Repairing Our Partisan Relationships w/ Bill Doherty

the Golden Globe. After all we've been through. We deserve in orgasm. Cis I deserved? Welcome to Go ask Allie. I'm Alli Wentworth. This season, I'm digging into everything I can get my hands on, peeling back the layers and getting dirty. And for this episode, I'm getting really dirty. This is a BIGGI guys, this is a big episode. I'm digging into dealing with the other side, whether that's

blue or red. And as we're sitting down at the Thanksgiving table or around the Christmas tree or Manora, it's important we understand how to deal with painfully partisan relationships. Hi, Ali, my name is Jen. I have two teenagers and my husband and I live in Oregon. Hey, Ali, Um, calling from southern California. Hi. I do have a question on how to foster healthy relationships, especially with the political situation

going on now. I'm having a real sense of loss over UM, wanting to distance myself from friends that I've known for a long time, experience of feeling estranged from both of my parents actually, but I keep quiet so I know it's shutting me down because I don't want to fight with anyone. COVID is really shining to light that our values and the way we think and how we behave are really really different. I feel like everything I care the most about is political or connected to

politics in some way. I'm willing to be shut down because I just want to private. I want a good life, and the politics is making it impossible. Even my friends on Facebook it's um. I just roll my eyes, and it really leaves my conversations with my parents pretty impoverished. To not be able to talk about any of the things I do with my life. I don't know how to move forward. I've spoken with these people, have sat

down with them, I've listened. How would you move through this, I hardly know even where to begin, so I don't know what to do. Thank you by Lisa Jen, Anna von Cindy and everybody that's sent in questions and comments. This one's for you. Listen, there's no avoiding we are a seething cauldron of anger right now in our country. It's very difficult to foster relationships in this political climate, not only politically, but this rage about mask wearing and

how people are dealing with COVID. I know people that have given up relationships with friends because people feel that some but he is not taking COVID seriously. People get angry at fellow parents or neighbors or friends they're wearing their masks or they're not wearing their masks, or their social distancing, or they're not social distancing. Listen, it's it's the wild West right now in our country, and people cannot find a way to come together. So how do

we deal with all this? How do we deal with all this vitriol and anger at one another? And that's why I want to dig into the subject. It's digging with filthy fingers, but it's got to be done. So our guest is the person who's gonna come in and help us with this. Dr Bill Doherty he's a professor in the Department of Family Social Science at the University of Minnesota, where he directs the Minnesota Couples on the

Brink Project. Following the US presidential election, he co founded Braver Angels, a citizen initiative to counteract political polarization and restore the frank social fabric in American society. He's also a practicing marriage and family therapist and co founder of the Doughty Relationship Institute. He's a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Family Therapy Academy and Dear God,

we need Bill. Bill. Welcome to go ask Ali. So first of all, everything I want to talk to you about today could probably take a good nine hours, so we will limit it. I want to start off by saying that I grew up in Washington, d c. During the seventies and eighties, and my parents were all involved in political journalism, and I remember as a kid my parents would have dinner parties and there would be Republicans and Democrats together, you know, White House insiders, Bob Wouldward,

Carl Burnstein, everybody there. And I also would hear stories about how, you know, the Speaker of the House, we're getting a huge fight with Congress. They all scream and yell each other, and then all you know at the time it was tip O'Neill. All go out for beer and oysters afterwards. So growing up in DC, my feeling was, you know, you can have opposing views, but at the end of the day, everybody goes out for oysters and beer together. And now, dear God, what's happening on our country.

It is worse than the hat Fields in the McCoy's. Let's start with the fact that you are a couples therapist amongst a million other things. Have you found that all your couple therapy research and work has informed how you now deal with the Blues versus the reds? Yeah, nowadays, if people went up for beer, the Conservatives would have bud light and the Liberals would have a craft beer. Right, so we don't even drink the same beer and oysters

is pretty upper crust, So let's just start there. But that leads me to say that we have taken political phil aleation political beliefs, and they have become core parts of our identity such that we become strangers to each other. Yes, it used to be that politics was you know, I had to put on and off. You could put it off sometime, right, you know, change clothes and when we both change close We're now just regular people. But we have sorted ourselves into these identity silos, and my goodness,

