[birds chirping].

[alarm ringing].

[mysterious drone music].

NEWSCASTER: You called it two Americas that are divided real clear politics average.

If the race were held today in 2024, Trump versus Biden, Trump wins by 0.2%.

Uh, are we two Americas under both Donald Trump and Joe Biden?

BARACK OBAMA: We are very divided right now, certainly, more than were when I first ran for office in 2007, and more divided than we were when Donald Trump first won the presidency.

VOICE: There's a real divide here in America.

VOICE: Democrats' dangerous rhetoric are pushing America toward a civil war.

VOICE: The Democrats are doing as they try to divide us.

VOICE: Trump, instead of trying to bring the country together, he does things to divide them.

VOICE: I just can't believe what he is saying.

He is...continues to divide this country.

How sick and divided are we as a country?

VOICE: In the civil wars you looked at, how do civil wars get started and how close do you think is the United States?

VOICE: So frustrated and so fed up.

VOICE: With those things that divide us.

VOICE: Two different countries.

VOICE: Extraordinarily divisive.

VOICE: Calls for further division.

TONY WOODLIEF: These screens that are in our homes and in our pockets, they put forth this story about America, that we're on the edge of civil war, that we can't get along.

NEWSCASTER: In a nation already seemingly divided.

[sirens blaring].

TONY: And the danger is that we might start to believe that.

[guitar music & atmospheric whooshing sound over title].

[knock on door].

TONY: Hello?

BEN KLUTSEY: Hey.

TONY: Just letting myself in.

BEN: Yeah.

Sure thing.

How are you doing, man?

TONY: I'm all right.

How are you?

I first met Ben a few years ago, after I wrote a book called I, Citizen.

BEN: Tony's book really encapsulated many of the things I've been observing across the country.

As I'd been talking to researchers and students to understand the nature of toxic polarization.

Be yourselves.

Be honest.

Uh, express your views without holding back.

I get the chance to talk about the values that are important in this country, explore some of the reasons why we are divided and how can we overcome these polarized times.

Growing up in Ghana, West Africa, one of my most memorable experiences was my father sitting me down at the kitchen table and saying to me, "When you go outside of this house, do not talk about politics.

Do not talk about the government.

Do not challenge the authority.

Do not push back on any of the ideas coming from the political world, otherwise, we will end up where we started."

That experience was very memorable for me because I became a very silent and very reserved kid who was terrified of saying anything that could get us into trouble.

When I came to college in the United States, things changed.

I studied philosophy.

I took a class that required me to speak up all the time and to challenge ideas, but I was still fairly silent in that class until the professor one day said to me, "You have a lot of good things to say, say them in class," and that was a transformative experience for me.

I started to speak up more and challenge, realizing how valuable it is to be able to speak freely.

TONY: As I was inundated, like we all are, with these stories of Americans who hate each other, you know, because of their politics or their religion or their sexuality or whatever it is.

PROTESTERS: Whose streets?

Our streets!

[chanting, yelling].

TONY: We just hear about the ugliest parts of our country.

It's kind of depressing.

It's depressing me, you know, and I kind of, I believe in America, and I'm still kind of depressed right now.

BEN: Maybe you are part of the exhausted majority of the people who are exhausted and tired of all the noise and agitation and, uh, you know, polarization that we're seeing.

Is it possible that we get to a place where we are too tired to find ways to address the problem as a society?

TONY: That's a question, right?

Because, I mean, we're exhausted.

People are kind of fed up with politics.

For the first time in a long time, most Americans reject both party labels.

And we're coming up on an election.

And if recent past is a good predictor, it's not going to be pretty.

There's a lot of people in this country who do want to talk about things, want to be part of uh, working out solutions, you know?

Have some responsibility for their communities, but we've got to convince them to act.

I feel like so often in politics, it's like the smart politics guy who stands up and says what he thinks, and people don't listen to that guy anymore.

Is there some way to get regular people, you know, on camera?

And they're the ones like, are showing you how to do it, like, here's how to be a citizen again, you know?

BEN: Yeah.

TONY: You know, when I was a kid, we did not have a lot of money for most of my childhood.

You know, there were times we were homeless, times we were evicted, we were on food stamps.

I remember we got evicted from a house and we were going to have to ride with my aunt in her Buick all the way back to North Carolina overnight and we were broke.

And this neighbor lady that I hardly knew, as we were packing up, she called me over like real quietly, "come over," and I came over there, and she put $100 bill in my hand, and she said, "Don't tell anybody until you get down the road."

Because she knew that, you know, if my parents found out they'd give the money back.

And I always remember that lady doing that.

And she said, "You know, we have to take care of each other."

And then she sent us, you know, up the road, and we got like 100 miles away and didn't have much money for food, and then I pulled out this $100 bill and I said, "Hey, this lady gave me money."

VOLUNTEER: Let's serve, let's go.

TONY: I think of that lady.

I don't even know her name.

And that's what people do.

And so we hear all these stories about how we're all terrible and I know that's just not true.

[chatter].

TONY: We both believe there's a lot of great people in America and they're just quiet.

And why are they quiet?

Because there's some people who they're really toxic ideologically.

They want to argue.

They want to hate the other side.

They don't want the other side to talk.

PROTESTORS: [deleted] Police.

No justice, no peace.

BEN: Perhaps if we created the opportunity for folks to come together.

We're going to go ahead and get started.

Part of what I do is bringing students together and giving them an opportunity to to talk and explore ideas, on, you know, on controversial issues.

STUDENT: There is only so much that the government can do.

BEN: And I think that we have to see if it works beyond students.

TONY: Could you really get regular people from all kinds of different lives, really put them together, and get them talking about hard stuff?

Have a good disagreement and part ways as friends?

Like, is that doable?

BEN: I think we should try.

[Protestors chanting and shouting].

