Restoring Civility in our Politics (on The Middle)

This week Nick appears on The Middle, with Jeremy Hobson. The topic is civility in politics, and they're joined by former New Hampshire State Legislator Doug Teschner and Citizens Count Executive Director Anna Brown. This episode was recorded live at the Bank of NH Stage in Concord, NH and features audience questions and comments. Write to us at [email protected] to tell us what you think: is there a political middle? CLICK HERE: Visit our website to see all of our episodes, donate to the podcast, sign up for our newsletter, get free educational materials, and more! To see Civics 101 in book form, check out A User's Guide to Democracy: How America Works by Hannah McCarthy and Nick Capodice, featuring illustrations by Tom Toro. Check out our other weekly NHPR podcast, Outside/In - we think you'll love it! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 1:28Nick Capodice?

  Hello, everyone. Nick here. It is the holiday season, so I'm home with my kids and speaking very quietly and sledding and eating too many chicken wings and watching all the Home Alone movies. I bet you didn't know there were so many. So I thought it was the perfect time to share an episode I was in this winter of The Middle with Jeremy Hobson. Jeremy's show, quote, "elevates the voices of Americans who live in the middle, geographically, politically, or philosophically." And this was an episode about the state of civil discourse in America and civility in general. I have to say it was an utter joy to be on this show.

• 2:11Nick Capodice?

  It was recorded live at the Bank of New Hampshire stage in my hometown of merry old Concord, New Hampshire. But before I play it, I want to ask you something. So the last question that Jeremy asked each of us was, do you think politically there is a middle? And I really wonder what you think, Civics 101 listener. Is there a middle? Let us know. My mind is very easily changed. Just drop us a line at [email protected]. Tell us what you feel and don't let 2025 hit you where the euphemism euphemized. Enjoy the show. See you next week, next year, et cetera.

• 2:55Speaker 06

  Welcome to a special edition of The Middle in partnership with NHPR. I'm Jeremy Hobson, coming to you from the Capital Center for the Arts in Concord, New Hampshire. It has been just over two months since the assassination of the political activist and podcaster Charlie Kirk at a campus event in Utah that was focused on debating controversial ideas. And Kirk's murder sparked another national conversation about the tone of our politics and our ability and willingness to talk with and listen to one another, especially when we disagree. Now, we're in the state of New Hampshire, which is the center of our national politics every four years when they hold the first in the nation primary.

• 3:39Speaker 06

  The people of this state, which has been a swing state for the last few decades, are used to being around people with different political views. They're also used to having face-to-face interaction with national political candidates. But like all Americans, they're also on social media where it's commonplace to unfriend someone who's on the other side politically or start a fight that you probably wouldn't start if the person were standing right in front of you. So this hour, we're going to be talking about what we can do to restore some civility to our politics, our conversations about politics, and even just our interactions with friends, neighbors, and family. I am joined by three terrific guests here in Concord. Doug Teschner, a member of Braver Angels and a former New Hampshire state legislator.

• 4:21Speaker 06

  He's also the author of the book Beyond the Politics of Contempt: Practical Steps to Build Positive Relationships in Divided Doug, great to have you with us.

• 4:29Speaker 07

  I'm delighted to be here, Jeremy.

• 4:31Speaker 06

  And also joining us is Anna Brown, who's Executive Director of Citizens Count, a New Hampshire nonprofit that promotes civic engagement. She's also Executive Director of the Warren B. Rudman Center for Justice Leadership and Public Service at the University of New Hampshire Franklin Pierce School of Law. Did I get all that right, Anna?

• 4:46Speaker 08

  You killed the title.

• 4:47Speaker 06

  Good.

• 4:47Speaker 08

  Nailed it.

• 4:47Speaker 06

  Thank you. And Nick Capodice, with a nice short title, co-host and Senior Editor of New Hampshire Public Radio's Civics 101 Series. Nick, welcome to you as well. I'm delighted to be here, Jeremy. So, you know, this topic was actually the first one we did about two years ago when we started The Middle, asking people how you talk to people that you disagree with politically. But since then, there have been two assassination attempts on President Trump. There was the assassination of Melissa Hortman, the House Speaker in Minnesota, Charlie Kirk, obviously, many other acts of political violence in this country. Doug, I'm going to start with you. As a former lawmaker, how do you think we got here to this point?

