“A house divided against itself cannot stand.
I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.”
— Abraham Lincoln, June 16, 1858, as candidate for US Senate

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Again, America finds itself plagued by political polarization, destroying relationships and impeding our elected government officials from enacting legislation on critical civic issues. In 2008 Bill Bishop and Robert G. Cushing brought this serious problem to our attention in their book, “The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-minded America is Tearing Us Apart.” They illuminate the story of how America came to be a country of swelling cultural division, economic separation, and political polarization.

And since 2016, Presidential election political polarization, also known as “affective polarization,” has increased significantly. Polarization research at Dartmouth College, Stanford University, and the University of Pennsylvania study “affective polarization,” defined as “the idea that Americans have a positive connection with their own party and hatred of the opposing party.”

An Outrage Industrial Complex and conflict entrepreneurs monopolize civic discourse to the detriment of our contemporary culture. Our local community is no exception.

A Community Divided by Polarization

I moved to Port Townsend in late 2018 and was shocked by the homogeny of opinions expressed in our community during the early Covid years.

Living in Spain from the ages of 20 to 23, married to a Spanish man, I had experienced Fascism directly. In America decades later, I was shocked that our government would suggest — and that my family and neighbors would comply without questioning — with the closure of schools and businesses.

Yet, I didn’t dare to bring up the question of why our government was choosing draconian methods to address a health problem with the claim that it was for our own good. Living during these months of the lockdown viscerally took me back to those years of living under the dictatorship of General Franco.

In March of 2020, I asked a neighbor to help me bring home a table that I had purchased and paid for the day before Governor Inslee’s statewide “Stay Home-Stay Healthy” order. The table was outside, exposed to the elements, at the “Waste Not Want Not” store with my name on it. He scolded me saying, “Of course not! Getting your table is not an essential activity and is forbidden during this lockdown.”

The fear and hostility between political views did not end when we were again able to leave our homes. Often friends shared stories of being scorned and/or avoided due to their refusal to mask or get vaccinated.

My best friend noticed that she was no longer invited to social gatherings in her neighborhood after taking a walk on her block. In the summer of 2021, she was unmasked, walking with a masked neighbor, when they approached another masked woman who lived in the neighborhood. Her walking partner greeted the woman by introducing the two of them, then to my friend’s surprise announced that my friend was not only (obviously) unmasked, but that she was unvaccinated.

Another friend shared an experience of being verbally abused by neighbors in the Kala Point sauna. After seating herself in the steam-filled room, she recognized the couple sitting next to her as neighbors and greeted them saying, “Hi! You probably don’t recognize me, but I live just down the street from you in the blue house on the corner.” They recognized her then as the owner of the home with a “Trump for President” sign. The woman, with her hand over her mouth and eyes opened wide, gasped. The man began a tirade of verbal abuse: “Oh you! The racist, bigoted, fascist hate monger.” The woman then joined in adding more stereotyped judgmental labels.

Then in August of 2022 came the local partisan polarization around transgender rights. A new friend reported that she had attended a rally downtown, curious to understand why a woman was banned from our city pool.

Colleagues working with her in various community organizations, whom she had considered friends, were among the crowd yelling accusations at her solely because she stood among the crowd who had gathered to listen to the woman explain her side of why she was banned from the pool. She witnessed verbal aggression that escalated into shoving by transgender activists towards others in her crowd. Port Townsend police officers stood by watching. Due to the hostility that she experienced at this rally, she ended several friendships and resigned volunteer positions in local nonprofit organizations.

This conflict continued to escalate over social media throughout the month, leading to Water Street being closed on Labor Day weekend, compromising local businesses.

I personally experienced hostility and negative stereotyping during my time campaigning in Jefferson County for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for President, even before Kennedy endorsed Donald Trump. I was mocked and ridiculed repeatedly at the Farmers Markets of Port Townsend and Chimacum. Often invited into a conversation by a friendly question, I would soon hear: “You are crazy to support a man with a worm in his brain”… “I am an environmental attorney who has testified in front of Congress, and you don’t know what you are talking about”… “You are killing innocent people by supporting an anti-vaxxer”… or “I am an immunologist so I can tell you that you are listening to a bunch of charlatans.”