TONY: If we don't get regular citizens talking again, disagreeing and doing it respectfully, doing it way better than Washington does, it seems like there's a lot at stake if we don't figure that out.

BEN: How do we do this?

TONY: The real question, my friend, is who's going to be in the room with them when they start arguing?

[Ben laughs].

We have to draw straws on that.

Somebody has to be there to take notes.

BEN: We're going to jump in together, my friend.

[somber music fades out].

[electronic pop music].

DEE ALLSOP: We've got uh just a remarkable opportunity to kind of create something special that nobody's ever done before.

Yeah, I want to learn from you to kinda...

I'm Dee Alsop.

I'm uh CEO and founder of a company called Heart and Mind Strategies.

MAN: For the left and its minions in the media.

NEWS REPORTER: Just how bad is the GOP?

DEE: We'll pick an issue.

We know there's dozens of controversial issues.

We're trying to pick the ones that are the most seemingly divisive.

DONALD TRUMP: I was the most pro-gun, pro-Second Amendment president you ever had in the White House.

DEE: And then we'll go out and find people who are leaning one direction, and we'll find folks who are leaning the other direction.

JULIE IMPERATORI: Good evening.

My name is Julie Imperatori.

Most people call me JJ.

DRE: I'm more of a center-right person.

Um, I've kind of discovered this after just seeing a lot of things that are going on in the news.

DEE: What typically happens in a focus group is we ask that each person to defend their position.

MARI YOUNG: I'm very passionate.

CAROL MCCANNON: Um, I can be strong-willed as well.

DEE: In this case, rather than we do that, is we try to get the opposite person to, you know, "Mary, tell me why you think Bob thinks the way he does."

So we'll get people who have really strong points of view in these rooms and have thought about it a lot.

TONY: We just made sure that we had a diverse mix of people: age, race, politics, religion, you know, all those kinds of things that create differences that could cause conflict.

SCOTT BROWN: You know, I used to have a podcast with some of my really good friends and we were too intense.

We had to stop the podcast.

BEN: Yeah, I know, Dee.

So this is all new to me.

Haven't done a focus group, I've done...

I've facilitated conversations, moderated discussions, and so on, but this is certainly different, so new territory for me, a little scary.

JENNIFER DIGMAN: Do I think the average American can, um, discuss controversial issues without a shouting match?

SEAN MEYERCHECK: That is a tough question.

PARTICIPANT: No.

DAMIAN MATTHEWS: If they discuss they point very passionately, it probably going to lead to arguing.

JOLI LOVE: The average American is unable to have a controversial discussion with others.

MICHAEL: It's harder now, um, than-than ever.

PARTICIPANT: No one wants to find middle ground.

They want to fight for their side and only their side.

PARTICIPANT: People take, uh, any kind of disagreement as an affront to their personality.

DEE: Well, this one is going to be scary because there's so much that's new, and we're intentionally inviting people who we know are going to be on opposing sides of issues.

MARI YOUNG: I have a very good friend.

She more closely aligns to the right, and I'm the opposite, more to the left.

I don't know if I can be friends with her.

[driving, mysterious music].

BEN: We focused on cities and states that are extremely divided to showcase the existing polarization in this country.

We went to Phoenix, Arizona, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Atlanta, Georgia.

All places that have made national headlines because of the toxic polarization of their citizens.

NEWSCASTER: We will start with what will likely be the most watched race in the country in the Georgia Senate contest.

NEWSCASTER: The fallout over Georgia's election law continues and so does the state's defense.

TONY: Well, Ben... BEN: Yeah?

TONY: I'm gonna be bringing in some regular people and asking about some tough issues, and you're going to be there at the table with them.

STACEY ARMSTRONG: My name is Stacey.

MICHAEL BRENNAN: I'm Michael.

XAVIER LARCO: I am Xavier.

SHERITA BENNETT: I am from Atlanta, Georgia.

RICHARD YANEZ: Arizona, born and raised.

SELICIA: My name is Selicia.

MATT CANCELLIERE: I'm from Castle Shannon.

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

NEWSCASTER: Individual protests in key states across the country.

There are street corners that look like this.

This is the side entrance to Pennsylvania's Convention Center.

NEWSCASTER: We are now projecting that Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs is, in fact, the winner in the Arizona gubernatorial race.

NEWSCASTER: Republican Kari Lake has filed an election-related lawsuit.

KARI LAKE: I want to make sure we don't continue to run elections like a banana republic.

TONY: There's definitely political conflict in those cities.

And the question was, how deep does it go?

Does the average person living in those, in those areas feel that anger all the time?

Or is it the political elites who at some level profit from anger and division?

Are they the ones who are the problem?

How do you think it's gonna go?

BEN: I don't know, it's hard to tell how people are going to react in person when they're not online, on social media, and having difficult conversations.

AMY JO WRIGHT: I lean more conservative.

SCOTT BROWN: Left of liberal.

By a good amount.

DRE: I like to say I'm politically homeless.

DARRYL ELLIS: I'm independent.

CAROL MCCANNON: Democrat.

MEMBER: Oof.

BEN: We're going to be talking about the hot-button issues.

SEAN MEYERCHECK: I would say I'm a moderate Republican.

BEN: Abortion.

DAMIAN MATTHEWS: Somewhere in the middle leaning towards conservative.

BEN: Guns.

Education, the environment, these are things that people get very emotional about them.

And when people get very emotionally hijacked about these types of issues, you just never know, you know, how things are going to go.

SHERITA BENNETT: My name is Sherita.

SELICIA: I have three children.

I drive a limo and a school bus.

MICHAEL KINSLOW: At the middle school where my kids go, I coach the basketball team.

CAROL MCCANNON: I am a former educator, but I still substitute.

I'm an active substitute teacher.

JOLI LOVE: I'm an aesthetician, I'm a social media influencer and I also do chauffeur service.

DEE: Very interesting, different group of people.

