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Three weeks after the 2016 presidential election, a group of 21 people came together in South Lebanon, Ohio, outside Cincinnati, to talk.

The group comprised 11 people who鈥檇 supported Hillary Clinton for president and 10 who鈥檇 supported Donald Trump.

After the contentious election, there was a question lurking under the surface: 鈥淐ould we as a country avoid a civic divorce? Could we build a more perfect union?鈥� says David Lapp.

That meeting marked the beginning of what would become a national movement called Better Angels, that Lapp and two colleagues formed to create friendly spaces for potentially unfriendly conversations.

It鈥檚 among dozens of such arrangements鈥攆rom weekly dinners to meetups to formal debates鈥攖hat have emerged after the 2016 election to look for common ground across the political divide.

Better Angels got rolling in 2017, with a summer bus tour of 15 communities between Waynesville, Ohio, and Philadelphia, convening a similar mix of people in what they called 鈥淩ed/Blue Workshops.鈥� A fall tour followed, from Washington, D.C., to Nashville, Tennessee. Along the way, Better Angels has trained 130 volunteers to moderate future workshops.

The meet-ups, Lapp says, are 鈥渘ot an effort to change each other鈥檚 policy views or political views, but we are trying to change our minds about each other.鈥�

鈥淧olitical polarization鈥� has become almost a buzzword, deprived of real meaning, given how frequently it鈥檚 deployed in national media. Slicing and dicing the electorate and the country into political tribes, oversimplifying entire state populations by assigning each a single color, and reducing national elections into contests over specific census tracts in a few key states have led to a widely shared view that the United States no longer is united around common principles.

Much has been made of the effect of social media on politics, too. Nearly , researchers found in 2017. Given how social media algorithms serve us with content that we like (or 鈥渓ike鈥�) and shelter us from what we don鈥檛, that鈥檚 unlikely to change on its own.

That鈥檚 where Better Angels comes in. In addition to Lapp, who is a scholar at the Institute for American Values, the co-founders were David Blankenhorn, the founder of the Institute, and Bill Doherty, professor and director of the Couples and Family Therapy Program at the University of Minnesota.

The name was borrowed from the final line of in 1861, given on the eve of the Civil War as a plea for unity when seven Southern states had already seceded: 鈥淭he mystic chords of memory 鈥� will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.鈥�

That assumption鈥攖hat everyone has the potential to act in a more civil manner鈥攊s what drives the group and its outreach to everyone from die-hard Trump supporters to left-wing progressive activists.

鈥淎 lot more people are interested in working with people on the other side politically than our stereotypes would represent,鈥� Lapp says. He says the group is intended to reflect the entire spectrum of Americans鈥� political convictions.

Centrists also are welcome, he says, but 鈥淲e are not a centrist organization.鈥�

Several early participants in the Better Angels workshops would agree. Ray Warrick is a Tea Party organizer, who describes himself as a strict conservative: 鈥淩epublicans, by and large, aren鈥檛 conservative enough for me.鈥� He has participated in several workshops in the Warren County, Ohio, chapter, where he says the discussions are civil and work to break down barriers.

鈥淚鈥檝e often felt, you don鈥檛 hate people who you know, and I鈥檝e had liberal friends for years,鈥� Warrick says.

And it turns out there are areas of agreement that transcend party membership. 鈥淭here鈥檚 pretty solid consensus that A, the politicians aren鈥檛 serving us, and B, the money in politics makes it wholly corrupt,鈥� he says.

On the other side is Rob Weidenfeld, a self-described pro-life Democrat who credits Better Angels for opening his eyes to how he was behaving, especially online. He and one of the Republicans in the Warren County group formed a pact of sorts to check each other on Facebook, giving likes to constructive posts or frowns to divisive ones.

鈥淚f you actually spend time with these people and talk to them, you realize they鈥檙e actually not that different from you,鈥� Weidenfeld says.

Diana Mutz, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania who has studied the mechanisms of political polarization, says that a lot of the divisiveness is made worse by lack of contact between different groups.

鈥淲hen politics is sort of at the forefront of mind all the time, it makes these cross-cutting relationships harder,鈥� Mutz says. She is author of the 2006 book, Hearing the Other Side: Deliberative Versus Participatory Democracy.

Civic life wasn鈥檛 always so politicized, and there have been times when, even during fraught periods, the polarization didn鈥檛 seem so extreme, she says. She recalls that when President Richard Nixon resigned, most Republicans, including her father, agreed with the Democrats that the president had committed acts that warranted his removal from office.

There’s pretty solid consensus that A, the politicians aren’t serving us, and B, the money in politics makes it wholly corrupt.

Ray Warrick, a Tea Party organizer

It鈥檚 different now, with disagreements even over what is considered objective reality. 鈥淲ill that happen again, or will Republicans and Democrats just deny what the other side said?鈥� she says.

