Hello, and welcome to this speci presentation of the Gallagher Di I'm Jill Tolles, CEO of the Kenn Gwinn Center for Policy Prioriti a nonpartisan research center ad evidence based solutions for Nev The Gallagher Dialogues began in 2023, in honor of one of our Tom Gallagher.

The Dialogues reflect his commit to thoughtful leadership, public service, and civil discou Our fourth annual event brought Nevadans together at UNR to explore the Dignity Index, an eight point scale that helps us recognize when our treat others with contempt or wi and invites us to open doors to understanding at a time when public dialogue c increasingly divided.

The Dignity Index offers a pract framework for rebuilding trust.

We were honored to have a conver with Brandon Tatum, CEO of the National Governors Associ and Tami Pyfer, co-founder of Un two leaders helping communities institutions put dignity into pr So, Tami, you're up first.

Tell us more about the Dignity I and why you got involved.

So I spent 20 years in elected and appointed offices, and I watched the tone of our po disintegrate, over those 20 year They just started to get so diff to be in politics.

When I ran for City council, I was so excited, to be a city council person.

I love that work.

And then on the state school boa everything became a lightning ro Culturally, all the culture wars and in public education.

And then in the governor's offic it just seemed to get worse, end 2020 with Covid and how that was our communities.

And I just remember thinking, at the end of 2020, when my governor finished his te and I finished working with him, I wanted to spend the rest of my working to heal the country's toxic political divides.

I have five adult children who belong to five different political part I know right.

A birth order I have a Republican, independent a Democrat, a democratic socialist, and a li And so that fueled, again, you know, what was happening culturally and politically in th was coming home in a big way.

And I am a moderate Republican.

My husband's an unaffiliated, fiscal conservative.

And we started to have some really difficult times as a During the last several years.

And so that also really gave me a lot of incentives to, face this challenge, this growing cha this toxic political culture that we're in, the divides.

And so that led me to the work o for us.

That's our website.

And also the name of our organiz our Dignitas.

And I joined forces with, two colleagues, Tim Shrive and Tom Rosshirt, and we developed the dignity ind And that's, the work that we're doing today.

Fabulous.

So tell me a little bit more about the research behind this, and maybe we'll get to some exam later.

Yeah.

The the Dignity Index, is built on research from several different researche social scientists and theology and anthropology, relationship counseling.

We looked at the work of John, D John and Julie Gottman, and thei on relationship and the role tha plays in relationship difficulti We studied the work of Doctor Do She's an international conflict resolution specialist and spent and a half decades, working across the globe with, intractable conflict and m intractable conflict.

And she found that the most powe that she had in her toolkit was We looked at the work of Arthur social scientists, and he studied contempt and the that contempt plays in polarizat And then we looked at, the work geologist, theologian Richard Rau, René Gir They talk about scapegoating, which has become really what we do a lot is we find someone to blame for our Anyway, that all came together.

We built a framework of a scale how could we look at the differe that we might be in.

Robert Keegan was another scient that we studied, and we built th framework of an index, a way to see how we move from the lowest level contempt to the highest level di And, tested this pilot, tested this framewor the dignity index, during the 2022 midterms with the help of the University and their policy center.

The Kim Gardner Policy Center, doing the same work that you're doing here in Nevada - (changes pronunciati Sorry.

I practiced, I have to leave $5.

I can get a cup-- a jar at the back of the room, i And and so.

And they helped us, and we found those 2022 midterms, we pilot te We trained, graduate and undergr students to score political spee So we designed this to score political speech.

And we found very high reliabili Doesn't matter what part of the you're on, politically, that your ideology that you could look at, passage and score it the same way as som on the opposite side politically Well, and, and so that that launched us int some additional testing the following year in 2023.

But one interesting thing I just want to throw out there r is that we designed this to score political speech almost immediately.

People wanted to use it to score themselves, or they would come up to us and I think I didn't treat my wife very well last night in that con I just saw this score card, and I'm not doing so well.

People came to us from campuses and said, can you come and help our students learn how to have debates in a better We have K-12 educators and super going, we need this in our school syste So we've kind of moved from that political realm.

That's how we tested it.

But now we're in all kinds of different So can we can we take a test?

The best way for me to I can show you my card, but you've got them at your tables.

The best way to learn this is qu way to learn this is to try it.

So let's do it.

So one being the most contemptuous, eight being the most dignified.

I'm going to walk you through th because you have it in front of So I usually start at a four.

If I start at a one, everyone sa I would never be a one or a 2 or But when I get to a four, so out this is when you start to think, we're really better than those p They don't belong.

They're not one of us.