So let's get started.

You've got three paddles in front of you.

If you're a cat person, you're going to use an orange paddle.

And if you're a dog person, you're going to use a purple paddle.

Ready?

One, two, three, reveal.

Okay, so we've got a couple of cat people, a couple of dog people, and we got one that's in between.

TONY: So we did ask, you know, one easy question.

Do you like cats?

Do you like dogs?

And that was in part to show them, you know, how to raise the paddles and show what they felt, but also it modeled how to do this kind of discussion and anyone can do it.

DEE: So the way this is going to work now, and I'm going to, instead of put you on the spot and explain to me why you think cats are so awesome, um, what I want you to do, is I'm going to ask you to tell me why you think Brandy likes dogs so much.

TONY: Instead of me telling you what I think, let's invert that.

Right?

Let's turn it around.

How about I tell you what I think you think, and then you tell me if I got it right.

So now I have to think about who you are as a reasonable person and why a reasonable person would dare to disagree with me.

And so I have to give you back your humanity and the political elites, consultants, people who get paid to do politics anymore, they are incentivized to do exactly the opposite, which is strip you of your humanity.

MAXINE WATERS: And if you see anybody from that cabinet in a restaurant... PROTESTORS: Shame, shame, shame, shame!

WATERS: And you tell them they're not welcome anymore, anywhere.

TED CRUZ: Democrats have gone bat [deleted] crazy.

TAYLOR GREEN: The Democrats stole the election, right?

ROBERT DE NIRO: I'm going to say one thing, [deleted] Trump.

[applause].

BEN: Toxic polarization is the kind of polarization that makes us so entrenched in our views and entrenched in our own echo chambers.

We don't give grace to one another.

We see each other as enemies rather than as fellow citizens.

And when we do that, we have a very hard time in addressing problems together.

[Twitter notification].

ILANA REDSTONE: When it comes to heated issues like harm, inequality, freedom, racism, intent, identity, our reflexive tendency is to judge harshly or demonize people who disagree.

That person's, you know, a libtard, a snowflake, a bigot, a racist.

[woman shouting].

ILANA: I do think it's at the source of a lot of what is broken in this country.

PROTESTORS: No hate in our state, no hate in our state!

BEN: I'm just curious, where do you think the extremes are?

If you were to put a percentage on it?

DEE: What percent of the American population do you believe falls in that group that are so polarized that they, it's either their way or no way?

CAROL: Maybe, not 50/50, but maybe 70/30.

DEE: So, 30% are extreme?

CAROL: Yes.

No, no, 70%.

DEE: 70% extreme?

CAROL: Yes.

DEE: What was your number, Katie?

KATIE: 75%.

DEE: 75.

VERONICA MORALES: 90%.

WOMAN: 90%?

VERONICA: Yes.

MAN: I put 30.

DAMIAN: I put 65.

PHILLIP: 35.

EMILY: 80.

DEE: 80?

MATT H: 50% is what I put.

WOMAN: 50%?

MATT C: 40.

DEE: 40?

TONY: People in our focus groups were just like most of America.

They think they're wildly polarized.

But the truth is that only about 20% of Americans are actually unable to have conversations with people they disagree with.

That means the vast majority of us can.

But that misperception makes regular people not want to engage in discussions around politics.

DEE: In general, we'll get like 80% that want to talk.

They want to tell their story.

They want to connect.

They want to understand people that aren't like them.

TONY: So we got a room with 100 people.

What would likely happen?

DEE: What would happen is that 20 would come together, be arguing with each other, and the 80 are going to go around the outside and find something else to do.

TONY: That sounds like America today.

And then if we brought in a TV camera, where would they point the lens?

DEE: That lens is going to be pointing at those 20 in the middle who are having words with each other.

[protestors arguing, police sirens].

DEE: Team Red and Team Blue have whole machines and organizations that exist on that emotional dynamic of the 20%.

They're funded by them, they're organized by them.

They get the motivational volunteers and the support.

All of that gets generated from that, to allow the 80% to come to the table is a threat.

It threatens that organization built around keeping the powers of be that are there.

This is going to be another kind of, I think, interesting, lively conversation.

This is going to be on the issue of guns.

MSNBC REPORTER: Protests, repeated interruptions, all of it happening inside a House judiciary hearing.

COMMITTEE WOMAN: They need to do what is right on behalf of this country.

JIM JORDAN: All those pieces of legislation were a direct violation of the Second Amendment.

MSNBC REPORTER: Republicans like DeSantis are building a gun-crazy America ruled by fear and violence.

GERALDO RIVERA: Why is it so easy to buy a gun in this country?

WOMAN: It's not easy, Geraldo.

MAN: There is actually no increase in mass shootings once you look at gang shootings.

So you're being disingenuous.

You're saying, like, all these things are happening all the time and we don't care about dead babies.

[deleted].

DEE: The ability to own guns does more harm than good.

That's going to be on the orange side, on the left.

Or the ability to own guns does more good than harm, on the right side.

Ready, set, go.

Let's see.

So we've got four of you, actually, who are, they do more harm than good.

And one of you is on the side that they do more good.

So, Matt, let's start with you.

MATT C: The reason why I'm so for guns is... DEE: Well, hold on about that.

I don't want to know that yet.

MATT C: Okay.

DEE: Why do you think Selicia is a gun hater?

Selicia, I want you to hold a blank face, and I want you to hear what he's going to tell you.

Why do you think Selicia- MATT C: You grew up with a lot of gun violence in your life?

Maybe you lost people that were close to you to firearms.

SELICIA: So I grew up in Northview Heights.

I grew up in the, what we call in the city of Pittsburgh, a "Project Neighborhood."

It was rough.

Some made it out, some didn't.

I kind of kept to myself.

I was a real quiet girl.

I wasn't outside that much.

Dante and Lawrence, come on.

I'm gonna make breakfast before y'all go to school.

