I realize I'm a talk show host and everybody's like you're a part of the problem.
But I'm actually.
Mostly nice, and I try to keep our discussions on policy not personal right, and I try to talk about the issues rather than the people, and I'm very purposeful about that, and sometimes I'm better than others. I'm certainly not perfect, and it's always a work in progress. But my guests right now are working within two different organizations with a similar aligned goal, and the first one that
I want to talk to. We've got Lori Leander from Braver Angels first of all, and Sandra Brownrigg from Restoring Civility.
But we're going to start with Lori because Lourie Braver.
Angels came onto my radar pretty quickly after it was created, and I've had somebody on from braver Angels a while ago. But why don't you tell my audience, who might not have heard of braver Angels, what exactly it is and what you guys do.
Sandra, do you want to go ahead? Oh?
Sorry?
I did you back?
Yeah?
Backers, Sorry, Sandra, I tell you it's the vacation brain. It's Jack. That's my excuse. Sandra brownrig is with Braver Angels. Let's try that again. Go ahead, Sandra, all.
Right, yeah, you I think you had. I'm gonna butcher the name. But Karen O'Connor on in twenty nineteen from Braver Angels. We started in twenty sixteen after President Trump was elected because we wanted to bridge the divide and strengthen our constitutional republic. And I got involved in twenty twenty two because I was volunteering within the school district in Douglas County and the political polarity was causing harm
to the schools, to the students, to the teachers. So I look for an organization that could help with that and I found Braver Angels.
Tell me, just tell me a.
Little bit about what the mission of braver Angels is, because it's pretty simple.
It's the largest grassroots organization in the nation dedicated to bridging the divide and strengthening the constitutional Republic. So we heal the divide. That's what we do. We bring people together to have scratchy conversations on issues like you said, versus assuming that people should stay in their echo chambers and mindlessly agree with other people who they think think like them. So we bring people in to bridge that
divide and have those conversations. So we do it through debates, We do it through workshops, we do it through book clubs and film screenings, whatever it takes to build that connection and remind people that we have more commonality than we do differences. And when we do have differences, how do we disagree?
I want to ask a little bit of a follow up, because everyone that I know who has been involved with Braver Angels has definitely been a right leaner. Do you have the same level of participation from people on the left.
I know that there are.
People on the left who want to have a higher level of dialogue, who have the same feelings about it that we have. Are you able to bring them into the fold for these events so we can truly that process.
Actually, yes, the up until the twenty twenty four elections, we had many more people who leaned left we'd call them blues than we did reds. Especially in Colorado, there was kind of an intentional desire to pull back from reaching across the aisle, and the Blues were leaning in partly because I think they thought they were going to win the election, and they really were trying to heal that divide, but then the election disrupted that and now
we're seeing people on each side come back in. The Blues retracted for a while, but they're coming back in. So at our event over the weekend, we had a balanced group of reds and blues discussing how skills to families and politics, and then we had a debate on gender, id and schools, and it was fascinating to see people come together and have those discussions.
That's very encouraging. That makes me very very happy because I don't think, I know for a fact, there are a lot of people on the left who are just as tired of the vitriol and nastiness. Unfortunately, the nastiest on the left and the right are the ones that suck up all the oxygen on social media and in
other places. So it gives the impression that there are everybody's on the same level of nasty, when I actually think a much larger section of people are like, Okay, we should be able to have a discussion and not you know, call the other person evil or or you know, the worst thing ever. So I'm actually super pleased to hear that, Sandra, that you guys have seen that rebound.
Let me go to Lori.
Lori Leander is a founder. Let me see if I can get this right of reclaiming civilitation, not giving you the wrong organization.
Yeah, tell me, I'm the co founder.
I have that. Yeah, go ahead. I'm sorry.
I have a business partner named Lisa Brandt who couldn't be with us today. But it's interesting you're talking about the loudest voices on either end, and we're hearing a lot about this exhausted majority in the middle, people who hired the incability and don't want to just complain.