• 5:27Speaker 07

  Well, thank you, Jeremy. And it's so troubling to see where we are today. Even the latest data is saying that 30% of Americans think political violence is even going to be possible and necessary. And we can talk about the social media algorithms, we can talk about conflict entrepreneurs, people who are profiting by dividing us, including foreign governments. And we can talk about people who are in silos, and these are just some of the things we talk about in our book.

• 5:58Speaker 06

  I'm glad you mentioned social media, and I'm sure we're going to get to more about that. Anna, how do things look from your vantage point? And you are also on a college campus at the University of New Hampshire. What's the tenor of the political conversation right now?

• 6:09Speaker 08

  Absolutely. So, one thing that I have noticed on the UNH Franklin Pierce School of Law campus is that our law students are surprisingly not very vocal about what's going on. And I had a conversation with a colleague about this earlier today. And... Obviously, pro-con, love-hate, there's a lot of unprecedented changes going on right now in the law. And the question is, do these students, are they just, is it just normalized? Since when they were kids, you know, was when a lot of this really started ramping up? Or is it because maybe there's a tone that's being set that, you know, for your professional, your future career, you know, you don't want to say the wrong thing, or step out of line, or get put in a box? So it's definitely something that I feel there's sort of been that chilling effect

• 6:54Speaker 08

  on our campus.

• 6:55Speaker 06

  They're afraid, maybe, to get in trouble by saying something. It's easier to say nothing.

• 6:59Speaker 08

  Yes.

• 7:00Speaker 06

  Nick, as we said, you host the Civics 101 podcast for NHBR. How does civics education, do you think, relate to this?

• 7:08Nick Capodice?

  I think it relates a great deal. Like Doug mentioned, when he said, you know, "conflict entrepreneurs," that's an expression that we should all be familiar with and should scare all of us. People who make money, people who gain power by breeding conflict among us.

• 7:21Speaker 06

  Is that just like every podcaster at this point?

• 7:23Nick Capodice?

  I wouldn't say that. In my opinion, a conflict entrepreneur is somebody who is, you know, let's just say hypothetically, making money hand over fist from seeing division happening on both the right and the left. And I wouldn't say every podcaster out there, but it is happening on social media, it is happening, everything we listen to. If you, wherever you turn your radio, you're going to hear these people saying, "This is an emergency right now. We have to take care of it right now." And that fear stops us from thinking about the stop sign at the end of our block, or local legislation, and lets us think about big things over which we have no control.

• 8:02Speaker 06

  Well, in the nationalization of our politics, you know, you talk about the stop sign at the end of the block. Is the stop sign at the end of the block, Anna, getting as much attention as Trump tearing down the east wing of the White House?

• 8:17Speaker 08

  I would say no, and this is something that I've observed in my own home city of Manchester and New Hampshire as well, and I think when social media first came out, Arab Spring, everyone thought this is going to bring everyone in far-flung corners of the world together, but I think that it encourages people to associate with things and identify with a community that is way too far-flung, instead of the people who are literally next to them. And there's data that shows, we are talking to our physical neighbors less than we were decades ago.

• 8:45Speaker 06

  Right, right. Doug, you're the politician on this stage, the former politician. Is there a difference, do you think, between the ordinary people and how they interact, and the political class?

• 8:57Speaker 07

  Well, I certainly think that's true, and I think a lot of people are disincentivized from running for politics. You know, when I was in the legislature, we used to have pro-choice Republicans, pro-life Democrats, but now you better still hold the party line, it's a lot harder. And also, people on your side are coming after you. If you don't stick to your side and stick to the party line, you're going to find yourself somehow lost in the middle, for lack of a better term.

• 9:28Speaker 06

  Why do you think that is? Why are people so toeing the party line more than they used to?

• 9:34Speaker 07

  Well, I think it's the power of the conflict entrepreneurs, I think it's the social media algorithms are pushing people to the side. You know, there's a wonderful report that was done, and it talked about how people on the extremes are like driving the agenda, but a lot of people are kind of not so worried, they're worried about why is so much going on with the extremes, and when people are not hearing about it from sort of the middle and those other voices. Nick, do people have to take civics in this country?

• 10:09Nick Capodice?

