Finding common ground and paths to persuasion

This is Zooming In, and I’m Tom Shull, survey research director of the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism, the parent organization of The UnPopulist.

American politics has always featured verbal jabs—often sharp and below the belt. But many of us can personally recall a time when American political discourse wasn’t so toxic, and when citizens and politicians who didn’t retain a modicum of civility and good humor in their politics risked a backlash. In fact, most Americans valued a degree of national unity, especially in times of crisis or tragedy. On September 11, 2001, after the Twin Towers fell, scores of Democratic and Republican senators and members of Congress gathered in front of the Capitol Building not to exchange Team Red and Team Blue recriminations about “national security disasters” or “immigration fiascos.” Rather, said the speaker of the House, they came together to “stand united” before the country. Spontaneously, they sang “God Bless America.”

What if the 9/11 attacks happened now? You can just imagine the tweets.

Is it possible to re-establish a culture of political civility in America? And if so, how would we go about it? For Jason Mangone, today’s guest on Zooming In, the answer might lie in the maxim, “First seek to understand, and then to be understood”—or what might be termed “empathic listening.” Mangone is the executive director of the nonprofit organization More In Common, which has undertaken over the past eight years a sustained and sophisticated effort to understand Americans as they understand themselves, and then, with a degree of care and respect, to explain them to each other. It has done so through ambitious survey research, online panel discussions, focus groups, message testing, and other social science outreach, issuing more than 50 research reports in the process. More In Common is part of a multi-national effort to produce similar insights in a variety of countries, but today, I discuss with Jason some of More In Common’s key survey findings in the United States, beginning with their recent publication Beyond MAGA: A Profile of the Trump Coalition.

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