when they come into like a marriage. The therapists are seeing things that we've never seen. I've been doing this work for over forty years, never seen people split and threatened divorces over who they voted for in the last election. I have so many friends who don't speak to a parent or got divorced, or there have a fractured relationship with a kid over politics. And while Donald Trump is no longer in office, the divisions are still growing and

they're still fracturing relationships today. My question to you is is it political or is it just an undercurrent of kind of human issues that we've always had. They've just been ignited. Well, we always tend to divide, we tend to tribalize. Okay, yes, look at that. You know the hundred years war in Europe over Catholic and Protestant. Catholic and Protestant is no longer a big division issue in the US. Okay, it's still in Ireland, but it's not here.

So at different times in history, different aspects of our identity become more prominent, and then we divide from one another. So there's a way in which this is human nature. But it has now in our country over the last third years, so not just since since Trump. We have crystallized ourselves into warring factions over our politics and it's very dangerous for our country. We can't get anything done. I mean, do you think it's the polarization of wealth

in our country? I mean, what do you think has has spawned us? Well, many many factors that the political scientists look at, many way, income, inequality. Whenever you get that, you get more division, you have more social media the Internet have been huge in this. Everybody agrees on that one. The proliferation of news outlets so that now you can get your news from an outlet that that will only feed your own views of the world. Just more economic insecurity,

in a more competitive world. Just many, many factors have fed this. And it's not just in the US, It's happening in other countries. A lot of historians think that we are more polarized now politically than we've been at any time since the Civil War. I think that's true. I mean, besides the politics, to the subgroups of rage around the country right now, are are the schools opening, the masks, the vaccinations. I mean, I've never seen so

much victual and anger about this fight on online. I've seen you know, parent teacher meetings or school meetings, and these parents are enraged on both sides, enraged. Or you see documentaries right now where you know, people are fists and punches over wearing a mask or not. And I just think, what is all this anger about. Well, some of it is about the stress of this COVID pandemic.

So yes, let's just keep that in mind. You know, violent crime is up everywhere, and parents are doing verbal violence and you know sometimes physical Look what's happening on airplanes. So we've been under massive stress as a country. And then whenever an issue becomes polarized around politics, whenever it becomes what I call colorized red or blue, we can't deal with it anymore. So masks, all this stuff with Trump wear a mask and making fun of masks and

other people wear a mask. The vaccine, social distancing. I was I was at a small town and color out of recently and on a store has said masks not welcome here, and then it said don't be a mask hall okay. And so you know somebody's politics there with some people. Some people never want to go along with what the government says. I mean, nine eighteen there were massive you know that people didn't like like masks and

social so there's always a residual on this. But then you add in politics, you add in core identity, and then you add in our perpetual debate about the role of the federal government. And so for a lot of people, the masks are about the government telling people what to do. Then you're a big government person if you want that. And then of course that would be the red side of this, and the Blues come across completely arrogant, telling everybody their bunch of idiots and and Neanderthals, and that

just feeds the frustration. Intention So do you think this kind of tribal warfare is cyclical? Do you think it's just something that human nature does. After a certain amount of time, History would say, we go through periods of increased tension, often at least a war That's what I'm worried that if we can't deal with our differences peacefully, we fight. This is what we do as humans, and so we have to be very very careful about this

this time we're in now. I mean, I think about it in terms of sort of everything you talk about in your background. And I've said this to my husband that I sometimes feel like our relationship, meaning Americans, is getting worse and worse, and we might have a very

contentious divorce which looks like civil war. I mean, I know that's an extreme idea, but if it seems like we're getting further apart and not coming back together, we have a kind of Cold war now, okay, And in the Cold War, the other side were enemies and you do whatever you have to do. Live cheat steel is something huge. When people on the other side are not just opponents their enemies, we can justify almost anything, right.