[bacon sizzling].

I have one child, and I have two nephews that I take care of.

I take care of my baby nephew because his mom recently passed due to opioids, and I take care of my older nephew because my mother had him before she passed, and I have him now.

So I have three kids.

[birds chirping].

DEE: Did he get it right?

SELICIA: He got some of it right.

He definitely got some of it right.

DEE: What did he....what else would you like Matt to know?

SELICIA: I did recently lose my son's father to gun violence.

It was really bad.

But I've shot a gun, I let my kids shoot a gun.

We go to the gun range, me and my children.

So I do own a gun, though.

I do own guns, um, for my protection.

So I am like, I'm against guns for stupid people, but my son, my son losing his father to gun violence because you didn't like him, and they asked the guy, "why did you kill him?"

"Oh, I just didn't like him."

When you lose somebody, and like you said, when you lose somebody to gun violence and things like that, it's a lot different with guns.

So I say I'm against guns, but if it's for your protection or, you know, like if somebody breaking in my house, I'm shooting them, like it's, I'm not thinking twice, I'm shooting them.

But just to be outside shooting you just because I don't like you, it doesn't make sense.

DEE: So Matt, tell me, um, are you surprised that Selicia owns a gun?

You're not?

But is there anything else about what Selicia said that you would, you don't quite, doesn't connect to you?

I mean, here she says she sees guns and she sees all this violence that's happening.

You don't scratch your head, why would you own a gun?

That doesn't seem to be a disconnect for you?

MATT C: I think a lot of that has to do with, there's certain things we're so scared to talk about now, but a lot of us growing up, we're, you know... DEE: What's scary to talk about guns?

MATT C: Because one bullet can take one person's life.

My biggest fear in the focus group was that the way I feel about certain things was gonna offend somebody.

I bought an AR 15 off the Internet.

Because I have a habit of doing that.

I have a habit of when I open my mouth, I'll offend somebody.

I have military rifles, an AK 47 with about 15 sardine cans of armor-piercing bullets.

I have all of those in my gun safe.

[footsteps].

I'm buying a bigger safe.

But, you know, I, uh, as you can see, it's pretty safe in there.

Um, I don't have a whole ton, but I have a decent amount.

Gun safes are double-locked.

I'm a responsible gun owner.

[sound of lock and door closing on gun safe].

DEE: Stacey, do you have any problem with the responsible gun owner?

STACEY: Absolutely not.

Responsible gun owners, I'm fine with that.

You know, taking the right precautions, especially in your home with locks and, you know, the safes, all of that.

I'm 100% fine with it.

MATT C: There was a time when you could sit down and you could have a conversation and not get offended and I think that's one of the main things that's missing in our country, is instead of us getting offended and, you know, shutting each other down, we talk and we come to a conclusion as, as people; and tell our government officials what they need to do instead of them telling us what we need to do.

[sound of boat engine].

JENNIFER MURTAZASHVILI: Over the past 12 years since I've been a professor, I've noticed my students really, really turning inward.

Right, they don't want to have difficult conversations anymore.

They don't want to fight with each other or argue with each other.

People are afraid to speak.

They're walking on eggshells with each other.

If they're afraid to talk to each other, what are they bringing into the workplace?

If these are going to be our leaders, what does that say about us?

If people just can't talk to one another?

ROBERT B. TALISSE: I think the problem of polarization in democracy, it's the animosity and divisiveness that's tied to a cognitive phenomenon that renders us unable to recognize those with whom we disagree about politics as our fellow citizens.

[muffled background noise, sirens].

BEN: Toxic polarization is the kind of thing that keeps us siloed.

And when we spend time with people who share our beliefs 24/7, we begin to swap our very, very benign views for more extreme views.

ROBERT: As we become more extreme, we start to see those who don't share in our judgments as more and more ignorant, as more and more irresponsible.

And that eventually leads us to see them as contemptible.

JOHN INAZU: Increasingly, we are moving from thinking that the people who think differently than we do, from seeing them as wrong to seeing them as evil.

PROTESTOR: But you've gotten crazy with the stuff that you do.

PROTESTOR: A loser, a loser that wants something to complain about, just like all of you.

JOHN: When I go online, or when I see some of this polarized discourse over really hard issues, the sense seems to be, I'm right and you're stupid.

BEN: So where does this lead us?

JOHN: The worst-case scenario is, is really pretty bad.

We're gonna raise our kids and our kids' kids to just hate people and distrust people and think the worst of people.

And we've seen some worst-case scenarios, not just in this country, but around the globe.

[more shouting, sirens, and general chaos].

REPORTER: Cars on fire.

JOHN: We dehumanize people who aren't like you.

The limit case is massive violence and persecution and real suffering, especially by the people who are most vulnerable to violence and exposure to suffering.

NEWS REPORTER: Nashville's City Hall is set alight.

Violent, and now deadly... [Arabic chanting].

JENNIFER: I spent a lot of time in Afghanistan looking at tribes and tribal structures.

When I started going to Afghanistan, there was a national healing taking place.

I think everybody wanted the Taliban behind them.

The future was bright.

But as time went on, the victory wasn't so easy.

Things were harder than people thought it would be.

There was a lot of money and a lot of resources being poured in, and then you saw politicians fighting for control, and that fight for control at the center tore the country apart.

[gun fire].

You saw politicians using and abusing differences.

The national-level rhetoric was really harming community cohesion and cooperation.

They created labels.

People were using labels to describe themselves ethnically that they had never used before.

All of a sudden, there were new groups that emerged.

They would never use like an ethnic label to describe themselves.

They would always say, "I'm from here, I'm from there, I'm from this valley, I'm from that place."

That's what actually brought the country together, was its communities.

Wasn't because people would say, "I'm this ethnic group or I'm that ethnic group."

It was local politics.

It was the strength of its communities that made the country strong.