Getting past that may mean taking a step back from politics.

That鈥檚 the reasoning behind an initiative launched as an outreach project by KUOW-FM, an NPR-affiliated radio station in Seattle, whose listenership, like the city, tends to skew left. Called 鈥淎sk A鈥�,鈥� the project brought about 10 people into the studio to talk to another 10 individuals who have been misunderstood in broader society.

The goal of the events, titled 鈥淎sk a Muslim,鈥� 鈥淎sk a police officer,鈥� 鈥淎sk a Trump supporter,鈥� and so on, was to provide a series of conversations in an environment that focused on understanding rather than argument.

Ross Reynolds, the station鈥檚 executive producer of community engagement, says the spark of the idea came in 2015 when he heard then-candidate Trump talking about banning Muslims from entering the country.

鈥淚 kind of wondered if this guy had ever talked to a Muslim,鈥� Reynolds says. 鈥淭hen I wondered if any of us had ever talked to a Muslim.鈥�

The first 鈥淎sk a Muslim鈥� event was held at the station in 2016, focusing on six-minute one-on-one conversations, in the style of a speed dating event, between people in the local Muslim community and in the general listening public. That was followed by a shared meal.

Reynolds says, 鈥淚 felt like something had really happened.鈥� But there was some question as to whether the effects of those conversations were lasting.

He secured a grant from the University of Washington and reached out to Valerie Manusov in the Department of Communication to create a series of questionnaires to be given to the participants before, immediately after and three months after the talks. The 鈥淎sk A鈥︹�� conversations continued throughout 2017 and 2018, featuring groups such as gun owners, Special Olympians, Trump supporters and so on, usually depending on what is trending in the news, Reynolds says.

Manusov published the results of her study in the Howard Journal of Communications. The questions measured participant鈥檚 .

No matter which group was featured, she says, all three measures increased from before to after the event, and for all the groups, the follow-up surveys three months afterward showed that levels of knowledge stayed higher and attitudes toward the group were more positive than before the event. Empathy tended to rise initially, but it didn鈥檛 鈥渢ake鈥� as well as the other two metrics.

Despite the groups鈥� small size, the results were consistent with numerous other studies conducted over the years based on what鈥檚 called Intergroup Contact Theory, which was created in the 1950s to look at .

That was the case with Teresa Maxie, a Black woman who owns several firearms for hunting, but also favors more gun restrictions, such as background checks. She wanted to participate in the 鈥淎sk A鈥︹�� program because she felt it was important for people, including students in the national youth movement against guns who attended the session, to meet a gun owner who didn鈥檛 look the part. 

鈥淭he looks on their faces when we had dinner with them鈥攁nd there was [another] enthusiastic NRA member there trying to convince one to come out on the course and shoot a few, and she鈥檇 fall in love with guns. You could see on her face that she was completely horrified,鈥� Maxie says. 鈥淭hat impacted me quite a bit, and I feel impassioned about educating people about gun ownership.鈥�

Douglas Campbell, a gun owner who grew up in Alaska, said meeting non-owners and seeing the debate from their perspective changed his own, especially regarding assault-style weapons.

He recalls sitting down across from a woman who had grown up in a refugee camp, and listening as she 鈥渆xplains to me what guns symbolize to her, which is tools of state violence,鈥� Campbell says.

鈥淭o actually see another person who鈥檚 been deeply affected by this, and to see the disconnect where she鈥檚 fleeing violence and she comes here and鈥攊t鈥檚 creepy, is what it is,鈥� he says.

Those one-on-one interactions are what makes the experience so powerful for some, especially over a shared meal, which Reynolds says is 鈥渨here the magic happens鈥� during the 鈥淎sk A鈥︹�� events.

Overcoming positive bias is a challenge, in that, even once you factor in the local political environment, people coming to these events are doing so because they want to engage with people different from themselves. Not everyone feels that way.

鈥淐learly you can鈥檛 force someone to sit down and talk to someone else and you can鈥檛 force them to listen,鈥� Reynolds says. But he thinks that even people with strong views who come to these events might go back into their communities and share their experience.

Better Angels has turned that goal into a national movement, with local chapters in each state hosting Red/Blue Workshops and also a series of subject-specific debates on timely topics like gun laws. 

Everything follows the 鈥淏etter Angels Rule鈥� of including both sides in everything. 鈥淲e don鈥檛 even go to breakfast if we don鈥檛 have a red and a blue,鈥� Lapp says.

He says the causes of today鈥檚 polarization won鈥檛 go away after the 2020 election, regardless of the outcome.

鈥淩ight now, the source of the polarization is if you鈥檙e pro-Trump or anti-Trump, and that subject does come up in the workshops,鈥� he says. 鈥淏ut the polarization between conservative and liberal has been coming along for a while. Something tells me we鈥檒l still be around.鈥