Oh gosh, all right, So figure show suggest that American voters felt largely misunderstood by voters from the other side. So husband and wife come to you and they say, we're just not getting along. We every time we go anywhere near politics, we start screaming at each other. I do want to say right now. I remember when George worked in the Clinton campaign, Mary Mattlin and James Carvil, who were from opposing parties, ended up having an affair

and getting married, and they're still married. So there is there, at least in the old days, there was hope for that kind of thing. But but how do you deal with a couple that comes into you and says, um, I can't love this person anymore. Well, the first thing I want to find out is when did this become a problem. When did their political differences become a problem. Because usually when they dated, they knew where each other were, and they may have gotten along okay for quite a

long time. So why now, right, Because if if you're dating somebody and you don't like their politics, you just say goodbye. Right, So they formed a love relationship, maybe they had kids, and it may be in fact, what I've seen clinically, it's it's apt to have spiked around the time of Donald Trump's rise and to elections with him. So you want to kind of pinpoint why differences that they handled before they can't now. And usually it's one person who is leading the conflict, if you will, it's

usually somebody finds the other's politics unacceptable now. And what I have to say is it can go both ways. I've seen it both ways. But more commonly it is a Democrat somebody leaning more liberal, who when their spouse says they support the President Trump support now the Republican Party, that that now becomes a huge obstacle for that other person, And so one of the things I try to do with them is help them disconnect their spouse from Trump

or from Pelosi, or for some politician. You are not married to that politician, but you can undo your marriage if you over identify that person with that politician. So it's justically not both. It's usually somebody says you're no longer acceptable to me. It seems like with blue and red and couples, somehow there's a loss of empathy, meaning

there's a loss of understanding from the other side. I know that when I see parents get enraged and fight each other at these school meetings that you'll see on

the news or in YouTube. I try to have empathy for both sides and think these people believe they're doing the best thing they can for their children, and so when I start from there, I'm not enraged, but so you start with that, with the kernel of when you started your relationship, you loved each other, and the politics I mean, wasn't the reason you fell in love, so it probably shouldn't be the reason you fall out of love. Where I start is with that they fell in love.

But then the next thing is what they have in common. Underneath the political differences, there's often a lot in common. They both care about the next generation of children. They both want Americans to have good health care, want our country to be safe. Just take divisions over policing, for example. Everybody wants safe communities. Safe community a good for everybody, including the place. So what happens is people get caught up in their differences, and by the way, this happens

in marriage a lot. You know, we could be common in our values, but oh my goodness, one of the things I try to do is to help them get to their level of values, their aspirations for people, for their fellow citizens, for the country. And they're usually not strangers there. Although they may have different views about how we get to good education for our children, they may have views of strongly different views about how much the

government should be involved in solving problems. So help them identify a you fell in love and be there's common values that you have. You help them articulate those. Now you have a basis for talking about differences. It's easier to have now empathy for you supporting somebody who I am appalled by if I have first done the exercise in understanding how we are connected. Let me ask you about a different kind of relationship. I have an abundance

of friends who aren't speaking to their parents. So their parents, who are in their eighties, they're not speaking to them because of their political views, and both sides can't deal with it. And rather than and I'm talking about the people in my generation, rather than looking for the empathy, they've just said I can't deal with my father or I can't deal with my mother, and so now there's just no relationship at all. They're not speaking. So how

do you address that. Well, it's tragic when that happens. I mean, the grandkids get cut off and this is terrible stuff. And so here's what we call the prime directive in the family dynamics and politics. The prime directive is don't try to change another family member. Don't try to change them. You can only change yourself. And so what happens is people say it's unacceptable to me that you have these beliefs, and I can't feel emotionally in

equilibrium unless this person I love changes their mind. Well, that's on me. That's on me. Now. Behavior is another thing. I mean, I don't have to sit for your tirades about you know, politics. I don't have to let you lecture me. I can deal with that, okay, like, no, we're not going to do that. You know. I don't want to get into this discussion with you. No others.

I can set boundaries around behavior. But the underlying thing is what's driving and that is that I can't live with the fact that you're that different from me, right, that your beliefs upset me so much because you're my parents. That's a lack of what we call self differentiation self regulation. So the beginning part is, don't try to change somebody except that this is who they are now, while setting some limits on what you'll talk about if it's too difficult.