So I think the polarization played a very important role because it undermined trust, right?

It undermined trust in institutions, it undermined trust in neighbors, it undermined trust that they had something they wanted to fight for.

Right?

And I've seen this in many places, both in authoritarian regimes where I work, and in conflict-affected societies.

It is this trust in institutions that really matters.

And what happens is the polarization really tears us apart from one another, and when we are so torn, there's nothing we believe in because we put ourselves first.

JORDAN: November 18th, 2021, an FBI whistleblower discloses to Republicans on the House judiciary that the FBI created a threat tag for parents voicing their concerns at school board meetings.

This also happens to be the same whistleblower who said the FBI leadership, not the rank-and-file members, the FBI leadership, is rotted at its core.

JENNIFER: When you have someone at the local level who's afraid to go to the school board, afraid to speak up about something because they're going to be labeled a Trump supporter or a Trump sympathizer, that's how that national level rhetoric really harms how we treat one another at the local level, that people are afraid of being labeled by their neighbors, by the people who they care about for speaking out against something.

And you really see it the most during the presidential elections, right?

Everybody wants to put a sign in front of the yard to show who they're voting for and to me, that's actually the most dehumanizing thing, is that someone down the road, you don't know, but you remember that's a Trump House.

You remember that's a Biden house.

That you label your home by its political affiliation.

So when you don't see someone as a human, you're not going to talk to them.

You're not going to acknowledge them.

They're not worthy of your attention.

They're not worthy of your time.

So that's the dehumanizing part, is you put a label on them and you walk away.

DEE: The topic we're looking at, this issue about education.

And a big issue is whether, you know, parents feel like they should have more uh responsibility and control of what happens in schools.

And there's another side of the issue that say, listen, the educators and the teachers are the professionals, they know what needs that children need to be taught so that they can act better in our society.

So if you get ready and to to kind of reflect your preference on this particular issue, one, two, and three.

Okay, great.

So we've got Dre who's kind of on the side where parents need to have more control and influence on that.

And then we've got, let's see, JJ and Carol, not surprisingly, both educators, have been teachers, who are feeling like, in fact, teachers might want to have a more important role there.

So Dre, why do you think JJ and Carol feel like teachers are the professionals, they need to have more say, and they need to have more influence about what gets taught in schools than parents?

Why do you think they're in that camp?

DRE: Because if I'm correct, both of you guys are educators, right?

JJ: Yes.

DRE: Yeah, so they probably feel like they have good intentions over what they're trying to teach the kids that they deal with.

Whereas I'm on the end that the parent knows best.

Um, I feel like the state should have as little control over the personal lives of individuals in general, but especially children.

I see a lot of educators who want to impose their personal lives and their personal feelings on children.

TEACHER: Okay, so during third period, we have announcements and they do the Pledge of Allegiance.

My room does not have a flag.

It used to be there, but I took it down during COVID because it made me uncomfortable.

In the meantime, I tell this kid, we do have a flag in the class that you can pledge your allegiance to and he looks around and he goes, oh, that one?

[laughs].

DRE: I feel like there is a gay agenda, and I feel like they're pushing it on children, which are the most unsuspecting, vulnerable group of people that we have.

I spend a lot of time battling people on the Internet about this issue, and this is coming from a gay man.

I just don't see the need for any of that to be taught.

Teachers are kind of overstepping their lines.

The students are not the teacher's children.

They are there to educate them and teach them a curriculum.

Carol, what did Dre get right about teachers and what you do?

CAROL: Well, I think I heard you say they have good intentions, so you got that right.

[chuckles].

I almost totally disagree with you um, about teachers having their own agenda.

The day is so full with academics, especially in public school.

DEE: So you're saying that doesn't happen in schools?

CAROL: I don't believe it does.

I really don't.

Um, I think... DEE: But you've never seen it happen?

CAROL: I've never seen it happen, correct.

I've never read that has happened.

JJ: The teachers need to be able to teach what they are supposed to teach, and parents need to parent and teachers need to teach.

DRE: But that's the thing, teachers are trying to teach now what they think children should be taught.

I don't see any reason why a child should be learning about gay history, anything that has to do with LGBT.

DEE: I'm curious, why do you think parents might worry about things that are being taught in schools?

What might parents' legitimate concerns be?

JJ: I think I just think that it's really important for teachers to teach, but I think parents have to have conversations about what's being taught at school.

I mean, there are bad doctors, there are bad attorneys, there are bad teachers but on the whole, I don't think that there are teachers out there trying to teach kids how to that they should be transgender.

DEE: So I'm hearing a couple of things.

One is I'm hearing from you, Dre, that your actual perception of what gets taught in the schools is different than what JJ and Carol's is.

Would you agree with that or not?

DRE: Yeah and let me clear something up.

So when I say agenda, I'm mostly talking about teachers of the LGBT community.

I don't know if you guys have TikTok, but every time you get on TikTok, there's always a teacher, "oh, I'm non-binary.

We're teaching about pronouns."

They got the blue hair, the rainbow flag, the Black Lives Matter.

What I'm saying is teachers should teach what is in the curriculum.

DEE: So is anything that Dre is saying concern you because that that could be an issue?

Are you not, are you looking at Dre's comments as you're just not seeing that in your world, so how can you respond?

CAROL: Exactly.

I just don't see that.

Um... TONY: The disagreement's really about the facts.

How much, kind of, agenda-setting do you see in schools?

So there's a disagreement about the facts that can lead to disagreements about what should be done.

But when you set the same fact in front of people, they tend to agree about what should be done about it.

And so then the challenge is when you have this bifurcated media, this group over here gets this set of facts.

MATT WALSH: The problem in education today.

RON DESANTIS: They are putting pornographic materials in the schools.

Why are they doing this?

It's an agenda.

TEACHER: Are you a boy or a girl?

So Nash, just like me, is non-binary.