In mid-November, I experienced a local judge colluding with this political norm in her closing statement. I had requested a protection order against a neighbor who disturbed my entertaining a friend for dinner with screaming, cursing and banging at my door, demanding that I turn off my porch light. In denying my request, this judge stated, “It is perfectly understandable that your neighbor would be upset that her candidate for President did not win the election and that she would behave in this way towards you.”

I was outraged, but this motivated me to bring Braver Angels to my hometown.

Promoting Courageous Citizenship

This online community became my refuge. In Braver Angels, I found an online source of programming that platformed healthy, intelligent individuals engaged in respectful dialogues across political differences. The panels on current issues featured informed people across the nation covering a wide political spectrum. The debates on the current hot topics informed me of nuances and complexities that I was unaware of.

Most importantly, I could speak freely and fully without fear. I learned that there were others across the nation curious and eager to learn, like myself. This proved essential for my mental health during these years of social isolation.

“Differences between religion, region, and philosophy nearly crippled the project of the American Founding in the cradle. But our Founding Fathers came to trust one another in the face of adversity, enough to ‘pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor’ in a mutual risking of life and limb to secure the promise of liberty for their descendants. That, indeed, is a triumph of love across difference etched into the edifice of our American heritage.”
— John Wood Jr., Braver Angels National Ambassador

Braver Angels seeks to change hearts, not minds. Since 2016, Braver Angels volunteers have been depolarizing America one conversation at a time. Understanding that depolarizing America begins with depolarizing ourselves, they offer in-person and online workshops that teach and practice depolarizing skills.

Our research shows, and I have found it true for me, that these workshops help participants: to feel better understood, to better understand others who have differing views, and to be more comfortable talking and listening to people expressing different opinions. As much as we would like solutions to be simple, they aren’t. Life is complex and complicated. Understanding the nuances of a situation, being open to understanding the ramifications of our choices takes time and willingness to be wrong.

Isn’t this what a healthy civic culture looks like?  Regardless of the level of political polarization in candidates’ discourse or social media, if we did not repeat the hostility and disrespect with our neighbors, our nation would not be polarized. This is what I aspire to personally and what I bring to the North Olympic Peninsula.

If you are curious and would like to be a little less furious, Braver Angels of North Olympic Peninsula (BANOP) has two upcoming events where you can do just that:

On September 19th, 2-4 pm, BANOP will be holding its third monthly Discussion Gathering at the Jefferson County Library at 620 Cedar Avenue, Port Hadlock. The topic is “Will Impeaching Trump Restore Democracy?”  We hope that it will bring together neighbors of many different opinions and that we will have fun exploring together our many views regarding the present political situation.

On October 1st, 1-4 pm, BANOP will offer one of our skill-building workshops, “Families and Politics” at Community United Methodist Church, 130 Church Lane, Port Hadlock. This is an opportunity to actually learn and practice skills to cultivate an attitude of curiosity. Most of us find that it is particularly difficult to accept that family members do not think or vote the same as us.

The Braver Angels organization offers a plethora of online opportunities at BraverAngels.org. You can listen to podcasts, watch YouTube recordings of previous events, engage in conversations with people around the nation and even discuss your differences in “1:1 Conversations” across political, racial and other differences.

Our democracy is in crisis not only because our government is failing us but also because we are contributing to the problem. Listening to conflict entrepreneurs, podcasters and politicians alike is not conducive to solving our social problems so long as both they and we are polarizing this nation. We bring this destructive attitude into our homes and our neighborhoods in how we discuss current issues with friends and family. We amplify polarization between political leanings and even within our own political party when we stereotype and ridicule those with whom we disagree.

In Braver Angels events, we practice The Braver Angels Way:

• We state our views freely and fully, without fear.
• We treat people who disagree with us with honesty, dignity and respect.
• We welcome opportunities to engage those with whom we disagree.
• We believe all of us have blind spots and none of us are not worth talking to.
• We seek to disagree accurately, avoiding exaggeration and stereotypes.
• We look for common ground where it exists and, if possible, find ways to work together.
• We believe that, in disagreements, both sides share and learn.
• In Braver Angels, neither side is teaching the other or giving feedback on how to think or say things differently.

I invite you to join the courageous citizenship movement of Braver Angels.

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“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
— Abraham Lincoln, March 4, 1861, First Inaugural Address.