How can a good person believe that?
If you knew who someone voted for, would you know everything about them?
We asked dozens of everyday Americans, split evenly between red and blue, one question: What perspective that’s different from yours are you most curious to understand right now?
As the midterm dust settles, this short, special episode introduces you to a liberal who stopped a picnic cold by defending the Trump voters she knows, a conservative Christian who can’t understand why fellow believers won’t make room for LGBTQ people, and a red-and-blue married couple who made the news just for making it work.
>> This episode was produced in partnership with photographer Bob Handelman, whose yearlong, 50-state van journey, Americana: Know Thy Neighbor, A Portrait of America, is profiling Americans across divides for America’s 250th anniversary.
Credits
Host & Executive Producer: Mónica Guzmán
Senior Producer: Jessica Jones
Editorial Producer: April Lawson
Associate Producer & Designer: Fredo Viola
Contributor: Travis Tripodi
Artist in Residence: Gangstagrass
A production of: Reclaim Curiosity
Distribution Partners: KUOW, Braver Angels, and Deseret News
Financial Supporter: M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust
Photos in our thumbnail images were taken by ©Bob Handelman
Links & References
Call to Action
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Transcript
Please note that this transcript has been lightly edited for readability with the help of AI. Please forgive any slight errors.
[00:00:00]
Mónica Guzmán:
Hey everyone, it's Moni. A quick note for some things we've got to help you get through midterms week. Our media episode, "Is the news doing more to you than for you?", you will find in our feed. Also our playbook for whatever's happening, "Braving the Midterms," with me and April Lawson.
Next week, I am getting together with Travis Tripodi, and he and I, from opposite sides of the political divide, are going to disagree probably on a whole, whole lot. Whatever we feel is bugging us most as the midterms dust settles.
But also, November 17th, we're having our first member gathering for A Braver Way founding members: surviving and even enjoying divided holidays, because 'tis the season. If you want to be part of it, oh my gosh, I would love to see you there. Go to reclaimcuriosity.com/membership and become a founding member of A Braver Way for $7 a month. Then RSVP to the member gathering on November 17th. Now onto the episode.
Matthew Dzik:
...each other and we know we recognize the humanness and each other's values. And I kind of think in the political realm, it's the same thing. I think most people have the same ends...
Mónica:
...really fascinating question. We were at the Braver Angels Convention in Philadelphia, where the hundreds of participants who came from all over the country were equally split between people who leaned liberal and people who leaned conservative.
And they were all gathered together, in part because they're tired of letting those differences poison us. We met a fantastic photographer, Bob Handelman, who set up his camera in a room on the side and welcomed person after person, view after view. And the question we asked them all was this:
What perspective that's different from yours are you most curious to understand right now in America?
David Lapp:
...very curious and wanting to understand better people who are coming from a pro-choice perspective.
Mónica:
That's David Lapp from Ohio.
David:
Because it's one that I really disagree with, and it's one that I have a really hard time seeing the other side.
Mónica:
Another big one for people was, you guessed it, our president.
Bill Doherty:
I'm most interested in really understanding the experience of people who are enthusiastic about President Trump.
Mónica:
As co-founder of Braver Angels, Bill Doherty of Minnesota has done a lot of work to understand people who are not like him.
Bill:
But I don't think I've yet gotten really beyond sort of an intellectual level the feelings, the intuitions, the gut experiences of people who are enthusiastic about President Trump. Not just to accept the least of the evils kind of thing, but who are really enthusiastic.
Mark Metzger:
A topic that's heavy on my mind is immigration.
Sarah Ross:
My thoughts about immigration.
Elias Martin:
Immigration is the biggest one.
Mónica:
That's Mark Metzger from New York, Sarah Ross from California, and Elias Martin from New York.
Lesley Dzik:
I'm curious to understand the other side on the transgender issue.
Mónica:
Lesley Dzik of Illinois feels like when she brings up questions on this very sensitive topic, they're not always welcome.
Lesley Dzik:
I've never felt like I could be in a place where I could talk about it and not be slammed for believing in biology or anything, where it seems like difference is not tolerated.
Wendi Dressen:
I do struggle to understand people who lean very far to the right.
