Planting the Seeds to Nurture Cross-Partisan Alliances
This is a guest post by James Piltch at the Harvard Kennedy School. It was originally published on September 23, 2019 on Smerconish.com.
In the fall of 2017, I set out across the country to explore what Americans of all backgrounds and political leanings think it means to be a good citizen. In over 200 conversations, in 25 states, across 9,000 miles of driving, I was struck by how much Americans shared a civic vocabulary.
Recently, Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement (PACE) undertook an exploration of widespread perceptions of civic language and found, among other things, something similar: that Americans of all political backgrounds possess similar civic vocabularies, one that drives them towards action focused on service and community.
However, the report discovered a critical caveat that may explain why Americans cannot find common ground, even on issues they agree on and talk about in the same way. According to PACE’s summary report, “focus group participants didn’t put a lot of stock into the meaning of words as much as what they perceive to be their intent.” While people did have preconceived notions about words’ meanings (and those notions often depended on their background), the shared focus on intent suggests that context matters critically to how Americans engage with one another.
On my travels, I saw how the who and the when of my conversations affected people’s responses on a regular basis. The first time was in a conversation with Dolly, a diehard Trump supporter living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (who also happened to be my Airbib host). The moment I walked in the door, she told me she loved Donald Trump and pointed out her multiple copies of his books.
However, when Dolly and I sat down, and I had a chance to shift the conversation away from the news of the day, her words started to sound a lot like most other Americans I had met and would eventually speak with. She talked about the importance of understanding the “good, bad, and the ugly” of American history, and she praised the virtues of service and community involvement.
I believe part of what made Dolly’s candor possible is that my own politics and perspective did not come up for the majority of the conversation. When I asked her about whether she was a good citizen, she didn’t know that I was a staunch Democrat. As a result, I think she feared less that I might judge her, and so, she was honest with me.
After that moment, I tried to avoid sharing my own political beliefs or personal background until I’d invited my interviewees to share their ideas about citizenship and American life. While some likely assumed my politics, the fact that they were talking to someone who was explicitly searching for common ground seemed to encourage people to do the same.
This phenomenon was especially clear when I asked people about their perceptions of Americans on the other side of the political aisle. The first several questions I asked in my conversations focused on people they knew and (hopefully) liked. I would ask, “Are you a good citizen? If so, why?” Then I asked about their neighbors. With their ideas of citizenship identified, I then asked, “Do you think people of the opposite political party are good citizens?” My intention was to invite people to establish their ideas of good citizenship before evaluating the other side’s credentials. And by not revealing my own political leanings, I hoped to avoid respondents gearing their answers to my liking.
What I found was quite promising: of over 200 interviewees, roughly 185 said they believed people of the opposite political party are good citizens. On the other hand, almost 50 interviewees mentioned that they were concerned how their political opposites perceive them as citizens. In other words, the Americans I spoke with feared civic judgment from the other side more than they seemed to judge others. A recent report from More in Common delved into The Perception Gap, and found, similarly, that more than 75% of Americans believe our differences are not so great that we cannot find common ground.
The fact that people fear what the other side thinks of their civic contributions hints at concrete steps for people who want to engage across the aisle. The first is to not center conversations around national politics. PACE’s research found that Americans overwhelmingly conceive of citizenship as something that happens on a person-to-person level. Ideas such as “being a good neighbor,” “volunteering” and “serving others” were at the heart of their perceptions of civic engagement, while associations with state or national-level engagement were uncommon. Therefore, by focusing on issues that affect individuals — and brainstorming potential solutions that are rooted in immediate action and local politics — cross-partisan alliances can begin to grow.
The reason these conversations and the actions that might come from them are so critical is that according to both PACE and my interviewees, Americans feel that their civic engagement doesn’t impact political life in a significant way — that their vote and voice count for little. While building bonds across the aisle can ease polarization (a necessary step at this moment), efforts in philanthropy, non-profits, and local governments and from citizen to citizen must also focus on encouraging engagement and celebrating its fruits. Given the lack of trust in national institutions, Americans need to hear that and see how their efforts matter from one another and from people with power. The people I spoke with seemed willing to do the former. It’s the responsibility of the civic engagement movement to do the latter.
James Piltch is the Chief Research Assistant to David Gergen at the Harvard Kennedy School. His writing on civic life has appeared in The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, and The Chronicle of Higher Education, among other places. He was a member of the PACE Foundation’s Working Committee on Civic Language, which helped with considering and sharing the research described in this piece.
