Braver Angels’ Quest for Civic Renewal
Braver Angels has faced stiff headwinds in its bid to depolarize a country increasingly at loggerheads with itself. Now it seeks to do something even harder: catalyze a movement for civic renewal.
Earlier this month, I had the privilege of attending the Braver Angels National Convention with 675 fellow delegates. We met in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, 160 years after the Union Army defeated Confederate forces in cataclysmic battle there. The setting, now peaceful and verdant, stood as a reminder of what can happen when a country falls apart.
Several things took me to the convention. My friend David Blankenhorn, President of Braver Angels, asked me to lead a breakout session on Abraham Lincoln’s statesmanship for the delegates at Gettysburg. How could I say no to that? In addition, my new venture, Lyceum Labs, has joined Braver Angels’ network of partners, so I wanted to show the flag on that account.
I have also been intrigued with and pulling for Braver Angels since David joined with Bill Doherty and David Lapp to found it shortly after the 2016 election. The Hewlett Foundation’s Madison Initiative, which I led at the time, provided seed funding for the group. The convention seemed like a great way to get a real-time, first-hand update on its vital mission: “bringing Americans together to bridge the partisan divide and strengthen our democratic republic.” In 2022, 24,000 Americans participated in Braver Angels’ programs. I arrived curious in particular about the prospects for Braver Angels achieving the transformative scale needed to tackle the wicked problem it has set for itself.
I should note at the outset that people tend to have strong feelings about Braver Angels. It draws praise from observers worried about hyper-partisanship, who see any effort to bridge our divides as the Lord’s work. But Braver Angels exasperates critics who think bridging at best is a fool's errand, and at worst serves to legitimize intolerable viewpoints and hinder necessary conflicts.
In my experience, both those who are quick to salute or criticize Braver Angles often fail to grasp the unique and nuanced aspects of the organization’s work. Braver Angels’ efforts can be messy and at times fall short of their aspirations–as its leaders are the first to admit. But as a catalyst for civic renewal, the group merits our attention and appreciation.
More than any other civil association I know, Braver Angels takes in the full spectrum of public opinion in the country, and it does so in fresh and constructive ways. At any given session or meal at the convention, you could find yourself sitting and talking with progressive activists, MAGA enthusiasts, and / or the myriad permutations in between.
The various resolutions that delegates debated during the convention highlight the free-wheeling nature of discussions there. Should Joe Biden Be Reelected? Should Donald Trump Be Reelected? Is America the Greatest Country in the World? Is America a Racist Nation? In these debates, and in many other breakout sessions and workshops, delegates from all parts of the country holding all points of view spoke their minds and listened to each other.
Four Key Success Factors
Braver Angels is able to host this wide-ranging diversity because of four intentional aspects of its work. First, it relies on an evidence-informed approach and set of practices. Braver Angels’ work is grounded in the research of NYU Psychologist Jonathan Haidt (who also serves as a board member for the organization). As Haidt notes in The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion, in these divisive realms, we are much less rational than we think. Our political positions and arguments are driven not so much by reason, but rather by visceral, subconscious responses that we then go about rationalizing. We each have different combinations of moral foundations–not better or worse, just different–that incline us to be liberal, libertarian, conservative, etc. These orientations play out much like our different tastes lead some people to prefer savory foods while others have a sweet tooth.
Against this backdrop, it behooves all of us to be humble about what drives our viewpoints and recognize our capacity for self-justification. Let’s also realize we are no more likely to persuade those we disagree with to adopt our fundamental commitments than they are to persuade us to adopt theirs. However, once we have established a relationship and trust with each other, we can at least begin to talk about and understand why we disagree. We can also identify and work toward goals we hold in common.
Under the guidance of Co-founder Bill Doherty, a marriage counselor and family therapist based at the University of Minnesota, Braver Angels has developed and refined a set of practices, trainings, and workshops that reflect this psychological framework and promote salutary patterns of behavior and interactions among program participants.
A second component in Braver Angels’ success is its meticulous attention to maintaining an equal mix of “Red” and “Blue” program leaders, participants, and network partners. Having political balance between those on the right and left, or who lean those ways, respectively, ensures the activities and discussions will be even-handed and have ample viewpoint diversity. No one will feel outnumbered, and agreement to disagree is built into the composition of the group. The political equipoise at the convention was visible in the red and blue lanyards participants wore for their name tags.