  Well, civics education is almost, you know, like everything in education. It's on a state-by-state basis. And what's interesting right now, the stat that I love telling everyone, and everyone should know it. In 2016, the United States spent $50 per student, per year, on STEM education, science, technology, engineering, and math. For each student, for civics, it spent $0.05. $50 to $0.05. Now, that number has been up to $0.50, not bad, times 10. But we have traditionally not funded civics and civics education in the United States. So it falls to the state level to fill those gaps.

• 10:47Speaker 06

  Well, Anna, connect the dots there. Why does it matter for the tone of our politics if people are not taking classes about what, how the government works?

• 10:56Speaker 08

  Well, first of all, it's going to allow misinformation and disinformation to proliferate if you just don't have some basic fundamental understanding. But I think it's also true that humanities, social studies in general, that's where you're going to learn how to disagree with people, how to make arguments in one direction or another, how to relate to stories you might not have heard before. So I think it's not just knowing the sort of A-B's, this, "I'm just a Bill from Schoolhouse Rock," but also these other skills that are part of, okay, we have to live in a society together.

• 11:30Speaker 06

  Well, and when we talk about this right now, obviously, we're not having this discussion in a vacuum. President Trump has called his opponents political enemies. He's called them enemies. He's called them worse than enemies. But Doug, doesn't this nastiness go way beyond President Trump?

• 11:47Speaker 07

  I think it does. I mean, we're accountable as citizens. We're allowing this kind of behavior. And this is where it plays into the social media algorithms. It's not just social media, it's the algorithms, because they drive you to the extremes, they drive you to fear. It's all designed to keep you online longer so that you get more advertising. But it's not really encouraging the kind of dialogue that's so important.

• 12:16Speaker 06

  Nick, one of the things that I love about doing this show is that we get to do topics that are not political at all. Look, whether we talk about artificial intelligence, or whether we talk about GLP-1 drugs. Are there things that you find that there's broad agreement on, even across the party lines?

• 12:35Nick Capodice?

  Absolutely. The one thing that I have seen in doing this show for seven years now that both sides agree upon 100% is that we need more civics education in the United States. Which is interesting, right? Which is very interesting because if you'll forgive me for asking, like, what's the point of learning how a bill becomes a law if that is not being practiced in front of us on the federal level? There's so many things that we learn in civics class, in the tried and true, like, I took it in 8th grade, that you don't see happening. Rules are being broken. If the Constitution is a legal document, it has been interpreted by brilliant and very wealthy legal minds for 200-odd years. We're gonna get to some confusing places where all the things we learned about in 8th grade just don't matter. And then our show, we're just gonna have to cancel it.

• 13:19Speaker 06

  Hope not.

• 13:21Nick Capodice?

  I hope so. I hope not too, Jeremy.

• 13:23Speaker 06

  Anna, what do you think?

• 13:24Speaker 08

  Well, it's interesting. I love digging through polls sometimes. And so you're talking about what do people find agreement on. And I love finding these gems in polls. We were just talking recently, in New Hampshire where we are now, there was a poll that came out just a few months ago that showed 95% of people in our state agree that we should ban stock trading for members of Congress. It was roughly 3/4, it was over 70% of people agreed in New Hampshire that we should have a bell-to-bell ban on cellphones in schools. So I think that there absolutely are areas of agreement that we can find and move forward on, but they're just not elevated. And/or, you know, they would not benefit, as you

• 14:07Speaker 08

  called it, conflict entrepreneurs, you know, in some ways, having division, having systems that don't work so well sometimes benefit people who are donating a lot of campaign funds to our decision-makers.

• 14:17Speaker 06

  Interestingly, by the way, banning cellphones in schools is something that has been adopted in both Republican and Democratic-led states recently.

• 14:26Speaker 08

  Including ours, yes.

• 14:27Speaker 06

  Right. As long as you're doing it to people under 18, I feel like they can do whatever they want. Like, nobody under 18 can have a gun. Everybody okay with that? Yeah, that's fine. Okay. Nobody can have their phone in school. I mean, it is interesting, though. Politicians are more than happy to make rules for young people.

• 14:39Speaker 08

  Sometimes that's where it starts, though. Think about with cigarettes, right?

• 14:42Speaker 06

  Right, that's right.