Mónica:
That's Wendi Dressen from Minnesota.
Wendi:
Can you not remove yourself from your situation and put yourself in someone else's shoes and see how different things impact other people?
Sarah:
You probably heard the term that people use called the flyover states.
Mónica:
For Sarah Ross, it's also about people she feels aren't being seen.
Sarah:
Where people just pass on by and they don't see, you know, they don't bother to see or talk to the people in these small towns.
Mónica:
Emily Jacobs of Washington leans liberal. At a picnic with her liberal friends, she stopped all conversation about the upcoming election when she pointed something out.
Emily Jacobs:
I said, I know many kind, caring, wonderful humans that are going to vote for Donald Trump.
And one of my friends challenged me. She said, those adjectives don't go together.
And I challenged her and said, how many conservatives do you know?
Caleb Mulholland:
A big one for me is probably like LGBTQ+ rights.
[00:05:00]
Mónica:
Caleb Mulholland from North Carolina is a Christian and leans conservative.
Caleb:
I do understand that we're supposed to love one another. And so even when other people are engaged in activities that I don't necessarily, right, I shouldn't demonize them for it. And so my misunderstanding is with other Christians, other people like me who identify with that faith and God, can't tolerate people who identify that way.
Mónica:
As I listened back to all these different people talking about the perspectives they want to understand, I noticed something. In their reflections, it's like they were answering a question we didn't ask, but I know a lot of us ask ourselves. It's like the question underneath the question. I hear it in what Caleb just said, and what Emily said before him. And in myself, frankly, when I consider people who confound me. And the question is this: How can a good person believe that?
Nicholas Morris-Kliment of Massachusetts attended a workshop where a moderator changed the way he saw that question.
Nicholas Morris-Kliment:
He asked us, if you knew who I voted for, would you know everything about me?
And of course, the answer is no, right?
That really blew me away.
Mónica:
Sometimes it's our relationship with people we love and how we rely on that connection with them that makes it really hard to understand when they surprise us.
Elizabeth Christensen:
I was really thrown for a loop when some of them turned and changed their position and changed their party.
Mónica:
Elizabeth Christensen of Oregon was raised in a conservative family. When some of them changed their views, she didn't know what to do.
Elizabeth Christensen:
I didn't know how growing up in the same household could affect me that way. And it was my husband who said, time to be a Braver Angel and figure it out and get those questions of curiosity and to preserve the family relationship and everything else.
Mónica:
Hey there, it's Mónica. I'm hosting a new eight-part podcast series called Dispatches from the Divide. True stories of ordinary people caught in extraordinary conflict, and the choices they make that change everything. A member of a faith community shattered by a mass shooting organizes support for the shooter's widow and son? A city councilwoman builds a powerful connection with the activist who led the campaign to kick her out of office? What happens when someone refuses to fight fire with fire and does a braver thing instead? Tune in. Check out Dispatches from the Divide wherever you get your podcasts.
Jet Vertz of Rhode Island has a similar story. He leans conservative, and it's his liberal-leaning daughter he wants to learn more about.
Jet Vertz:
We have differences in opinion, and I'd really like to understand what created that difference. She and I, we lived together for 20-some years, and she went off to college, and she has a totally different perspective, point of view, and politically than mine.
Leslie Lopato:
I do understand that there are other areas where people feel threatened by immigration, or they feel that they're losing something because of immigration.
Mónica:
That's Leslie Lopato of California.
Sometimes it's tough to stay curious about different views when we're afraid they hurt people we care about.
Leslie Lopato:
So I was a granddaughter of Jewish immigrants, not fleeing the Holocaust, but from earlier times, and they were often regarded in the same ways as immigrants are now.
And they did squeak in legally, but that was not always an option.
So I just want to really understand why it's such a threatening thing to people. You know, is it economic? Is it cultural?
Nicholas:
I learned something from an unexpected place.
Mónica:
Here's Nicholas Morris-Kliment again.
Nicholas:
Which is from James Talarico, who's currently running for the Senate from Texas. He was commenting on a question from the interviewer about people voting against their interests.
