Editorial: Red ballot, blue ballot, one house, one America

By The Herald Editorial Board

If national polls of the tight presidential race are any indication, it’s likely that many can count among their family and friends those who will be checking a box on their ballots different than they will, perhaps even within the same household.

And with a presidential race and even races and issues lower on the ballot often painted in existential terms — with either the fate of democracy, the nation or both at stake — those differences can also seem life-or-death for relationships with family and friends, raising fears about even discussing those choices to reach some understanding of the other person’s reasoning.

Avoiding the subject works only for so long. It’s one thing to declare politics off-topic during the Thanksgiving meal, but at some point those conversations can’t be avoided.

So, can we talk?

That’s the subject of two online discussions open to the public, one this morning and a second on Sept. 17 that will recap highlights of the first, with further discussion of its points. Both are sponsored by the Braver Angels movement, a national cross-partisan and volunteer-led effort that is working to bridge the political divide in the nation by encouraging people across the political spectrum to sit down, listen to each other and gain a better understanding of the other.

“One of the ways of dealing with that fear is to seek understanding of the other side,” said Lisa Stettler, a Braver Angels, Western Washington Alliance volunteer and Democrat living in Snohomish County, who has helped organize the Sept. 17 online event and will be co-moderating the dicussion.

“What is their background in life?” Stettler said. “What are their perspectives? What leads them to hold the views that they have? That understanding is so powerful by itself to reduce fear, because when you understand why people got to the conclusions they hold, the threat of it dissipates.”

Area residents may be familiar with Braver Angels through its work last year with Snohomish County Council members Nate Nehring, a Republican, and Jared Mead, a Democrat, in offering a series of discussions and workshops that similarly sought to bridge such divides. Those workshops then led the two officials to launch an ongoing effort, called Building Bridges to continue that work.

Leading this morning’s online discussion is Bill Doherty, a Braver Angels co-founder and couples and family therapist, as well as a professor at the University of Minnesota’s Department of Family Social Science. The discussion with Doherty is expected to touch on how to survive the November election — maintaining good relations with family and friends — then taking those skills developed forward into working together in our communities toward shared goals and values, Stettler said. Stettler said Braver Angels is planning future events in Snohomish County to continue that work after the November election.

“How do we overcome the fear of where we’re at politically and the deep divide that we are in?” she said.

Often, there’s a wide gap between what a person’s intent in their political belief is and what their own fears are, said Elizabeth Doll, a Bainbridge Island Republican and Braver Angel volunteer who worked with Mead and Nehring last year during the workshops.

“Actually being specific about your concerns in conversation with the person who you think is going to bring those things to bear goes a long way to deescalate the situation,” Doll said. “Because your stereotyped fear confronts their actual intent, and you discover that that thing that you thought they wanted, they may not actually want at all.”

Giving a listen to those specifics, Stettler said, is key, providing a vocabulary to resolve concerns and talk about ways to approach a problem with people whether they are like-minded or not.

And there’s cause to lower the temperature of the rhetoric about potential outcomes that is prompting some of that existential dread, Doll said. Whether you’re a conservative worried about Kamala Harris’ proposed price controls or someone worried about Donald Trump’s authoritarian tendencies, she said, it’s good to remember that the American system and its Constitution provide guardrails, protections that are monitored and enforced by its own citizens.

“Whether it’s grass-roots activism, whether it’s the media, whether it’s civil servants or the state legislature or Congress or nameless bureaucratic functions, they all have a role to play in ensuring that those checks and balances work the way that they are supposed to,” Doll said.

It’s not that the proposed policies and past practices of either candidate don’t have the potential to be consequential. Doll noted that she has concerns about how Harris’ proposals regarding housing affordability might actually backfire and drive up the cost of housing, but Congress can provide a check against those unintended consequences.

If there’s an example of the power of conversation and listening to foster understanding and less division it may be found — surprise — in Olympia.

Washington state’s own Legislature provides an example of where the divisions between Republicans and Democrats aren’t as sharp and damaging as they are nationally and in Congress. While policy differences are clear — and there is discomfort among Republicans with Democratic-majority control of both Senate and House — a good portion of its work is arrived at through work across the aisle.

Doll credits personal relationships between members of the two parties for that working relationship.

“I think what is true is that our state Legislature absolutely has better relationships among its members than a lot of other states,” said Doll, who is an observer of state legislatures, including Washington’s. “For whatever it’s worth in Washington state, even legislators who are deeply opposed to each other’s perspectives and rarely vote in alignment with each other see each other as people and generally understand each other.”

So maybe, a house divided can stand.

Be brave

Both Braver Angels online events are free, although donations to support the organization’s work are accepted. To view today’s discussion with Bill Doherty at 11 a.m., Pacific, go to braverangels.org/event/surviving-the-2024-election/. To participate in the Sept. 17 event from 7 to 8:30 p.m., Pacific, go to tinyurl.com/ba-discussion. Use the promo code “Braver” to enroll without charge. Participants do not need to see the first event to view the second. Participants have the option to share their political affiliation as either red-leaning, blue-leaning or other. That identification will not be shared during the event.