That's the first step into conte You drop down to a three and not we better than those people, but we're the good people and they're the bad people.

It's us versus them.

This is where we find ourselves a lot in politics.

A two is when you say, you know, those people are actually evil and they're going to ruin everyt if we let them.

It's not us versus them anymore.

It's us or them.

If you, like me, are on fundraising emails, that is the language of most of I get at a national level.

Those Democrats, those Republicans are ruining ev Send me $25.

It's like, I know you keep askin that year after year, nothing's But that is.

Just ruined for you Political strategist.

I'm going to help you.

Yeah.

Liv Just then let.

Me help you.

I will help you reword this at the top of the scale.

But when you get to that low, then really the only place to go And that's when you say, no, they're not even human.

They, It's our.

They're ruining everything.

And so it's our moral duty to de before they destroy us.

This is when you start to hear the language of dehumanization, and it leads to political violen as you mentioned, which is such a concern and an issue for us right now.

And a lot of people say, well, I just said that.

I mean, that's what I'm just it's just words.

But people hear those words, those dehumanizing words, and th acts of violence.

So let's get to the happy side of the scale of five is the first step into dignity.

And this is when you say, you kn the other side has a right to be They have a right to be heard.

They belong here to.

I'm going to listen to what they have to say.

I hope they listen to me.

I may not engage, at a high leve but I'm going to listen to them with no contempt.

That's a five.

A five is a great place to be.

A six is when you start to engag a little bit more.

We always listen to the other si because we want to find those va and interests that we share.

So we can find common ground and working on solving problems toge Seven is when you start to look for those things that you don't have in common.

Why do I think so differently fr What led you to your position on this particular policy?

I want to know more about that.

When you get to a seven and you start to engage that dee with people, you'll often find t you may change your mind on an i or you may be able to say, you k I think I was wrong.

There takes a lot of courage, especially for elected officials, for leaders to say I And it's hard for the general public to let them say they were wrong.

A lot of times that's on us.

I like to think of six as common Seven is higher ground because now we're able to solve and come up with solutions we've never thought of before, because we've never had that dee of a conversation before.

And then at the top of the scale is an eight, and this is one we can say everyone of us is bor with inherent worth.

That's our dignity.

So we treat everyone with dignit no matter what.

And people say, I that's hard.

I couldn't do that.

If you're a parent, you do that all the time.

If you have teenagers that hate you don't.

You don't hate them back.

You love them and you treat them with dignity.

Right?

So we can be anywhere on this sc given point in time, on any give If I read something in the news something that's really upsettin sometimes my go to as a for oh my gosh, those people.

And when you start saying those that's a sign.

And then I try to bump myself up It's like getting on the scale in the morning and I'm going to try and do bett So I think of my scale here and I try to do better, but that's the dignity index and I would love to practi Okay.

Well let's see a few examp Now remember hopefully you kept your mentee o So open that back up because we're going to get to se how you scale some of these quot okay.

Here's the quote.

These are real quotes by the way We the people are obliged to take responsibility ourselves and wipe out this scum.

Do not b Know that anyone whose neck you is the one who will cut your nec Now look at your card.

Obviously, on the contempt side of the scal Enter your score into, mentee.

Let's see what we've got.

So the one is the contempt, the one.

Is the contempt side.

That's the.

Lowest.

And the eight against.

The eight is dignity is a degree It's unlike it's the opposite of we're number one as in we're It's like we're number one.

We're not so great.

All right.

This is coming in, pretty consis Number one.

So this is let me show you what what we score this.

First of all, this is Leon Marcu He is serving a life sentence fo in the Rwandan genocide.

This is a language of genocide.

And it is a one.

This is a call for violence.

It has some elements of a two.

But when you start to dehumanize you call them scum.

That's a one.

At a one, you have an absolute b in your own righteousness.

You feel virtuous and heroic.

I've got to do this.

I've got to save the country.

And you can't bear the pain of a or criticism.

So that's the one.

That's the bottom of the scale.

You ready for another one?

Okay.

Let's go, let's go.

Another one.

I have sat with condemned man on death row.

I've spoken with former police officers who have admitte inflicting the cruelest torture.

I have visited child soldiers wh committed acts of nauseating dep And I've recognized in each of t a depth of humanity.

That was a mirror of my own.

Enter your score and check your card.

Check your index.

Leaning heavily on the top of th The high end of the scale.

All right.

I'm going to show you who said t And that might be a giveaway on Even this is Archbishop Desmond Tutu in his book on forg And we scored this an eight.

You respond to contempt, with dignity, even towards your You show no moral superiority.

You defend the dignity of the most demonize soldiers who have committed acts of nauseating depravity.