• 14:42Speaker 08

  It started under age 18, and now we have a lot more regulations.

• 14:45Speaker 06

  That's true. Yes, Doug?

• 14:47Speaker 07

  When you bring people from different political points of view, they actually find that they agree on more than they realize. People agree on more than the fundamental values of our country, but they're so polarized. And we just have to highlight to people that there's so much more that we agree on than we disagree on. And this is really essential to what's going to take for us to hold our country together.

• 15:11Speaker 06

  Well, stand by because in a moment, we're going to talk about what the rest of America might learn about how politics are done here in New Hampshire. And we're going to hear from members of our live audience. You're listening to a special edition of The Middle from Concord, New Hampshire.

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• 19:16Speaker 06

  Welcome back to The Middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson. We're coming to you this week from the Capital Center for the Arts in Concord, New Hampshire, in partnership with NHPR, talking about restoring civility to our politics. I'm joined by Doug Teschner, member of the Braver Angels and a former New Hampshire state legislator, Anna Brown, executive director of Citizens Count, and Nick Capodice, co-host and senior editor of New Hampshire Public Radio's Civics 101. And we're going to be taking some questions from the audience. But before we do that, let's talk about where we are, Anna. This is a state, New Hampshire, part of New England, which is a little bit different than the rest of the country when it comes to the tone of our politics. I'll note that New Hampshire has a Republican governor, two Democrats right now in the Senate, neighboring Massachusetts, recently

• 20:00Speaker 06

  had a moderate Republican governor who was very popular in that state, Charlie Baker. Now there's a Democrat in charge of Massachusetts. The governor of Vermont is a Republican. What is different here?

• 20:10Speaker 08

  I think that above all, we have this very independent-minded streak. Maybe it's because this is where the revolution started, right? So we were all kind of raised in this culture of being independent. But I also think it is because we have a much more face-to-face political reality, because we're smaller states, and because in New Hampshire, for example, we have a citizen legislature. 400 people, they're paid $100 a year plus mileage, so they're basically volunteers. So I often joke that Dunkin' Donuts and Market Basket are as much the halls of democracy as our state house, because you're probably going to know the person representing you. And we have the first-in-the-nation presidential primary, and growing up, everybody I knew, my own age, kids, would go see this or that

• 20:55Speaker 08

  presidential candidate. And I think that they're, that culture of like, oh, we evaluate people for who they are. We don't just vote the party line.

• 21:03Speaker 06

  Even though every other state tries to take that away from you every four years, but you've still got it.

• 21:09Speaker 08

  I will fight for New Hampshire.

• 21:10Speaker 06

  Okay. Doug, what do you think? I mean, you were a member of that citizen legislature.

• 21:17Speaker 07

  Well, I think, yes, we have certain advantages that we're a small state and a big legislature. I think we're lucky in this state in a lot of ways, but, you know, we have to work on it. We all have to work on it to keep it better.

• 21:29Speaker 06

  Nick, what about you? You, like me, are originally from the great land of Lincoln, the state of Illinois. Do you think that things are different here in New Hampshire?

• 21:37Nick Capodice?

  Oh, yeah. Well, see, I was born in Normal, Illinois, but I moved here. I got out of there at the age of five, and I moved here to sunny New Hampshire. I was absolutely shocked when I first moved, even as a kid. I was shocked at candlepin bowling, and I was shocked at the idea of a citizen legislature. The fact that we are one of the largest governing bodies in the Western world, 424 people for the state of New Hampshire. And it's easy for me to sort of, you know, poo-poo that and say, "Oh, that's just kind of ridiculous." But it is very cool to know that I can go down the street and talk to my elected representative. Can this be replicated in other states? I have absolutely no idea. But I do think you're not going to be able to have as much effect on a federal level as you are on a state level, which is why, you know, everything we're talking about tonight,

• 22:20Nick Capodice?

  including how to disagree with people, it's got to start with the people you're in a room with, and then eventually it can go to the broader, you know, online world where you're fighting with everybody else. But you've got to start local first.

• 22:31Speaker 06

  Right. I mean, Doug, one of the things you talk about in your book is that people are less involved in their local communities than they used to be. What do you think are the consequences of that?