And what if you have a parent or sibling and they've just been eaten up by extremism and Q and on and everything, and it's it's so extreme and by the way, on each side, Um that you can't even get to any middle ground with them. You can't even get to you know, Okay, we're thinking differently. Let's come to the table with uh, you know, a sense of values or are certain things that we both think about

in life when somebody is again in the extreme. I have actually know somebody that had a colleague he worked with who was very deeply ensconced in Q and on and you know, believed that Hillary Clinton drank infant blood and everything. And he got fired for it because his coworkers didn't know how to work side by side with somebody with such extreme ideas. I mean, what's to say that he's not quote unquote allowed to have his ideas and everything. But their feeling was it was a toxic workplace.

It's not the beliefs, it's the behavior that is the problem. I could be working side by side or have a relative who believes in the flat earth theory and and that the world's going to end in eighteen months because the universe is going to call laps. Okay, as long as that person is not haranguing me with that and telling me I'm an idiot for not you know, just quitting my job and enjoying myself. That's not a problem.

The problem is the behavior, not the beliefs, And so we can set limits on behavior as opposed to this idea, Allie, that somehow everybody in my life should want to come to the middle with me. Now, I'm the sort of person I always want to find the middle ground, unless not everybody's that way, And particularly if you have really extreme beliefs, you feel that the middle ground is compromising.

It compromises your integrity, it compromises the truth. Okay, So there's some people who do not want to reason with you and go to the middle ground. Accepting that if it's a loved one, Okay, if it's a friend, well I just their next friend for a while until they calm down. But if it's a loved one, I have to accept that that's where they are, that we're not going to ever, at least for the time being, have a rational conversation because they're trying to convince me, you know,

that I'm wrong. So hey, I'm not going to try to talk them out of it. Just give that up. Give that up. Okay. So if I'm engaging in conflict where they're trying to change me, and I'm trying to change them. I'm part of the problem. So how do I accept they're in a whole other world in terms of their beliefs. I'm not going to try to change them, but I am going to tell them that they can't keep bringing this up. So coming over, you know, be invited to your granks his birthday party. And here's the

ground rule. Ground rules. We're not going to talk about politics, because every time we get in there we have a big fight. But you know, it's how I said that. I said we're not going to talk with poxes. I did not say it's because you are so darned unreasonable, right, No, I didn't say that. I said we get into arguments and I don't want to have that at my party. You're welcome to come, you know, with that understanding, it's like, you know, welcome to come, and you may smoke, but

you can't smoke at my house. But I'm not saying what you're you're dirty smoker, right, because that pushes that that makes me and it's how aganist. So my point is that we do not have to be antagonists with family members and loved ones who even have extreme views, but we don't let ourselves get pushed around by them either, which is great. You just kind of have to leave it at that. Let's not talk about politics period. There's a lot more to come after this short break. Welcome back.

So now I want to talk about Braver Angels because you're you're helping liberals and conservatives understand each other, which to me is the biggest couple therapy marathon in the world. So can you sort of tell us a little bit about the history of Braver Angels, why you started it, and what you're doing. Well, we started really just on

a whim. It was about ten days after the two thousand sixteen elections, and two colleagues of mine, David Blankenhorn, New York City David Lapp, who lives in Southwest Ohio. We're on the phone talking about how people in their various hometowns were feeling after the election. Upper East Side of Manhattan. It was a funeral, okay, a stressful funeral, and in Southwest Ohio, hope and change dancing in the streets.

And they decided just impulsively that they would try to get ten Hillary Clinton voters and tin Donald Trump voters together for thirteen hours over a weekend in southwest Ohio in December, like you know, three weeks later, and then they called me and I said, WHOA, that's that's pretty brave. What were you thinking of doing with them? And they said they didn't know, but they thought I could figure that part out. And I remember thinking, well, I hope I'm not free that weekend. I hope I'm not free

that week I'm sorry, guys, but I was. And so we got together. The goals were to understand and each other beyond stereotypes, see if they could find some common ground with a ground rule, nobody's here to convince anybody to change their mind. We're here to speak our minds, listen to others, and not trying to change anybody. And so we had a powerful experience. It began with asking people why they came and and they said, we can't

run a community with all this divisiveness. We have schools to run in hospitals and roast the bills and all that. We just can't keep fighting each other. So we thought it was going to be a one off, but they didn't want to stop, and we decided together we had something here. We had to keep going and that that's how Brave Angels got started. In a Braver Angels workshop, you kind of and I'm doing this in a very simplistic way, but you kind of break it down into structures.