Sometimes you think, you know, if I had experienced what they experienced, I might have done what they have Now, notice, at an eight, even defending the dignity of the most demonized, it doesn' we're not holding people account Bishop Tutu is not saying they had a rough childhood.

That was pretty tough.

I think we should just, you know let it go.

Not at all.

You still hold people accountabl Even if someone is on death row they should be treated with dign while being held accountable.

Do we have time for another one?

Sure.

Okay.

I got two more.

Oh, God.

Two more.

I've never, ever, ever, ever met I believe in as little as you.

I want to answer the score.

When I do training activities, I have an expanded version of th that gives you the nuances.

Which is kind of fun to do too.

And we have a good time discussi But the shorthand here, you guys you're landing right on the righ the right numbers of the scale.

Okay, let's go to the big reveal We scored this one, two, three.

It has elements of a two and a f but it's really in the the land And this is celebrity chef Gordo And I know they do these.

They do these for ratings.

Right You got to get your ratings.

I also know another baking show, the British Baking Show, that doesn't rely on conte to get their ratings.

This is when you make a personal on competence or character, attr All the good to us about to them We want to weaken or undermine the other side.

So that's that's contempt.

Okay, I guess we've got one more The nature of Harris.

This is this is, a Republican talking about a Democrat.

The nature of Harry's and my job My job's brought us into frequent and som intense conflict over politics a But I never doubted that Harry R was always doing what he earnest felt was right for Nevada, Nevad and our country.

Got it that time.

Okay, enter your score.

Nice.

This is a really close call on t All right.

Let's go to the big reveal on th It's between a six and a seven.

We scored it a seven.

But I can also make a case or a But I could make a case for a seven on this one as well.

At a seven you're looking at, you know, the things you disagre willing to make, admission that you might have made a mista This one is that is a pretty sol in these characteristics where you can see and acknowledg the strength in the other side, and you find satisfaction in coo you feel affection for the peopl on the other side that you have this relationship And that's a fantastic place.

A six is a fantastic place for elected officials and leaders in organizations and in districts and schools to So now that you've seen this, I'm sorry that you can't unsee i Sorry.

Not sorry.

I should say when you leave toni and you go home and someone cuts you off in traf you're going to start to say som and you're gonna go, wait a seco Wait, wait, wait.

What would that be?

On the digni But anyway, that's that's the scale, in the Thank you.

Thank you so much.

So, Brandon, we know that you used to ride bu You also used to be chief of staff for Governo And Governor Stitt was the very first governor to sign the dignity index pledge And I'd love to hear from you personally what this means to yo But also, what was the backstage tour of how that happened?

And and can you give us some examples of the impact?

Yeah.

Happy to.

I rode bulls, I also have ADD, and being in Ve and The Sphere Right out your window.

I've been watching eyeballs and and you all are, like, really, really great.

But the eyeballs on The Sphere is pretty incredible.

And I'm also up for free poker lessons tonight at the Wyn if you're willing to.

Jill says she doesn't play, so.

So I was chief of staff for Gove Stitt.

He's the Governor of Oklahoma, still is the Governor of Oklahom And Governor Cox of Utah had had an initiative called Disagree Be And he was really working with Tami Shriver.

I mean, Tami Pyfer and Tim Shriv on, this idea, the Dignity Index was a key comp of that conversation of how can we have disagreement and do it in a healthy way.

And so Governor Stitt was really attracted to the to the concept, to the model, you know, for several reasons.

One, it just fit his worldview.

It just it made sense for who he from a faith perspective.

And he also recognized, like we that we're you know, if you're w in politics, it's a difficult sp and it's getting more and more d And so your words matter.

And he was he wanted to be intentional with And so, we we signed on to the dignity Pled And then what that meant for me as chief, as implementer was to how could we really implemented in the state.

And so we brought Tami and Tim, into the office, and we trained the entire governor's staff.

Then we trained the cabinet secr that we trained every university president in the state.

And then we trained K-12 superintendents across the state And it really made a huge impact made a significant impact on me pretty quickly because it gave me vocabulary around language that I had never had before.

You know, to be able to go into a comms team and hey, we need to respond to this, and it needs to be, above a five you know, a really a really want to be above a six on this statem or when we got stuff, you know, a statement in and we're reviewi and, you know, first drafts are a lot of times twos a certain, you know, and then we c hey, this is this is probably a Can we get this to a five.

You know.

And so it gave us really, really good language.

And then just from like a person perspective.

I'm a father of three kids.

I have a, 11 year old and twin nine year old daugh And my 11 year old, is in fifth and he is like, right now, not l the second, but like this week, has been bullied pretty severely at school, right And, and so like it it that's sucks as a dad and as and, I've been thinking about th phrase sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.