They want to do something.
People who don't want to be afraid to bring their authentic opinions to the table for fear of losing relationship or repercussions in the workplace. And we're here to link arms with those people and teach them the skills to help them develop warm connection, to how fruitful dialogue over difference, and even to de escalate conflict. And those skills range anywhere from emotional intelligence to the power of basic manners like saying please and thank you.
I will tell you I My wonderful friend Deborah Flora and her husband and so many other wonderful people have created an organization very Douglas County specific. Right, it's called Douglas County Citizenry, same thing that you guys are trying to do. But the only reason I bring it up now is we went I got to moderate a conversation about this home rule initiative, and what I found striking was that there was oddviously people in the audience that are on the left, but they were able to get
their questions answered. And aside from some snide commentary from one of the commissioners that I thought was uncalled for, it.
Was a very everybody was open.
Everybody just wanted to learn right, They wanted to find out more, And it just really underscored for me what both of you ladies probably know far better. And there is this first there's this hunger to be able to have those conversations without worrying about getting socked in the nose, you know, I mean rather rhetorically or actually so now, Laurie, is your organization locally because I know Braver Angels is nationwide? So is your organization local or is it also nationwide?
Well, we actually said we are launching on July twenth. We're helping our launch event here where we're having an astronaut speak on stability in the space station, and we really want to reach out to our local community. But we're part of a nationwide initiative called jex Stivility, and we were actually part of planning two nationwide conferences. So all those events can be found on our website for people who are interested.
Now let me ask this question.
And I don't know if your better positioned, Sandra, or if you can address this LORI. It's easy to be magnanimous when you've just won, right, it's easy to say we need to elevate the dialogue when your team is in charge. Did you find a consistent number of people on the right, And Sandra, gus will direct this question to you during the Biden administration when they were not in charge, when it was far more tempting to drop
back into those sort of, you know, vitriolic positions. And I'm wondering because you said there was a little bit of a pullback after the election. Is that a natural ebb and flow? Do you think or can we get to a point that everybody, regardless of who's in charge, is pursuing these same goals.
Well, I think I'll answer that tangentially US. Forty nine percent of the citizenry in Colorado is unaffiliated. And so the interesting phenomenon that I've seen for our Braver Angels initiatives is that those unaffiliated come to them because they're nonpartisan. So we're having a debate on gun laws in July and a debate on religion in August, and they know that's nonpartisan, so they'll come to the event. They'll hear the speakers who may be partisan, but you have all
of the people in the room. So it's for the left and the right. It is about who's in charge as far as the willingness to engage. But it should be a math problem that everybody wants to talk to those people who are not speaking up, not being heard, to find out what they think. And I don't think anybody is just fully on board with whatever platform a party has put out there. We all have radical ideas. We might be what do you call yourself a concerned libreservative.
I got myself a liberservative for the last time I said I'm a libertarian. But there are certain things where I have gotten more conservative over the years after seeing the outcome of some of the truly libertarian positions I have definitely shifted on some of my positions, but I think I think there's a lot more people like me right who may be a liberal liberal know so then are just kind of a little bit squishy depending on which issue you're talking about right.
And that's kind of where I've landed, is that we use left and right so that we can actually categorize our stereotype people who we think are different from us right. And so if you suspend that, you simply come in and say, well, what do you think about us and such? Then you find you find alignment almost immediately, and from
there you can proceed to how you differ. So I've got something on my Facebook page, my personal page, about what happened about the bombing, and I've got people from all different political perspectives on there and they're having a conversation. And I look at that and I think, Okay, we need more of that, please, because it's civil. It's very definite, but it's still very civil.
Laurie, tell me about your event coming up. You've got an astronaut coming to talk about civility. And when I first saw this, I was like, it didn't even occur to me that if you're going to be on the space station for six months, you better be able to get along with everybody because talk about close quarters.