So take us through that. The first one is kind of a one on one conversation. So we have a Red Blue workshop, which is our cornerstone workshop. It's a set of structured activities. And the first activity is what we call all the Stereotypes activity, and that is that in separate rooms, Reds and blues separate rooms. They're about seven or eight people on each side on this and they're all strangers, right, they don't know each other. They're

all strangers. They come up with the top four negative, false, exaggerated stereotypes they think people have of their own side. So what are reds think, Blues think about reds? What a blue stink? Reds think about Blues and reds the top on his racist. They think we're racist, they think anti science, don't care about the poor, militaristic, and Blues. I think that red think they're arrogant, elitist, into big government for its own sake, encouraging dependency, baby killers. We

encourage people to put it out there. What are the stereotypes? And then answer to questions. The first is what's true instead? If you're not racist, if you're not you know, into big government for its own sake? What's the truth? Then the second question is the humility question, and this is really big in Brave Rangel's work. That question is what's the kernel of truth? There's usually a kernel of truth in a stereotype. Okay, and so this is true of a subset of your group. This is this is a

blind spot of your group. This is something historical that's carried over. This is true of how your group comes across in public. So what are the stereotypes? What's the truth? And then what are the kernels? And then somebody presents this to the other side. And then when you're hearing from the other side, the questions you're gonna respond to first one to one and then in the large group, what did you learn about how the other side sees themselves?

And did you see anything in common? Those are our classic questions. That starts the whole thing off. It gets all of the worst stuff out but in a safe way. Uh, and it begins the process of trying to explain yourself and listen to the other side, and have you found that at the beginning when everybody can sort of get out the conflicts or the stereotypes about their positions to that sort of ease everybody then into having a constructive

conversation up. What it does is it gets the stuff that everybody's afraid to hear come out, and you get to see that these folks are more complicated than I thought, and they have more introspection than I thought, they have more self criticism. The next exercises a fishball exercise. So fish ball is you have people of the same group in circles in the middle. Now we do this online works just as well online, and the other group sits

on the outer circle. The group in the inner circle is going to have a conversation with the facilitator present the outer circle. Your job is to listen and learn how these people see the world and look for anything in common. And then you'll flip and the two questions in the fish ball The first one is why are your size, values and policies good for the country, And the second is what are your reservations or concerns about your own side? So the first one is lay it

out why is conservatism wise liberalism? However you wanted to find these good for our country? Say it. And it's powerful to listen to people who I may disagree with having a conversation among themselves. They're not in a fight with anybody. In other words, they're on the same team, and I can listen without having to respond. I'm not even making eye contact. I'm just like wow, okay. We

never get to hear that. And then the two sides flip, and then afterwards again the same questions, what did you learn about how the other side sees themselves? And did you say anything in common? And here's the facilitation process, Alley, very structured. Everybody agrees on this in advance. We stick to the question on the table. That's all we discussed. We don't have people going off on you know, they were wrong about that, So we manage the conversation to

maximize listening and learning and minimize arguing. And have you found that that people from opposing parties that come into these workshops do you ever see them go out for coffee or anything afterwards? Oh? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And then we have ways that people can join alliances, so we have braver angels alliances, Red Blue alliances going on around

the country. Some of the best conversations are in the parking lot afterwards, I would imagine, yeah, yeah, And what I think is so fascinating is that Braver Angels, you have a categorization system for different personality types when you're dealing with a political discussion. So you have a peacekeeper. The peacekeeper tries to avoid any hint of conflict and we'll shut down. Yeah, and we'll just not let anybody

else talk about conflict, right, Okay. So this is in our Families and Politics workshop, and we've carried over the same characters. So the peacekeeper, say, in the family, is the one who just don't talk about politics. You know, nobody to talk about politics. I was at a family event where a relative and I, who we different politically, We're having a perfectly good Braver Angels type conversation in the living room and scared the PBS out of somebody