That was a phrase from the 1800s, 1865 or so.

It was published somewhere.

And I get the phrase because the phrase is trying to teach us resilience.

It's trying to say, you know, we need to be tough.

We need to be resilient.

Resilience is a popular word rig in education.

We know we need resilience, but it also, like words do matte and we live in a culture where we have a lot of words, we have text messages, we have social media, we have truth socials, we have F we have Instagrams.

Like we have emails, like we have a lot of words.

We have the spoken word and the written word and Tami mentioned Doctor Hicks.

Donna Hicks, yesterday at Harvar we had breakfast.

And she's the researcher does a lot of the research on dignity is is written several bo on dignity, leading with dignity I think her latest book is she s neuroscience tells us right now that if I break my bone or I'll personalize it to my fif if my fifth grader breaks his bo the brain is going to respond to that in a certain way, but the brain responds the same exact way when his dignity is attacked on the playground, the brain responds the same exac way to a dignity attack as it does a broken leg like words really, really matter And the dignity index for me creates responsibility for our w And I never had a tool like that And, that's the reason why I'm still talking about it and still And I think it really, really matters for us.

Thank you.

During a conversation earlier to you shared a very practical, reality of where there was confl actually within another country and how that dignity index not only guided the response in the course forward, but also, changed some of the outcomes to.

So I'm going to talk about that a little bit.

Yeah.

So we went to Mexico City and had a conversation with the Mexican government year And it was, you know, tough time on immigration, borde and lot lots were lot a lot of t were happening in that moment.

And, it was a good conversation.

We learned a lot.

And I actually learned a whole l But we came back and, you know, after that conversation, by the the food is amazing in Mexico Ci It's like the most Michelin star that site sidebar.

But that's my that's my sphere.

Sphere.

Sphere.

We have some really good restaur I know, I know, but there was legislation passed and it was legislation passed on immigration and the Mexican consulate in Okl wasn't happy with it.

It was pretty tough legislation.

And we had to wrestle with what do we do with it?

And another author that I really and that that also works with me, is a lady named Amanda And Amanda Ripley, has taught me that there.

We usually think there are two responses to something, but there's usually more than two responses.

So sometimes, you know, we would think in this kind of scenario with legislation, you sign it or veto it.

But there was a third response.

And the third response was, let' a task force to look at this.

Let's really understand it.

And so we put together a task fo The Mexican consulate got to sit on the task force.

We had immigration attorneys on the task force because we kne and you know, that there are people that live in your state that aren't citize but they are like they're working really hard and they go to church with you and they're friends with your ki and they're good people.

But we have kind of a messed up right now.

And so, like, how can we have a conversation a We don't have all the answers, but let's bring people to the ta and at least let's talk about it And so it was a it was a, I think a great respon from our perspective to think di about what we could do.

And then the Mexican Mexico really responded really well to I think they were disappointed in the legislation, but thankful that they had a sea at the table and they could talk And I think it was a really unique moment, for dignity.

And so in your new role as CEO of the National Governors Association, how has this practically helped Its, you know, this again, it gives me a framework.

It gives me a, a way to communicate, a way t We've trained our team in it, but also just governors have to done.

Like governors are like similar to mayors and county commissione And I know there's some of you in the room, like, you have to do things you have to pass budgets, you kn you have to you have to make the the life better for the citizens And if you're a Republican gover you're the governor for Democrat and Republican citizens, if you're a Democratic governor, you're a governor for Republican and Democratic citizens and you going to care for your whole sta And so, it's easier with governors, I think, because determined to do things and get things done and move the needle.

And also governors, work with other governors quite Example of that is there's 13 st governed by Republicans and Democrats, all the region th electricity provider, electricit And there was issues that they w with the electricity grid.

We were able to convene 13 governors of different partie and have really fruitful convers to help move the needle on that.

That's happening a lot all over our country, where gove are having to come together to to make decisions for the peo And can I just chime in here because the governors are like t executive officers of the state, and we see similar things happening in municipalities.

You have mayors who it's the sam And gratefully, I think, at the more local level at least with most municipalitie the country, they're nonpartisan So it's easier for people to see the mayor, as a nonpartis figure figurehead.

And so we see a lot happening no with mayors, with city councils, where they are adopting dignity writing their own dignity pledge The National League of Cities an National League of Cities just last week, I think, Brandon you were there and Tim was there They signed a new pledge, to bri dignity, respect and civility into their work and challenged, all of their partner organizatio I think it was like 19,000, loca cities and towns to do the same And so we're seeing this type of pledge pop up now in local commu as well.