All this might seem a bit obsessive, but it is in fact a critical hedge against a bad movie I’ve seen one too many times. Well-intentioned efforts to bridge divides and include voices from across the political spectrum frequently drift to the left or the right. The dispositions of a critical mass of staff or funders–even ways of talking that seem non-threatening to the dominant strain in the group–pull the entity steadily in one direction. As those on the disfavored side clam up or drop out, the bias compounds. Braver Angels is determined to keep this from occurring in its work.
A third success factor for Braver Angels is an unusual degree of procedural formality, which clarifies roles and mitigates disputes–essential contributions in a politically mixed and charged environment. For instance, the organizers clarified up front this was not a conference at which we would be passive participants. Rather, it was a convention at which the assembled Braver Angels members and / or network partners would serve as delegates. The convention was governed by rules of parliamentary procedure. At the outset, we approved a motion to name a secretary, parliamentarian, and two co-chairs for the convention. Over the next three days, our duly elected co-chairs–Erica Manuel, a “Blue” from California, and Wilk Wilkinson, a “Red” from Minnesota–shared the gavel and presided over each plenary session.
A Braver Angels debate is another setting marked by a formality that pays dividends. April Lawson, who leads the debate program, emphasizes that the goal is not to recite talking points or defeat opponents, but to engage in “a collective search for truth.” Everybody is invited to speak for or against the question at hand. But they are expected to say what they really believe–to put their understanding of the truth of the matter out on the table where it can be considered alongside those of others. And everyone addresses their remarks and questions to the chair moderating the debate, not at those with whom they are disagreeing. Speakers who forget this formality in the heat of the exchange are kindly but firmly reminded to direct their comments to the chair. The simple but formal structure channels disagreement toward constructive ends, reinforces civility, and builds connections, even appreciation, across divides.
Fourth, the linchpin holding these success factors together is The Braver Angels Way–a set of values that are, in my experience, consistently reflected in the organization’s work and programming. It is worth sharing here, with Braver Angels’ own points of emphasis:
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.
Whether this credo has your head nodding or shaking, I’m hard-pressed to see how else more than 300 million free, equal, diverse, and therefore quarrelsome citizens can peaceably co-exist.
Undiminished democracy
As I joined in breakout sessions, attended and voted in plenary meetings, and talked with other delegates over meals, I couldn’t help but notice how countercultural Braver Angels is. It is a throwback to your grandparents'–or better yet your great-grandparents’–voluntary associations. As a result, it is more robustly democratic, in the small “d” sense of the word. Three years ago, invoking the scholarship of Theda Skocpol, I noted that,
“Citizens groups have proliferated since the 1970s. They bring the views of those who support them to bear on national debates over civil rights, women’s issues, the environment, family values, etc. These groups typically rely on a mailing list of donors who trade off money for time by making a contribution and outsourcing their policy concerns to professional advocates in Washington, D.C.
The new citizens groups have supplanted national associations prominent in earlier periods – e.g., the Grand Army of the Republic, the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, the Farm Bureau, and the American Legion. These older associations cultivated connections across their membership at the local, state, and national levels. New citizens groups generally lack the cross-class membership that characterized traditional national associations, and they provide few opportunities for their members to play leadership roles in the organization’s work.
The result is encapsulated in the title of Theda Skocpol’s stellar book: Diminished Democracy: From Membership to Management In American Civic Life. Reflecting on these trends, Skocpol notes that, “new voices are heard, and there have been invaluable gains in equality and liberty. But vital links in the nation’s associational life have frayed, and we need to find creative ways to repair those links if America is to avoid becoming a country of managers and manipulated spectators rather than a national community of fellow democratic citizens.”