in the kitchen who wanted us to stop. Okay, that that's the peace keeper, you know, it just gets anxious. But there's also these other roles we talked about. The gladiator, you know, that's the person who's coming to convince the other side of how wrong they are. Then the defender, and that is as soon as you say something about their favorite politician, they go after you. Uh, the sniper

is one of my favorites. Yeah, it's my favorite too. Yes, you know, you're having this conversation and then all of a sudden there's a zinger that comes in, like, oh, so, how's our favorite little liberal doing today. You know, you're you're back from college, right, and they're not really interested in what you have to say. They just zanged you. Yeah, they're usually in my experience, they're usually like walking into

a room out the other room. You know, they just kind of walk by and then throw a pot shot and keep going. That's right, and so and so we have strategies for dealing with all these folks. You know, you don't try to gladiate with the gladiator, but with the sniper. A little humor helps, right, So you're in the humor business, and so some things. I've a good one. Joy that was one of your better ones. Now just

sort of click it back on. But if you if the sniper gets your goat, well that's what they want to do exactly. And I think that in a family ecosystem, there is probably one of each, you know what I mean, Like I, I can already assign these two people in my family. So well, and here's ali, here's what we do in our workshop that we ask people to assign it in their family and then ask them to assign themselves. Okay,

that's the humility part. And the way we say it is when when you're not at your best, what do you tend to do? But by the way, the good role is what we call the engager. You know, we're I'm willing to engage. Listen, blah blah blah. None of us are there all the time. So instead of just sort of saying I live with all these neanderal family members, well, I'm one of them too, write and so when I'm not on my game, what do I do? I'm a sniper.

I'm admitting it. Your sniper totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so it's good so that the advantage of knowing is when it all goes badly and I'm processing it later, I can say, well, that's where I did my thing. And by the way, just discussing this now, I realized I think I'm a sniper in my marriage too. I mean I think that's when we fight. I think my husband is much more of an engager, but I'm a sniper.

But anyway, I'm wondering how much of our personality types in terms of political discussion is kind of how we are in relationships in general. Yeah, it's partly, it's how we deal with the conflict. Yes, we're going to take a short break and we'll be right back, and we're back. If you were in Rwanda years ago, how would you

do this with the Tootsies and the Hutus? Because I look at that tribal warfare which was political, and I think these are two groups of people that look exactly alike, that are intermarried, that you know, believe pretty much the same things. How did it get to be that these people who completely peacefully coexisted together, what was that pivot that turned into genocide? Well, and then look at Yugoslavia exactly. Yeah,

so I'm not an expert of this. From what I understand, you have stress going on, you have economic distress, other sorts of distress, so there's tension, and then you have a political leader who magnified, who says the source of your pain is this other group. You didn't even know it. I mean, look at anti semmotism throughout history. Okay, that Jewish is just going about their lives. But but you know,

Germany's understress after the First of World War. And then you find a scapegoat, so you look for escape quotes. The leader says, those people are the source of your pain and your distress, and we have to do something about those. I mean, by the way, it's right out of the fascist manual. You find the weaker group, or

you make them the enemy and the scapegoat. The idea of the scapegoat is that all of our problems reside on that it was just up to us, the world would be perfect, okay, and our country would be perfect. And so how do you deal with that? Not that I'm an expert in international relations, but I've looked at it a bit. It's kind of like how we deal with it within braver Angels. What you do is you

find leaders who are open two reconciliation. You find leaders who who all identify the gap as the problem, the polarization as the problem, not the other group. Uh, and then you start with them. I know you've gone to Congress to talk about braver Angels, but what's the goal. What would you love to see happen and let's say ten years. I'd love to happen in ten years is that at every level of our society, in our families

and our communities and our work settings. Uh, and among our politicians, we are identifying the enemy as the polarization, as the divisiveness, not the other side. Okay, So the dream is to have better capacity to come together across differences with respect and solve problems together. And I hope you know my worries that we in our country we're losing our sense of community. It's all going kind of online.