So we're getting a little short because we want to make sure that we ope up for question and answer.

But I want to ask you a question that comes up often when we talk about this.

And it's it's a critique, you know, that some critics migh that this is simply nice nannyin Or at its worst, it is a suppression of free spee And can you address that critiqu Do you want.

Sure.

I'll take it.

You know, Matthew McConaughey is my favorite philosopher, and, he he came to the National Governor Association a couple of years ag he just wrote a book called poems and Prayers.

And one of the poems.

When I saw this question, I immediately thought of this.

First off, I like nice people, you know, like, I just like bein nice people.

But he has this poem that highli the tension between a nice guy and a good man, the tension between a nice guy and a good man.

And he says, you know, a nice guy is a nice guy.

You know, he's going to say, you hey, Brandon, I like your purple He's going to compliment me and he's going to say, I like yo He's going to give compliments.

And he's going to help, you know do you need help?

Yes.

Or I'll go.

I'll come help you.

But a nice guy might not stand for some things, or a nice guy might not stand against some thi A nice guy might not have certai or ideals, but a good man.

A good man stands for something.

A good man stands against someth A good man has ideals and values And when a good man's ideals and values become tested, a good man is not a nice guy.

I really think that's an interesting statement.

And I think that's like the thin is, like the moment, because we have a lot of good le across the country and good leaders have to stand f Good Democratic leaders have to stand for things, and good Republican leaders have to stand for things But you don't have to be mean.

When you stand for things is when you have to show dignity to humanity.

And that's the secret sauce.

You have to be able to stand for You have to have ideals.

You have to have values, and you show humanity the dignity it des And so that's that.

That's a what I immediately thought of wa the great philosopher Matthew Mc Yeah, yeah.

Exactly.

Right.

We've heard this criticism, too.

Yeah.

You're just trying to suppress free speech.

I get to say whatever I want.

It's like contempt suppresses fr Those of you that have run count commission meetings, city counci like I have, if you've been in a legislative committee meeti and the speakers of public comme and they get really harsh, or th back and forth maybe from the el and things get really contemptuo guess who's not going to get up and give their opinion?

People that might have a different opin I've sat and chaired a city council meeting where, you know, people are there to protest against som and it gets heated.

And I know there are three peopl on the back row that came to sup And guess who doesn't get up those three people so we don't hear from them?

We believe that dignity is what opens up the floor for free The contempt suppresses it, and dignity encourages it.

And so that's, you know, we talk about that all the time.

And we also I agree with you, Brandon, is like dignity is just And the dignity index as a as an to be nice scal But we can have hard difficult conversations and really push back.

We want people to challenge cont when they hear it.

If you don't challenge contempt when you hear it, it's like the that are standing around in a bu situation watching someone get b And it's like, well, I, I don't want to get involved.

I need to be nice.

So I'm going to go somewhere els So we believe that you can chall contempt, you can speak your min And when you speak without conte it encourages other people then to speak their minds in a w that also encourages more free s So your contention is that even actually empowers maybe a dissent or a minority vo to have space to be invited in.

Absolutely.

Because if we are suppressing that with contempt, then people don't feel free to a The the barometer, the data that put up earlier from the baromete over 50% of Americans, I think, was 52% said that they shared an opinion because they w of how they would be treated.

Yeah.

And we're seeing that in familie We're seeing that not just in po It's spilling over into everywhe And what does it argue better.

Disagree.

Say I disagree better.

So it's not the absence of disag You talked about Doctor John Got one of my favorites.

Yeah.

In the field of relational commu and actually one of the the Four Horsemen of the apocaly That's exactly right.

Yeah.

It right in contempt is one of them defensiv stonewalling that when a couple actually stop Yeah.

Disagreeing because they've just That is the fourth fourths of th apocalypse with the relationship So it is not an absence of confl That is what the dignity Index is, is striving for.

It's actually just better confli that's productive, that's attacking the issue instead of attacking each other.

Someone wants I heard someone say that disagre is like the secret sauce of Amer Yeah, having all of the diverse in the room, at the table, people willing to and speak their mind, and having without attacking people.

Attacking ideas.

Yeah.

But without attacking people.

Ye I love the illustration, the symbolism behind the America and that the right wing and the are built to be held in tension in order to keep the bird in bal so that it can fly higher and farther than any other bird.

And so it's not an absence of di It's not an absence of strong co It's just the ability to be able to recognize that tension is baked into the proces And actually, if we embrace it t way, it leads to better outcomes For me, it's the seven on the sc I'm going to come up with not just common ground, but high because now I've heard a lot of voices, and we came up with a so we never thought of before, because I was maybe listening to people who thought like, me.