Braver Angels is finding creative ways to repair the associational linkages whose decline Skocpol laments. Most of the organization’s work is done by a cadre of nearly 3,000 citizen volunteers who lead and manage its events and projects and conduct outreach in local communities. They, in turn, are orchestrated by more than 300 local alliance co-chairs, state coordinators, and regional leaders who also serve as volunteers. Everyone in these various leadership roles is trained up on how to play them, and they draw on the counsel and support of those leading similar functions elsewhere in the network. Its federated structure provides ample opportunities for volunteers to build up their skills and take on new leadership responsibilities at the local, state, regional, and national levels. Finally, the broader membership–11,700 strong at this point–helps underwrite the network via dues and gifts that comprised 38% of the organization’s $4.4 million budget in 2022.
Catalyzing a broader movement for civic renewal
Braver Angels got its start by delivering in-person workshops to small groups of citizens in local settings. It has been building from there ever since. This work is inherently difficult to scale given depolarization ultimately depends on a transformation within individuals. However, by recruiting and training at first hundreds and now thousands of volunteer facilitators, the organization has made headway. When COVID-19 hit, it shoved much of Braver Angels’ programming online, but a silver lining accompanied the disruption. As the organization pivoted to deliver its work virtually during the pandemic, it adapted more scalable practices that accelerated its growth and expanded its reach.
Now Braver Angels has arrived at a new threshold of scale and impact. As the platform that delegates ratified at the convention forthrightly begins: “Today, we come together to call for and lead a movement of civic renewal.”
One way Braver Angels is going about this is by broadening the leadership voices speaking to the public. National Ambassador John Wood writes a column for USA Today. Senior Fellow for Public Practice Monica Guzman has written a terrific and well-received book, I Never Thought of It that Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times. April Lawson, Managing Director for Debates and Public Discourse, has emerged as a compelling advocate for debating the tough topics with which all of us are wrestling.
Lawson and Braver Angels have joined forces in the Braver Campuses program with two like-minded and blue-chip allies, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni and BridgeUSA. The goal is to teach “students to honor ideological diversity, foster civil discourse on college campuses, and cultivate student and faculty leaders to carry the movement forward.” So far the program has worked with 75 campuses, sponsored 180 debates, and engaged 6,000 students. With the curricular toolkit, sample debate topics, and moderator training the program has developed, along with the pressing need for its work, this initiative is poised to take off.
The Braver Politics initiative developing under the direction of Elizabeth Doll also has real potential. The objective is to work directly with politicians to help them engage more constructively with colleagues across the aisle and the constituents whom they represent. The initial focus is on local and state politicians and members of Congress open to experimentation.
The effort is building momentum. The convention heard from Doug Teschner, who previously served in the New Hampshire State Legislature and has now helped start a Braver Angels caucus inside that body. Dean Phillips, a Democrat who represents the western suburbs of Minneapolis in the House of Representatives, shared how he uses Braver Angels workshops to engage his constituents. And Utah Governor Spencer Cox, the incoming head of the National Governors Association, used his keynote speech at the convention to preview his “Disagree Better” campaign. It will be his signature initiative while leading the Association.
An emergent way to expand the reach of Braver Angels’ ideas, values, and methods is through the newly established Braver Network led by David Lapp. Braver Angels will convene the network periodically and virtually to share with and listen to its partners, facilitating the collective work of civic renewal. It includes 200+ entities ranging from local churches and civic groups, DC think tanks, democracy reform groups, new pluralist field builders, party affiliates, media outlets, etc. This diversity notwithstanding, the network, like all Braver Angels projects, is politically balanced.
These new lines of work are promising–and difficult. Reliant as they are on coordination and engagement with many partner organizations, leaders, and citizens outside of Braver Angels, the results will likely be uneven. Some efforts will take off, while others may fizzle out. Braver Angels has always faced stiff headwinds in its bid to depolarize a country more and more at loggerheads with itself. Now it seeks to do something even harder: increasing its impact by orders of magnitude while maintaining its lean cost structure and nimble, all-hands-on-deck organizational ethos.
As Jeff Bradach and Abe Grindle have observed about nonprofits endeavoring to do likewise, “This new path requires innovative ways of thinking about scale. It is no longer sufficient simply to scale what works in an incremental manner.” Rather, it requires nonprofit leaders and networks to ask themselves a “fundamental question: How can we grow our impact to actually solve problems we care about? In short, how can we achieve truly transformative scale?” I left the convention appreciating the ways in which Braver Angels is rising to this challenge. I certainly wouldn’t bet against them.
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