Across the country, people are asking the same questions: How are we supposed to talk to each other anymore? What does “civility” even mean when fundamental values feel up for debate, and when bad-faith actors weaponize polite language to paper over real harm?
In a recent “Between Us” series inviting readers to share how they navigate polarization, one Seattle Times editorial writer described the erosion of shared facts, the rise of outrage media, and the way our feeds pull us toward conflict. She asked readers: Do you have any advice for working with people you don’t agree with toward a common goal? Or have you thrown in the towel?
Jillian Youngblood responded with a reminder that we don’t have to improvise our way through this moment: democracy innovations already exist, and they’re working.
Use democracy innovations
Around the world, democracy innovations have made problem-solving across differences possible, and they are expanding more rapidly than ever. Many individuals today are doing the hard work of traversing differences to find common ground, but they shouldn’t have to do it alone. We can institutionalize democracy innovations to scale their impact on our fractured political environment.
Consider the citizens’ assembly, where a government convenes a random, representative group of residents to deliberate on a difficult issue, then formally responds to — and often implements — the assembly’s recommendations. More than 700 citizens’ assemblies have taken place in Europe, Canada, Australia, Latin America and now in the U.S.
Or consider It’s Your America, a gamified three-hour workshop where participants wrestle with a tough issue and work together in small, ideologically diverse groups to craft solutions that have broad support. The conversations in this setting are wildly more thoughtful and productive than at your typical city council meeting or town hall.
Some cities have jettisoned the old “three minutes at the mic” public meeting, which set discussions up to be (often needlessly) adversarial in favor of deliberative public meetings, where community members and government officials can communicate and collaborate.
These innovations all have a few things in common. First, they are deliberations, not debates. In a debate, someone wins and someone loses. In a deliberation, participants work together toward a shared goal, knowing that they will not agree on everything. Second, they are facilitated. Critically, people in these settings participate as humans, not as politicized social media avatars. Lastly, they focus on a particular topic, which keeps the conversation solutions-oriented.