So they aren't sure if they're a boy or a girl.

TONY: This group gets this set of facts.

SARAH KATE ELLIS: 70% of Americans feel that corporate should sponsor LGBTQ moments and events.

TIKTOKER: Teachers and staff are not trying to make students be gay or trans.

TIKTOKER: There is no gay agenda.

TIKTOKER: We're trying to show them that it's okay to be whoever you are.

ZOOEY ZEPHYR: This bill tries to define male and female as binary.

You could not legislate binary sex any more than you could legislate that the Earth is flat.

Intersex people exist, trans people exist.

And this bill doesn't change that.

TONY: And so they're at odds.

And who benefits from that?

Well a political class that doesn't want people like this to sit down and start coming to agreement about what's really going on and what we should do about it, because the solutions they're going to land on are solutions that neither party really likes that much.

CAROL: I will say I learned a lot from Dre as far as his opinions, and um, you know, I appreciate that.

Different, very different.

DRE: I'm very different.

CAROL: Well that's ok. DRE: I'm like anti-gay stuff and I'm gay, anti-Black stuff and I'm Black.

I'm a Black conservative.

CAROL: And you're not a Democrat.

DRE: Right?

I'm like, on the fringe of everything.

TONY: So in Atlanta, you have Drecember and Carol, very, very different people and outspoken.

We didn't want to have them suddenly realize they were, you know, kindred spirits and agree on everything.

What I loved seeing was that they kept true to who they are and what they believe.

But what you would expect to see if you watch the news and you, you know, watch TV coverage of political types, is them shouting at each other and somebody storming out and instead, they were kind of having fun with each other.

They could be different and actually enjoy that they're different.

I mean, that's, there's a lot of strength in that.

JOHN INAZU: When you can isolate specific issues and specific context, you can get two people who live in the same community, who are actually trying to figure out how national-level policies work out on the ground, and why they might have differences and what it means to walk down the street or drive across the city and be affected by these policies.

Then you can actually contextualize and you can create a set of questions and conversations around a lived experience rather than an abstracted ideological fight and I think that's that's key to coming to, maybe not agreement, but a better understanding of why we differ about some things.

DEE: And if you would just go ahead and hold them up and show me where you're at on this issue.

BEN: All over the country we had conversations on the toughest issues.

Immigration.

DEE: Your options are going to be, everyone's important not to be welcomed into the country or that we need to have stricter border controls.

DARRYL: We're helping a lot of people that are not even here legally, and our tax dollars are going there.

SCOTT B: My wife was undocumented immigrant until she became a citizen two years ago.

And I don't know what this all this help they're getting is because I've never seen any of them receiving any kind of this welfare.

SHERITA: I don't think it's right for them to come illegally, but, once they do get here, some type of system, like set up, because I just know with my family and coming from Jamaican resources... BEN: We have them talk about policing.

JOLI LOVE: A lot of police officers do abuse their position of power, so I feel like if they have access to like higher-grade equipment, they're not going to use it for the right way.

AMY JO: They also have a lot of tools that are non-lethal in the military to deescalate situations in other countries that don't end with somebody dying.

VERONICA: The cops need more like self-control and less abuse of power.

AMY JO: We have a bad people problem, not necessarily a cop problem.

BEN: We even got to the hot-button topic of abortion.

EMILY: I do think a woman should be able to choose.

I do agree that there's more than one person involved in making that decision, and I would like them to be rare.

Unless there's a specific reason why this woman thinks she can't bring this child into the world.

JEAN: I really wish that, you know, someone would have stopped me and someone would have sat me down and said, "look, these are the choices that you have."

BEVERLY: It's difficult for people to-to judge others.

There's a spectrum and how do you decide?

There is a continuum there and how do you know what's right for each individual?

TONY: So when you get these folks together and you see that they're surprised that so many people, regular folks like them can talk about hard stuff, I think you would also find if you gave them authority, that they would rise to that, they would take it seriously.

They probably wouldn't be so excited about imposing one rule on everyone else, because they got to look each other in the eye.

Right?

You have a lot more tolerance and a lot more willingness to let just individuals decide instead of government, because you got to look your neighbor in the eye, right?

You don't have to look anybody in D.C. in the eye, and they sure don't have to look you in the eye.

MODERATOR: So we talked about school, and we talked about policing.

DEE: Now that we've had a conversation, you've heard a lot of other sides, other points of view.

Did any of you change your point of view?

MODERATOR: How many of you changed your mind?

DEE: Did any of you change your position on any of the issues we've talked about today?

No?

Time after time after time that's been our case.

I never really found anybody who's all of a sudden now flipped as a result of this interaction.

Uh, but they view the topic differently, and they view people on the other side of the issue from them differently.

And that's what they seem to express in terms of what did change.

It wasn't their attitude that changed, their idea, their point of view that changed, but it was the dynamics around others and this whole broader issue that changed.

TONY: We do want different things.

We just do.

And that's how it's always been.

And so the whole system was set up so that if you and your neighbors want to have a, you know, more liberal lifestyle, you do that in your community, that's fine.

You just...you run yourselves and your community as neighbors, right?

Self-governance.

And then if these other folks want to live a more conservative life, they do that in their community, like that was the whole beauty of that system is you don't decide from the top down.

Different communities can live in different ways and leave each other alone and actually be friends.

That's the whole idea with this, the country, this big, diverse country.

[cheering].

DEE: How can we be so polarized and yet, I didn't feel any of that kind of polarization here today.

Anybody know why that might be?

GABRIEL ALDERETE: Largely, I think it's because there's less of a feeling of community in this country now.

There's less people talking to their neighbors.

It's less people going out and doing stuff in their community.

BEVERLY: I totally agree.

We're more focused on what our, where our divisions are versus where our unity is.

Instead, we don't sit down together because we're afraid that we're going to talk about what's divisive and what's in the news and what's being like, kind of forced on us to have that in the forefront of our mind.