Yeah.

All right, so we have some questions, I'm s from our audience here in Las Ve as well as from Reno.

And I'm excited that we are both using the same mental syste So we will be getting questions from our full audience and hopefully if we can bring them up on the s if somehow you happen to swipe out of that browser, you get one more opportunity to get back in there.

Special thank you to our assista Director, Christine Gallagher, w filtering through the questions as they've been coming in.

So our first question is what is that moves dignity from an abstr concept to a living expression and civic character?

I like to throw you easy one.

Start with wow, wow wow.

Speaking of, think philosophizin What is the DNA that moves digni from an abstract concept to a living expression of civic Let's start and then give it aga It'll give you time.

It'll give you time to give the right answer.

I'll start with answer.

You know, I don't know if the question to me seems like it's asking for concrete, specif And so I think one of the most c ways in which you can move from abstract to concrete is cur Yeah.

And really being curious about people and understanding why it is that they think the wa or they believe the way they bel or they're passionate about what they're passionate ab it's going to be there's going to be a personal story beh And when you know that personal it makes it really hard to not have dignity for somebody when y really what what they're coming Maybe it was a childhood experie Maybe it was, you know, something that happened in the w something that happened when they were a kid at school, something that happened when they were in college.

But they're going to have some m in their life, probably that that puts them in a in a stance of passion.

And just be curious, ask questio get to know other people, try to understand.

I think that that takes it from this big idea to concrete.

And that that was the first thin that came to mind.

Was, I'm glad I started that.

I start you, thank you.

I owe you another five bucks at the back of the room.

Curiosity.

And I'm going to give you just a little bit of a twist on But curiosity, instead of thinki why is that person such an idiot Why do they think such a stupid Not that any of us have ever tho That is my little confession her Sometimes it's like, oh my gosh.

But that being curious, being li I wonder what's behind that?

But when the the twist I'm going that is our definition of contem is I see myself above you.

Our definition of dignity is I see myself in yo So that curiosity, I want to find that piece of, you know, common humanity that we share.

As someone asked me the other da how do you do that with people you really don't like?

And treating people with dignity doesn't mean you have to like th And there's some people that our personalities are going That's just the way it is.

But when I when I get in those s I look for that piece of myself And a lot of times I just start They're they're mom or they're, they're a grandmother to oh, I understand that they like to s or I just try to find anything that I can find in common with t so that I can start to see them differently, and see the humanity in them.

And that takes some curiosity as well as to find out.

I wonder, what is it that we sha All right, next question.

How can dignity prevail today with the influence media has and polarizing people with different views?

Can I take that one?

Yes, please When and the barometer and the d barometer that came out last wee And I invite you to go look it up on our website, dignity.us the barometers right at the top of the page.

And, and we talk about all of th statistics we've talked about to but we ask other questions about one of them is what what do you is most responsible for the pola that, that we're seeing today?

And I'm going to apologize in ad The number one response that peo was candidates and politicians.

That right up there, second and third type was social media And so how can you make a differ then when that is surrounding us everywhere?

Arthur Brooks calls it the outrage industrial complex, where you have media and social and other parts of the system that are designed to make us hate each other.

Some unfollow accounts.

Stop following, stop reposting, go on a little diet, social media fast, if you will.

Sometimes, as an elected officia I remember you need to be in touch with peo and you need to kind of see what the thoughts are.

But and it gets to a point where we are supporting maybe that media by what we list or what we see or what we repost Just think of it.

We're we're supporting that, a story comes to mind.

One of the young, students that was working that we trained and do our scoring, she graduate Now she works with us.

But she said, when she was first learning how she thought that was pretty cool because she wanted.

She's a Democrat and she's very liberal, and she couldn't wait to see how those Republicans were.

She said I couldn't wait to scor because they were ruining everyt It took like 3 or 4 days of lear how to code, and she started to really uncomfortable with a podcast that she listened And she said by like the second she was listening to this podcas She listened to it every day.

And the the, the podcast host said was talkin about Republican senators.

And she said something and, and students said, that's not that's That's not too bad.

And then he started to go down t and he said something that was like a three.

And she's like, she started to get really uncomf She got a knot in her stomach.

And then he was down to a two.

And then he said, those senators And she said it.

She, she she was shocked.

She said, that's a one.

He just dehumanized these people And I realized she said, it's not those people that are ruining the country.

It was me.

She said, I'm supporting this po and she unfollowed it that day.

And and if more of us would do t when we see things, it's like, I'm done with that.

I'm not supporting it again.

Sometimes it's hard to pull ours out of things.