And his answer was so surprising to me. He said to the interviewer, well, people have lots of different interests, right? They have economic interests, they have spiritual interests, they have psychological interests. So it's possible that you could be voting on any one of those interests. They might be voting against their economic interests, but they might be voting for a sense of like, someone understands me, someone gets me, someone's willing to fight for me.
Mónica:
And working to understand someone doesn't just explain them. It can change us too.
[00:10:00]
Todd Silver:
Our son came out gay in 2014, which was an eye-opener. Wonderful human being. And we had to say, wait, wait, is that OK?
Mónica:
Todd Silver of Washington leaned Republican at the time.
Todd:
I'm 73 years old. And a number of things that I held as capital-T truth, I've come to think, well, those really are capital-T truths. My wife and I have come to be activists and have actually been involved in the creation of a couple of documentary films on the topic.
Mónica:
Todd and his wife Teresa are producers on a movie about faith-based families who struggle and, to varying degrees, come to accept their LGBTQ relatives.
Todd:
And as we looked outside of our own bubble, we thought, what else are we missing?
Elizabeth Sink:
I've had lots of religious and spiritual and non-religious chapters in my life.
Mónica:
Elizabeth Sink teaches at Colorado State University, and she'd often share with her students the ways in which her own beliefs had changed.
Elizabeth Sink:
I'd find them in my office later on, sometimes in tears, and saying, you know, the label no longer fits, or I need to change this certain identity. And it happened to me over and over again. And I began to see the need for permission giving, for people to be able to release things that they didn't believe in anymore and try out new ones without having to have all of the answers already. And so something that came out of that that I like to pass on to people is: try using the word "currently" before you say how you identify.
I currently identify as a Unitarian Universalist, but I've been lots of different belief systems before, and it's hard for me to believe, even at 48, that there won't be more in the future. So I think the word "currently" allows us this space to shed things when they need to be shed and to move forward.
Sarah:
I used to be very, very, like, non-negotiable about: you must be a legal immigrant. And I have since definitely, and very emotionally, changed my mind about that.
Mónica:
That's Sarah Ross from California again.
Sarah:
My mentee is 16 years old, and she was born and raised with her siblings in Petaluma, but her parents are from Mexico. They do not speak English. They are illegals.
And I would be devastated if they were deported or anything happened to them. I still firmly, staunchly believe in legal immigration, but I definitely understand that there are a lot of challenges involved with that.
Leslie Lopato:
When I understand more about somebody else's viewpoint, I can see the rational aspects of it.
Mónica:
Liberal Leslie Lopato says she sees more nuance in conservative issues than she used to.
Leslie Lopato:
So when you stop thinking that all conservatives are crazy, you can go, okay, well, yeah. I mean, I think there actually are some issues about transgender participation in sports that are a lot more complex and nuanced than I gave it credit for, or about, I mean, gender-affirming treatment. I think, you know, that's one of the issues where I'm less certain of my standpoint than I was originally, because of listening to what some other voices had to say. And it doesn't necessarily make me happy to experience that.
But I think it's real. And so I can't ignore it.
Mónica:
One of the folks we talked to was a politically divided couple, Matthew and Lesley Dzik of Illinois. Here's Matthew.
Matthew:
We had a write-up in the paper about being a couple, a married couple, where one was blue and one was red, which in this climate is something unique, I guess. And they asked us about, how do you live together?
And I told them, I think it was just priority. You know, whatever our differences, you know, we love each other and we know we recognize the humanness and each other's values. And I kind of think in the political realm, it's the same thing. I think most people have the same ends in mind. Everyone's good education, safe streets, all that, you know. It's just, how do you get there?
We're Americans. We're all in this country together, this boat together, you know. So why don't we make it work together? Right. We've just forgotten that it's possible because there's so much yelling going on, but it's not impossible. We just have to bring it back.
We'll let it start with us.
[00:15:00]
Mónica:
A big thanks to everyone gathered in Philadelphia this summer who accepted our invite to get curious. And to photographer Bob Handelman and his daughters, Lexi and Cassie, for their incredible work, not just there in Philadelphia at the convention, but all across the country. Bob is traveling to all 50 states on America's 250th anniversary year for a project he calls Americana: Know Thy Neighbor. Check it out at americanaknowthyneighbor.com.