ERIN: What did you guys expect when you drove up today?

JOLI: I thought someone was going to like, be real ignorant, fighting, yelling, screaming, the passionate, like slam on the table.

TONY: A lot of them assumed, understandably, that we were just like, you know, a lot of people with cameras like, we want to see you argue, right?

We want to see blood.

AMY JO: I expected there to need to be a bouncer and Jerry Springer was possibly going to pop out, but it went really well.

MATT H: I wasn't sure if I was going to be sort of like the lone, you know, voice on one side, and everyone else might be the voice of contention.

DAMIAN: I kinda thought that way, too.

I was like, okay, who's like the purposeful, like, plant, to like, stir stuff up or I was like, so you probably want to have me trying to argue with somebody then, huh?

DEE: Yeah.

DAMIAN: Cause I know I can talk, so I'm like, I bet you try to find somebody that can out-talk me.

Okay?

Hold on.

I gotta get my mind right.

It's going to be crazy.

I went there, like, quick.

TONY: And so they just assumed a lot of them, we were going to ask them to do the same thing, and then they discover, lo and behold, we want them to actually treat each other like regular people.

JENNIFER: Why do I have hope?

Because we have very robust democratic institutions.

Just when everyone was hyperventilating about the end of democracy, here we have the highest levels of voter turnout we've ever seen in presidential elections.

But a concern about that is everything becomes so centralized on the presidential election that we forget about our mayors, we forget about city council, we forget about the things of the local level where we can actually contribute to solving problems.

[man campaigning].

WOMAN: Thank you.

JENNIFER: I'm from Pittsburgh, grew up in Pittsburgh.

I grew up in Squirrel Hill, and I grew up at Tree of Life Synagogue.

REPORTER: Hate-filled gunman stormed into the Tree of Life Synagogue during Saturday morning services.

11 people were killed and six others hurt.

JENNIFER: That attack was just so painful on so many levels, because when something so deeply painful happens, everybody's looking for a solution.

They want to make it go away.

They see some policy they don't like.

They want to explain it away and say, if only we didn't have this, everything would be better.

After the massacre, a friend of mine whose mother-in-law was killed, she set up an organization called "2 for Seder."

And the Seder is, you know, a Jewish tradition that happens on Passover, where you mark how Jews came out of slavery in Egypt.

It involves lighting candles.

It involves this flatbread called matzah.

It involves dipping your finger in wine and putting those drops of wine on the plate to remind you of the blood, you know, of the pain of slavery.

[group at table singing in Hebrew].

JENNIFER: How do you fight anti-Semitism?

It's not through op-eds.

It's not through advocacy organizations.

You invite two non-Jews to your home, to a Seder, and it's powerful.

It's beautiful.

It's bringing people into your home.

It's allowing them to see something different, bringing, you know, outsiders in to understand, to experience this, helps them connect not just, you know, understand what Judaism is about, but that the people whose homes they're coming into are human beings, and that we value the same things.

Right?

Whether that's God, whether that's freedom, whether that's being relaxed, whether that's family, whatever that is.

People then have that experience and they understand that we're human too.

[knocking] SELICIA: Who is this at my door?

Oh hey, Matt.

How are you today?

MATT C: Good, how are you?

SELICIA: Oh, good.

Hey, come on in.

Dante, Lawrence and Jymere.

Come here.

I want y'all to meet my friend Matt.

This is Dante.

MATT C: Nice to meet you.

SELICIA: Go ahead.

Go shake his hand.

This is Lawrence.

That's Mr. Matt, and this is Jymere.

MATT C: Hey.

Nice to meet you.

SELICIA: And then we moved up Northview... MATT C: When I first met Selicia I knew she was tough.

Like, I could just tell when I talked to her that she was a very tough person emotionally and mentally.

SELICIA: So is this your house?

MATT C: Yes, where I live.

SELICIA: You could tell this is a bachelor pad.

There is nothing here worth dying for.

MATT C: Yeah.

Yeah.

SELICIA: And you're like, right there with it.

MATT C: I'm like scary.

Yeah.

But you could also see that she had like a sensitive side.

SELICIA: So this is your oldest daughter?

MATT C: Her picture's right there.

SELICIA: Oh.

She's pretty.

Family is where life begins and love never ends.

Oh that's cute.

All people from different walks of life are basically all the same people.

We just take different experiences.

MATT C: We had different backgrounds, but we're all the same.

You know, everybody has the same common goal.

They just want to prosper, not struggle and live, live a good life, not have to, you know, beg, borrow and steal to have what they want.

You know, we just all take a different path to get there.

SELICIA: Uh-uh, you've got to give me a hug before I leave.

BEN: The aftermath of these conversations, I'd say, quite surprising to us; The people were still engaged and wanted to continue the conversations.

They, it was almost as though they had a, a cathartic experience.

TONY: At first it seemed like they were in a dream they didn't want to wake up from, but the more I reflected on it and listen to their comments, you know, and watched the tape, I think it's more that they've been in a bad dream, you know, which is what this political class gives us, imposes on us.

And the conversation was like waking up and realizing, oh, most of us are not like the people that they put on TV.

Most of us can talk and be heard, right, and hear.

And and they don't want to go back to sleep.

They don't want to go back outside to this political strife, this artificially driven, you know, rage machine that the political class has created.

They want to stay in this space, like in this community that has sprung up, you know, over just a couple of hours.

So they're exchanging email addresses or phone numbers or they're hugging, shaking hands or genuinely smiling, wishing each other well.

I mean, that, that is the America that I know.

BEN: And I think that there is a hunger in this country for those types of experiences, because we've been very siloed for a long time.

STACEY: I don't get to have these conversations that often, so this was definitely a way for me to get my opinions across in a way where I could listen to other people and I can be heard as well.

