's so vital.

So to talk more, obviously, to ask you about some of your latest events.

I'm being told we have some video from one of your recent events in Orange County, California, where, of all things, the discussion was about, if I'm not mistaken.

Digital disinformation and free speech.

So take us through some of this video.

Yeah.

So people came together.

We got them into small groups of diverse points of view so that they weren't just hearing people preaching to the choir, but they were actually hearing different ideas about how to handle this issue.

They come together where they get to know each other and what's important to each other.

They learn about the issue.

They discuss possible solutions as well as some of the strengths and weaknesses of solutions.

This is where they're really sharing ideas.

Sometimes ideas that are uncomfortable to hear but are very important to bring to the table.

And then what they do is they have a couple of really fun games that bring them to consensus.

And the thing is, is that when you see people come to consensus, it gives people a lot of hope.

So an example being we actually took a group in front of the room to provide a demonstration of how to work through to come to consensus.

There solution had to do with providing digital news literacy programs to the education system.

But some of the participants had concerns about that, and when they voiced their concerns, they then worked as a team to figure out how to change that idea in a way that handled their concerns.

The audience watching gave them a, you know, a strong round of applause because it feels good to actually see people working together, being open to their critiques and ideas, and then coming to a joint solution together.

We'd probably love to see more of that in our politics today.

And with that said, Jillian, talk more about what Todd was saying.

How do we listen and listening without judging?

Just really listening.

I mean, who is not judgmental these days?

Everybody's little judgmental.

And that's you know, that's fine, honestly.

The first thing I would want people to really know about listening is that you don't have to leave your values at the door.

You don't have to stop being yourself.

You don't have to stop thinking like yourself to make progress on an issue.

So let's say, you know, you think we should build a wall at the southern border and you're talking to someone who who doesn't think that this conversation could go a couple of ways.

So usually one person says, you don't even care about this country.

You don't care if America is safe and the other person says you are a racist nutjob.

That's not really listening.

Instead, what I would do here is use a really effective technique called looping.

So looping means that you tell me what you think and I say, okay, let me see if I understood you.

And then I replay it back to you.

Nine times out of ten, the person you're talking to will say, No, that's not at all what I meant.

So you try it again.

They use a little more precision.

They clarify some things that they can see you interpreted differently, and then you do it again.

Okay.

So I think I understand.

So let me let me.

Is this what you were saying?

And you get a little closer and a little closer.

And sometimes it takes a couple of rounds of this to really understand what the other person is saying.

But it's worth it because now you're talking to each other as individuals.

And that keeps you up to talk about the issue that you're trying to solve.

The other thing that I would recommend is when you're in one of these conversations, look for clues about what the other person might have in common with you on this issue.

So you can ask questions like why is.

I'll just use immigration as the example again.

Why is immigration important to you?

What is your biggest concern about our immigration system?

And I actually overheard a conversation like this at one of our events between two people who disagreed on this topic.

And in under 10 minutes I heard them agreeing that actually what they cared about was creating more paths to legal immigration.

And the kicker is that this event wasn't even about immigration.

It was on a different topic.

But these two people so quickly realized the power of listening and deliberating and collaborating that they were immediately applying it to other issues.

Todd Final question.

I am listening to Jillian.

That's why I have this next question for you.

It's the final question.

Our remaining minute, as we are listening to each other, as Jillian says, and hearing each other's viewpoint and not judging the billion dollar question, how do we find that solution with everybody so divided, no matter what Jillian says?

Yeah, I mean, it's it's one thing is realizing that most people are not black and white and that issues are not black and white.

It's usually pretty complicated.

So on the on the issue of digital disinformation and free speech, on one side, most people are able to understand that there is a problem if we have severe limitations on free speech, not just because people have the right to freely express themselves, but we want more ideas in the conversation.

And so, for instance, we saw that there were in fact, bands of anyone who would bring up the idea of the lab leak theory at certain points during the pandemic.

It's now the case that given more information and more discussion, it's actually a serious contender.

At the very least, of what might have happened.

That's a good example.

And there are many others of why limitations on free speech could be really dangerous.

On the other side, the potential of misinformation to do great harm is also the case.

We know that through the quintessential example of falsely yelling fire in the theater, we know that's not a good thing to do to use your free speech, right?

It can lead to panic and to potential injuries.

And imagine, you know, in the social media world, we could actually yell fire in multiple theaters at the same time with the way that misinformation can spread.

And so on one side, there is an understandable pushback against limitations on free speech.

On the other side, there's an understandable worry about the potential serious harms national security, harms harms to people's well-being.

When it comes to misinformation, when people understand that it's a little more complicated, they can find the way toward solutions.

And in our events, they do find solutions.

People came up with solutions, for instance, on running PR ad campaigns like they did in the anti-smoking, you know, era that enable people to understand the way that social media algorithms might game your emotions or how people putting misinformation might game those.

No one wants to feel games, right?

People want to have solutions for how to handle that.

People came up with ideas on ways to maybe give consumers more control when they're on social media sites so that rather than just being just getting information that increases their engagement so the media companies can gain more money to make more money, they perhaps can have more choice of the kinds of things maybe they want to get more diversity of ideas instead of what just outrageous them.

Maybe they want more reliable ideas instead of just what outrages them.

And so our groups came up with a variety of solutions that they came to consensus on.

Tired of.

Fighting.

One to find solutions.

This is how we find solutions.

This is how we bridge differences.

This is how we debate.

I hear what you're saying.

I like your solution.

But this is how we help people work through their differences so they can work together, understand how their government works, and unite to make things better.

We're civic genius.

We bring together people from all sides and.

Backgrounds and show them how they can connect.

I see the world differently having been here today.

We all need to move away from the extremes.

I feel even more optimistic about the future.

I feel revitalized in a way that's.

Hopeful and feel hopeful that there's a way.

Come join us.

You'll have fun.

Connect with great people from your own community, and leave feeling.

Empowered to make a difference.

Anyone can be a civic genius.

Let us show you how.

Gillian Youngblood and Todd Levinson.

I could speak with you guys for hours, both with Civic genius.

Thank you so much for this great discussion.

Thank you so much for having us.

Yeah, thank you.

And for more information about our program, just click on KLCS.org and then click Contact us to send us your questions and comments or story ideas.

We can hear from you.

Or contact me @DavidNazarNews on Twitter.

That's @DavidNazarNews on Twitter.

I'll be sure to get back with you and be sure to catch our program here on PBS or catch us on the PBS app for All Things Sustainable.

Thank you so much for joining us for this edition of Sustaining US here on KLCS PBS.

I'm David Nazar.