We need to see, but there are ways for us to not not repulsed, not like, not shar I'm terrible at this.

Sometimes I see something that's and it might be it's something I shouldn't share.

So it's like, well, I'm not going to repost it, but I am going to show my daught That's just as bad because I send it to her as a private message on Instagra and the algorithm picks it up.

And guess what?

I see every where for the next t So we again, we designed this to score other We score ourselves, we find out the little things that we can do that turn into bi If a lot of us are doing them.

So that goes back to that questi how how much can we yeah, have a And earlier today at lunch, we talked about behavioral econo Right.

And that as long as there's a de for the supply, we'll meet the d Well, if the demand of the publi and it shifts towards more polic discussion.

Yep.

Conceivably it can return b Yeah.

Yeah.

I I'm not going to endorse this because I just I just started us So I, I don't know enough to, to to say something.

So I probably should say somethi But it's interesting.

I downloaded an app called Groun I can't see you all out there.

So I, I've.

Heard of it and I, I, I would en I started using that as.

Well as a ground news takes, you know, if there's a story, let's say a story hits today, there's going to be multiple out that run the same story, but they're going to have their on the story.

It's a ground news pulls all of the stories together and creates multiple headlines for each of the stories.

So it's not just one article.

It's a just take it across multiple out And then underneath the headline it tells you from a red blue or white a center of where it's leaning politically, how much this story or this head is leaning one way or the other.

And it's been really interesting And so obviously I have the othe news apps to that.

So some would consider Partizan.

But this is an interesting one.

As things pop up, it just gives me a range to kind where a story might be leaning.

And I have a similar, service called tangle.

I don't know if anyone signs up for tangle.

Clare does.

And so it's like, here's what th Here's the issue.

Here's what the left is saying, what the right is saying.

And then Isaac Saul said, here's what I think.

And on the reason I like is because when I read his take, I don't agree with him all the t which tells me that this is a pretty good source because it's not just in my bubb And some days when I'm really pr for time, I just skip the left and the right, and I get right d to hear what Isaac says.

And if I disagree with them, I go back and look to make sure I know where he's getting the in But, you know, having lots of different news so it's it's also very, very helpfu Absolutely.

So we have a few more minutes le for some more questions.

Let's see if we can do a few rap answers and some.

Rapid that means we're talking t But for Tami Pyfer, how has your perspective changed over the years having several ch and then grandchildren with many socio political perspectives?

I feel super, super lucky.

First of all, that my political was in nonpartisan offices.

So eight years on, a city counci nonpartisan state school board at the time was non My work with the governor, of course, was Partizan office.

But he was a very good role mode for me and and always like to bring all the different viewpoints to The thing I like about the fact that my kids have their own political ideology, first of all I think it's a parenting when th and found their own thing.

And as you as I talked with them especially as I started to do th and I knew that, you know, two of them campaigned for Berni Sanders.

And I knew one was campaigning for Republic So I would talk to him, say, now again, you are this is what you This is your your libertarian.

R Because I'm going to put this in and it's like, yeah, I'm a liber And I and I asked, tell me why y tell me what it is.

It attracts you to that party.

And without exception, every one five children that I talk to abo they just felt that that was the best way to help pe Democratic socialist.

Because I think people can get m We can lift up the underserved, the Republican.

Well, I think that if we have these po that are more conservative, I think we can help the Democrat, the independent, you name it, they all had the same goal in mi which was to help people.

So I love that.

And what what it has changed for although I feel like I started o fairly broad because of, you know, in my nonpartisan offi But I, I've just learned to see in every political philosophy and dive deeper when I talk with from different political parties what is it about that, that you what it is about that?

And a lot of times people go, we I don't know.

It's just that my family was always a Republica And that's also a good conversat to have, too.

I will note that the recent polling shows that 45% of Americans identify as independents now.

So that's like 27% Republican or 28 Democrat.

I mean, almost as many are indep as Democratic and Republicans co So I think that says something about the shift as well.

But true.

And that is.

Yeah.

Yeah, but I do I appreciate I appreciate those different phi and what they bring to the table Again, bringing the diverse voic around the table.

If you have a one party state or a one party legislature, you the kind of robust conversations that I think make for good polic I'll make note to that.

You founded The Dignity Got Us Right with a prominent De Yes.

Two prominent Democrats.

So yeah.

So I'm the I'm the Republican fr and I've got two Democratic, Democrat partners, that co-found who are, liberals from the East All right, next question.

How do you campaign/run for offi with dignity.

I was waiting for Yeah, the internal you could hea the internal dialog of nope.

Somebody's going to ask it becau if they don't, I'm going to let' Yeah, right.