SEAN: Everybody was very respectful of each other.

So, yeah, a lot better experience than I was expecting.

XAVIER LARCO: Everyone can talk without yelling, without fighting or something.

So yeah, it's a good experience for me.

DAMIAN: You just gotta like break it down in little chunks, have conversations in small areas.

It's not just like a big area like this side, that side.

We need community-focused, town-focused, city-focused, state-focused communications, and then we can start talking about healing the rest of the world with the same type of conversations, but we've got to start with like small pockets of communities and small groups.

SCOTT B: We're not really talking with each other.

It's just an endless talking point battle for the political class, and at the end of the day, we don't make any improvement or progress on solutions.

MATT H: I think that we've got to be able to sit down together.

I think that we've got to be able to hear each other.

BEVERLY: How often do we actually state out loud, "I think he thinks this way because blah blah blah blah blah."

MATT H: If you do that, you end up realizing that there's actually more that you agree on, and you end up realizing that it's really easy to have to listen to someone just so you can respond back, [snaps fingers].

and, "Hey, here's where you're wrong."

And it's actually kind of a hard thing, but a really beneficial thing to stop for a second and actually try to really hear them.

And I think that's what we did today.

I think I really heard people that maybe I, you know, if I hadn't had this opportunity, I wouldn't necessarily have sat with them and really heard what they had to say.

SCOTT B: If these could be scaled to a bigger level, I think these are the type of things that would, people talking with each other, that's how you break this kind of gridlock that we have, and the polarization that we have, is getting past the mainstream media talking points that they want us all to talk in.

SPEAKER: What is going on in this city?

FOX REPORTER: Last year, and nobody seemed to be too concerned about that.

MARJORIE GREEN: They're clearly racist as well.

REPORTER: Hey, idiot.

JORDAN: Something we made up.

What would she say about that?

TONY: So if we could urge everyone watching this to do one thing to help us make it, what would it be?

DEE: I would think the most important thing is, open your mind to understand others first rather than to be understood.

We too often start out from the place where, "I know where I want to go, how do I get there?"

That's what I would encourage people to do, is to see who are around them and what we all want and how we can get there together.

TONY: We the people.

DEE: We the people.

JOHN: Part of the fundamental problem is that, as a country, we've forgotten that we have always had differences and they're not going away.

Built into the design of the country itself, Madison saw this with factions, was the notion that we are going to exist in this country as groups of very different people.

We're not going to overcome those differences.

So the political solution is how do we work together in spite of those differences?

[group shouting "Black Lives Matters"].

TONY: Freedom is messiness.

Look at countries that don't have it.

Everything's very orderly.

But who wants that?

Freedom is messy because people are different and they get to choose different stuff.

Thank God we're not all the same.

We're not robots, and we don't live under a robotic, oppressive regime.

ROBERT: Part of the solution to the problems with toxic politics is to put politics in its place, not by withdrawing from politics or by taking an apolitical stance.

No, it's by reclaiming part of our life for cooperative endeavors with other people that are not organized around our political identities.

SELICIA: And this is where I grew up at, right here.

Me and my mom.

MATT C: Did you grow up like through the first door?

SELICIA: Yeah.

So this is... BEN: That means that you have to have a conversation with your neighbor from time to time.

You invite someone over for lunch or dinner.

Someone who is very different from you.

It might mean that sometimes you intentionally place yourself in places that you're not familiar with, so you can learn something new and something different.

SELICIA: Oh this is the place you were saying you used to go to with your friends?

MATT C: Yeah.

SELICIA: This is pretty neat.

I like this little bar.

BEN: Each one of us will have to think about how we can contribute to the solution.

JENNIFER: I don't think there's a solution that's going to come from the outside.

It's going to have to come from one community at a time.

Communities themselves are going to have to fight these issues and I think this is where America's great strength is, is actually in our communities.

GABRIEL ALDERETE: If you're where everyone else in this country wants to discuss these problems, absolutely.

TONY: So when you see regular folks having conversations about hard topics, walking away with greater tolerance, greater appreciation, less certainty that they're right, in a large, diverse country like America, you need that kind of openness to trying different solutions at the same time in different places.

BEN: The experience tells me that the future of America is bright.

If we are able to get this right, we get to pass this onto the next generation who will thrive and who will flourish.

MATT H: All right, there you go, my friends.

NICOLE: Thank you very much.

MATT H: You're welcome.

DRE: Safe travels.

I'll see you next time.

CAROL MCCANNON: I'll see you next time.

And I enjoyed every minute of it.

DRE: I did too.

CAROL: So, thank you.

["We The People" from The Staple Singers].

♪ We the people ♪ ♪ Hey now ♪ ♪ Got to make the world go round ♪ ♪ Got to make the world now ♪ ♪ We the people, yeah ♪ ♪ Got to make the world go round ♪ ♪ Got to make the world now ♪ ♪ You may have the Black blood ♪ ♪ Or you may have the White blood ♪ ♪ But we all are living on the blood ♪ ♪ So don't nobody slip into the mud ♪ ♪ Cause ah ♪ ♪ We the people.

♪ ♪ Do tell 'em ♪ ♪ Got to make the world go 'round ♪ ♪ Got to make the world now ♪ ♪ We the people, well ♪ ♪ Got to make the world go 'round ♪ ♪ Got to make the world now ♪ ♪ Burning the night, that cigarette ♪ ♪ Everybody's sweatin', what you give is what you get ♪ ♪ Hot pants in style, don't let our world go wild ♪ ♪ Mama's youngest child learnin' fast ♪ ♪ Got to get up as soon as you lay down ♪ ♪ Don't get nothin' from messin' around ♪ ♪ We the people ♪ ♪ Hey y'all ♪ ♪ Got to make the world go 'round ♪ ♪ Got to make the world now ♪ ♪ We the people ♪ ♪ Got to make the world go 'round ♪