And do you hope to have a much bigger presence in in social media and the internet because that seems to be where a lot of the polarization is coming from. We have a number of social media outlets now we hope to grow even bigger. But we just finished the piloting about how to be an engager in social media around politics. This will be an e course and then

we're going to have skills workshop to follow up. We'll give you a red or blue inflammatory response and then you have to write out, based on the skills, how you're going to handle it. And then we're going to have forums where people can actually review each other's post if you will. And by the way, one of the

things I love is a therapist. Now when people talking about their family arguments on you know, on texting and Facebook, they bring them in and I look at them, and it's really quite striking how people were blind to our own inflammatory behavior, our own sniper behavior. Right we think it's everybody else. So I just want to emphasize again, we are all part of this problem, and it requires some humility about one's on side and not just attack on the other side or being patronized about those poor

dupes on the other side. Yeah. No, there's a lot of blame, blame, blame, blame, blame, blame, and I hope that these workshops and Braver Angels will bring the kind of empathy we need right now sitting here talking today, and there's what's going on in Texas and in Black Lives Matter, and I just think, wow, we are we are on opposite ends of the lake, and it really getting to the point where we got to both dive in and sort of meat at the raft in the middle.

And I'm so grateful for everything Braver Angels is doing. Yeah, can I introduce the Trump patriotic empathy. That's what we're promoting. I'm doing this work of trying to bridge these advice because I'm a patriot. Yeah, okay, a patriot. Isn't that our country right or wrong? Or just let's let's fight the enemy together. It's like, how do we come together? Because if we don't, we're not going to make it as a country. And that's a form of patriotism, patriotic empathy.

I love it. That's my new T shirt. Yeah, in the spirit of your message of empathy, I'd like to pass the baton. Would you like to turn us around now and ask me a question? Oh, this will be a gotcha question here? Ready, Yeah, I'm ready. So you've got daughters. I have two daughters, two teenage daughters. So how long would you recommend they have an engagement, a marriage engagement? Yeah? Because I read somewhere that you were like working on almost a world record for short engagements. Yeah,

I have a box of rings. Yeah. Um. Well, because I was engaged after two months of meeting my husband and then married six months later. I am a firm believer in a short engagement because I think when you prolonged the engagement. I know that historically it's about you know, really sensing and feeling if this is the right person. You give yourself lots of time. My feeling is you you kind of know when you know, and in that year or however long you know, you give the engagement.

It's too much time to fight over the dress, the cake, the venue. My feeling is, if you want to marry that person, marry that person. Um, you're gonna get a lot of mother in laws and mothers involved. It's just make it quick, make all the decisions quickly and move on with it. Well, my wife and I had a five month in engagement as well, see, and we just celebrate our fiftieth anniversary. Well, Bill, that's all the evidence that we need. That's scientific. That is scientific. Thank you

so much. Bill. I'm so grateful for everything Braver Angels is doing, and I thank you so much for coming and talking to me about it. Listen, I think everyone can agree that our country is in pain right now. You know, I do think we're losing our sense of community. And talking to Bill Doherty, I mean, who better than a licensed couple therapists to help our country get through this and again politically, no matter what side you are, no matter what you believe in, no matter what button

you wear on your jacket. I think that coming together should be a universal want and need in our country right now. And I think that Braver Angels has has the idea you know, of coming together, of having workshops. It doesn't mean we're changing opinions, it doesn't mean that somehow we're going to convert. It just means that we're going to sit down and talk and not lose the

empathy and the humanity to politics. And then I also think that you can implement this idea of communicating with almost every polarizing discussion, whether that be in marriage or discussions about race, wearing a mask, vaccinations, whatever it is, there is a way to come to the table with heart because at the end of the day, we all lived together on this wonderful ground of American soil. Oh

my god, I'm about I'm turning into a song. So I pray for our country and I pray for us all having the ability to come together with patriotic empathy. Thank you for listening to go ask Gali to learn more about Bill Doherty and Braver Angels. You can go to Doherty Relationship Institute dot com and Braver Angels dot org. Be sure to subscribe, rate and review the podcast, and follow me on social media on Twitter at Ali e

Wentworth and on Instagram at the Real Ali Wentworth. Then, if you have questions or guest suggestions, I would love to hear from you, call or texting me at three to three four six six or email Go Ask Gali podcast at gmail dot com. Go Ask Alli is a production of Shonda land Audio and partnership with I heart Radio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.