You're being attack You're you're facing potentially an opp Or maybe you two have agreed to be dignified to one another, but you've got third parties who Are coming in.

Dark money that c And how do you respond to that?

With dignity and also knowing th at least for right now, the tide hasn't turned.

Yeah.

And that the the market is deman Yeah.

Can I start with this on bread a Only because the governor that I worked for, he's on our he was on our Utah advisory boar when we did the pilot study, and he'll call me about every tw and say, tell me, how come dignity is not winning When is dignity and start winnin You know, the day.

And it is tough because contempt does win electi But we're seeing the tide start to shift on this week.

In the polling, 90% of Americans when asked, you know, would you be willing to do this list of things to help dignity p 90% of Americans said, I would prioritize voting for people who use dignity rather than contempt.

That's, you know, that's their d So we have this grassroots grass top strategy.

I'm trying to develop a constitu for you all that are elected off I'm trying to develop voters who will support you running with dignity.

I can get a lot of voters who wi for candidates that use dignity.

And if they don't have a candidate to vote for, that's why we have to have the g We have to have both this parall to where we instill these princi of dignity in our in our constit so that they demand it.

They demand it from those who represent them and who infor I think as simple like my first suggestion, simple suggestion is just to get the di index and start looking through and start looking at your campai fundraising emails, and making a A lot of you talked about this t briefly, like, let's build up rather than tear Here's what I'm running for.

It's not that I'm trying to, you know, run against or I hate these other people or they're ruining everything.

Fact I think.

Alex, I took a note on what you Finding common causes are not common enemies.

And when you can run, finding a common cause with your constit and not have to say, well, our common enemy is my opponent.

I think that you will fare bette I think that's one concrete thin you can do.

And you need to remember that when you run a campaign and ever you know, you've got an enemy no lose support that you may have h maybe you're a Republican and you're running on an issue.

The issue might be overregulatio Guess what?

There's a lot of Democrats that are going to agree with you on the overregulation, on maybe a particular topic, but when you attack the Democrat just by, you know, by name, now you've just lost people that can support you.

So I think it makes sense, in more ways than one, to use the principles of dignity and look at the language that yo and not, you know, condemning or finding these common enemies.

Last words, what is your final encouragement as you have a room full of dedic Nevadans and candidates and elected offic you have a room in northern Neva And thank you to our PBS partner You will have a statewide audien after this.

What do you want to say to Nevad about dignity?

Let's start.

First of all, thank you for bein And thank you for your service.

I know we have elected officials here, candidates, but we also have leaders in the civic leaders and business leade Thank you, thank you.

We need leaders like you.

You have a chance to make a diff in a way that, like, is more important now than And so thank you for taking time to think about dignity.

I encourage people to, take a look at the barometer so you can see what Americans ar right now.

I think it will back you up and your desire to lead in a differe When you see that Americans are starving for this, they're e 75% of Americans are exhausted.

75% are unhappy with where we're 90% are willing to vote for a ch So take a look.

You can also on the on the, on the website, take a look at a yourself.

We've got some of the dignity index things on there.

You can say how am I doing.

Do I do that.

And then join us.

Join the movem We're calling it a dignity movem because we are trying to move th in a better way, ease divisions, violence, and solve problems tog So thank you for being here.

And welcome to the movement.

I would, I would say a couple of things.

I'd say one, be intellectually h that nobody's got a feet.

I've not still I still tried to the person that's got life figur I haven't found him yet.

Nobody's got this thing figured Nobody has all the right answers No party has all the right answe None of her five kids with all the different they have all the right answers.

And so be intellectually honest about that.

And stop living in a world in wh you think you know all the right And then the more important thin our kids are watching, like, your kids are watching, your grandkids are watching, my kids are watching.

You.

My kids are watching governors.

My kids are watching bears.

My kids are watching TV.

My kids are watching.

And that really, really matters because they're seeing a world that you didn't see.

They're experiencing a world that you didn't experience, and they're the future.

And so I think we have to have t when you're posted on Facebook, when you share it on Facebook, when you retweeted or whatever it's called now your kids are watching it, my kids are watching.

And I think that's really import for us to remember.

Thank you for the work you're do Thank you for bringing this dialog to Neva Thank you for tuning in to this presentation of the Gallagher Di We hope this conversation inspir each of us to bring more dignity into our homes, workplaces, communities, and public life.

To continue engaging with the Di Index, visit dignity.us to learn more about the Guinn Ce Nonpartisan policy research and civic work, or to make a donation in support of programs like this, visit guinncenter.org We also invite you to support PB whose commitment to civic education and public se makes programing like this possi Thank you for watching.