How did you get this guy right?
Well, it's someone that we know from the community, and he was on the International Space Station and had this you know, spoiler alert. He had this amazing interaction with the Russians over coffee, and so he tells his story, and the point is that as human beings, we have more in common than in contrast. You know, one of our heroes is a man named Daryl Davis. He's a black man who made friends with a Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and through that friendship.
The Grand Wizard gave up his position.
To date, Darryl has collected over two hundred robes, medallions, and hoods of people who have changed their mind because of friendship. So we really believe that it all starts with relationship. And no matter what side of the aisle you're on, people are craving that.
You know, I understand your question.
For Sandra, there could be.
A ping, you know, based on who's in charge, but I think it's just a general We're tired of this. Good people who really want to be civil. They want to treat people respectfully. So we're starting to see the needle shift and there's kind of momentum going, kind of a movement towards back towards We call it reclaiming civility because there's been evan flow all through history from the very beginning. We want to reclaim that civility that wants was there.
I think people are just exhausted, you know, it is. I have one of my dear friends is a left wing Democrat, and we've been friends since childhood. And when I say dear friends, like she's my ride or die on many many issues, right, But we have always been able to have respectful conversations about politics because we have a foundation of genuine love for each other, right, I mean, there's a deep and abiding love there. But at the same time, the way she consumes politics and news, it
is perpetually upsetting to her. And I think she's representative of a lot of people who are every day it's whiplash, it's every day.
What's happening?
Now?
Every day? What do I have to worry about?
And I love the fact that you are just focusing on the human connections because that those underpinnings. That human connection that I have with her is the thing that has kept our friendship going for fifty years now, because we're first and foremost, we are deep and abiding friends.
And I love to think that we're going to get back to a point where you're going to be able to disagree with a family member or disagree with a friend without feeling like you have to excommunicate them out of your life, which I When I hear of people being removed from other people's lives because of politics, I find that heartbreaking because there's nothing more hollow than politics as a reason to remove someone from your life. It really is in my view anyway. So I'll let you guys, Sandra,
You guys have some events coming up. I did put a link to both websites on the blog today. So can people join? How do they join your organization? Sandra, I'll start with you, all right.
You can join Braver Angels simply by going to braver Angels dot org. It's twelve dollars a year and we offer free workshops, free debates, etc. Our local alliance is the Colorado Southern Front Range Alliance, which is based out of Douglas County, but it goes all the way down to puebloam Beyond. We partnered with Reclaiming Civility to host two more events. We'll have one on the third Saturday
of July. We'll have Skills for Disagreeing Better workshop in the morning from nine to noon in Colorado Springs, and then we'll have a debate where the stopic is Colorado's gun laws unfairly in French on personal freedoms for two hours. We are looking for speakers pro and con whether those gun rights in French gun control laws in French. And then on August sixteenth, we will have an apolitical Skills workshop where we drill down on lap skills, which is listening, acknowledge,
pivot and perspective. And in the afternoon the debate is the First Amendment correctly prioritizes freedom of religion over freedom from religion. And again we are looking for speakers. It's a community debate, so we start with four speakers and then everybody can engage. So you can find that on cos turnewurl dot com, slash Civil twenty five or on Reclaiming Civility dot com.
All right, and Laurie, how can people do in reclaiming civility right, so just go to www.
Dot Reclaiming civility dot com.
You can also register for.
The Braver Angels events their sability on the space station. The registration link is there on July tenth, or if you're interested, if you have a small business or you're a manager, or a nonprofit or any kind of group that you would like us to come and give a workshop, you can reach.
Out to us that way.
Laurie Leander and Sarah excuse me, Sandra Brown Red, thank you so much for making time and thank you for.
What you're doing. I wish you all the success in the world.
And please let me know if I can support your organizations in the future. By just letting people know what's coming up, I think my audience would very much enjoy those.
Thank you man.
Thank you