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Is US more divided than ever? You may be surprised: Tips to ease tensions

Former President Donald Trump was shot in the ear and survived an attempted assassination on Saturday in Pennsylvania. Some say toxic politics contributed to the attempt, but facts and motives of the dead gunman weren’t yet known on Sunday. Photo credit: Screenshot.

by Sneha Dhandapani (Bridge Michigan)

First come the thoughts, prayers and condemnations. Then, the finger-pointing.

A familiar political pattern is repeating after a failed assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump in Butler County, Pennsylvania. Hours after the shooting on Saturday, officials across the political spectrum denounced political violence and urged Americans to come together.

As of Sunday morning, facts were still emerging. Motives aren’t known of the 20-year-old gunman who fired at Trump and killed one audience member before being shot and killed by Secret Service agents.

Thomas Matthew Crooks was a registered Republican. He — or someone by that same name — donated $15 to a Democratic-leaning group on the day President Joe Biden was inaugurated in 2021,  according to news reports.

Trump is calling on the nation to “stand united,” while Biden also is making similar pleas.
But some of Trump Republican allies are blaming Democrats for rhetoric that led to the attack, and experts fear the incident will only worsen political divisions.

“America political climate is toxic,” U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Holly, and a U.S. Senate candidate, said in a statement.

“It become a zero-sum contest using the language of war to describe people who have different political views. Violent threats targeting elected officials, civil servants, election administrators and members of the media are rampant and routine, and our democracy is at risk because of it.”

Trump is challenging President Joe Biden and the November election is months away. It’s already emotionally charged.

So what can everyday citizens do to help lower the temperature and ease tensions? Many are trying in Michigan.

Here what you need to know, as well as some tips.

Tip one: Know the data

Despite concerns that the nation has never been more divided, there actually plenty of consensus on issues, according to research from the American Communities Project at Michigan State University.

“For a country that often feels hopelessly divided, that is a lot of agreement on statements that center on government action in one way or another,” study authors Dante Chinni and Ari Pinkus wrote last week on the website The Conversation.

Even on hot-button issues such as abortion, immigration and wealth inequality, there general agreement among people of vastly different demographics, according to the study.

Chinni told Bridge Michigan on Sunday that voters have focused too much on candidates running for president, rather than their policies.

“We’re a very complicated country, and I think we’ve gotten lost in arguing over what it means to be an American, instead of trying to argue about what not really what governments are for,” Chinni told Bridge Michigan.

The research underscores similar findings from research groups that found, by and large, Americans are united in worries about government, a general desire to preserve the safety net and even basic gun reform.

The big disagreements come in “culture war” issues like gender identity, according to the MSU study.

Other research has found that people beliefs on policy are often based on who is proposing them, not the merits of the arguments. One 2018 study, for instance, “finds that the majority of Republicans agree that climate change is happening—but their support for policy solutions declined when presented by Democrats,” according to Greater Good Magazine.

Chinni said Saturday shooting may heighten political tensions, but also present an opportunity “to have a discussion about how the (political) temperature has been turned up too high. We need to turn it down.”

Tip two: Talk to each other

It not a radical concept, but demonizing political opponents is far more difficult face-to-face, research shows.

Groups like Braver Angels have formed since 2016 to set up meetings of folks from different political beliefs to “not change people views of issues, but to change their views of each other.”

The group has an active Michigan chapter, which has hosted workshops throughout the state, from Livingston County and southeast Michigan to Traverse City.

Braver Angels also hosts virtual meetings each month to facilitate conversations centered around the upcoming elections and other political issues. The group encourages individuals to facilitate their own “workshops” and provides tools to help structure conversations, according to David Johnson, the state coordinator of Braver Angels for Michigan.

Johnson has observed an increase in people interested in Braver Angel services this past year. “Even before the events of (Saturday), we knew that this election would be consequential and impactful in terms of: do we get divided even further?”

Vince Boileau, of Holland is a Braver Angels volunteer who has participated in Michigan workshops. He said they’ve helped him realize “there a lot more common ground…than what divides us.”

“There are people of different opinions anywhere in the state, it’s important for people who live in more of a left-leaning space to intentionally engage with people who lean right, and for people who tend to lean right, to look for opportunities to engage with people (who lean) left,” he told Bridge Michigan.

A similar group, the Civility Project, was co-founded by BridgeDetroit founder Stephen Henderson and Detroit News editorial page editor Nolan Finley. It sponsors workshops on learning to agree to disagree.

Outside formal groups, there always old-fashioned talking to neighbors or colleagues.

Experts say you’re likely to find more agreement than not.

Tip three: Limit social media

By now, there plenty of research showing that social media has fueled political polarization through algorithms that amplify extreme voices.

One 2020 study in the journal Science said media companies are  “intensifying political sectarianism,” fueling a “poisonous cocktail of othering, aversion, and moralization (that) poses a threat to democracy.”

To be sure, Americans were becoming more divided long before social media, but another 2020 study in the American Economic Association found that staying off Facebook for a month lowers partisan views.

And remember: America isn’t necessarily what you read online. Despite the seeming ubiquity of social media, far more Amercians don’t use sites like X (formerly Twitter) or Instagram than do.

by Sara Swanson

Sara Swanson is an editor, writer and a founder of the Manchester Mirror.