• 22:40Speaker 07

  Well, I mean, this is one of New Hampshire's own. Robert Putnam wrote the book Bowling Alone, and another book, The Upswing, and it's just the decline of social capital. And this is a big, big concern. And he talks about we're an "I" culture as opposed to a "we" culture, and he actually traces this going back to the Gilded Age, the late 1800s. Up until the 1960s was the rise of the "we" culture, and now he's watched the decline again, starting in the 1960s. And what's it going to take to get another upswing? And so, it's deeper than politics. I mean, I think you see people giving people the finger on the highway, and you'd see...

• 23:20Speaker 06

  That's in Massachusetts, I think.

• 23:24Speaker 07

  Okay. But people, you know, more people are angry and upset and disconnected from people. And we need, it's deeper than politics, but politics is obviously where the front line of this battle is being fought.

• 23:39Speaker 06

  So, you know, we've heard a few times about social media this hour. And Nick, I want to ask you about that and the role specifically that social media is playing on all of this, because even if you're having a conversation now, and I'm a member of, you know, I have been a member in the course of my life of these Facebook groups in the neighborhood that you live in, which are like just cesspools of hatred towards parking and the local restaurant doesn't accept this or that, or how could the price be this high for this? It's like, that has nothing to do with politics, but it gets pretty ugly now, and that's your local community.

• 24:17Nick Capodice?

  Well, yeah, well, I love those cesspools.

• 24:19Speaker 06

  They're fun to watch, but...

• 24:21Nick Capodice?

  My next door is binging as we speak. But, I mean, I think it starts in childhood, and this is why I've always, I've been talking with my co-host Hannah a lot about how we need a new word for civics, because we hear civics and it sounds a bit dull, and we think it's how a bill becomes law. But civics is really just that. Like, being able to talk to somebody else, being able to respect somebody else. I was re-watching Witness the other night, building a barn together, right? So, like, things that we do together in our community, that is what citizenship is. The word citizen just means person in a town. Like, a citizen is just somebody who is part of their community. An online community is no replacement for that. I have a neighbor I disagree with every day, but he picks up my mail when I'm out of town, right? That is what civics is.

• 25:05Nick Capodice?

  Civics is second grade, learning how to share toys. Civics is everything that we do. And I think we need to sort of embrace that, and then that will lead to civil discourse if we follow a couple of rules, which are not being followed online.

• 25:17Speaker 06

  Okay, let's get to some audience comments. I'm sure that our New Hampshire audience is not going to be shy about coming forward to tell us what you think about this. You can just come right down here, and Zoe will bring the mic to you. Here we go. Why don't you tell me your name and what town you're coming from?

• 25:37Speaker 09

  My name is Lori Carey. I'm from Bosque, New Hampshire. First of all, thank you Doug. You taught me at Braver Angels, and I am a member. But my question is this: Should we get rid of political parties? Because is that part of what is dividing us? Wouldn't it be better if we were just independents, all of us?

• 25:57Speaker 06

  Great question. Anna Brown, I'm gonna go to you.

• 26:00Speaker 08

  Sure. Well, that's interesting because one of the things that I think New Hampshire does well, a little bit of our secret sauce again, we haven't talked about, open primaries, where you do not have to be a member of a party to go in and pick out the ballot. If you're registered independent, you can show up on primary day and say, "I'm gonna vote for the Democrats, I'm gonna vote for the Republicans." There's also a group in New Hampshire together that was, came up with this idea of, "We should have a ballot of all the parties together." So you can, in the congressional race, vote left. Maybe in the governor, you wanna pick out of these Republican candidates. So I think there are ideas to do that, that could, that are helpful, because certainly also in primaries, you get that extrusion to more extreme voters, more extreme candidates. That being said, completely getting rid of the parties, I almost wanna toss this to you, Nick,

• 26:44Speaker 08

  because I feel like there was so much writing among the founding fathers about the dangers of factions, but how also they're perhaps inevitable.

• 26:51Nick Capodice?

  Yeah, factions are, Federalist Ten, the Federalist paper, Federalist Ten, is all about factions, that they're terrible, and they are inevitable. As long as we have winner-take-all, first-past-the-post voting in the United States, we are going to have two parties. There's a famous law, it's not really a law-law, but it's a law, called Diversers Law, which is we are destined, in the way that we do voting now in the United States in elections, to have a two-party system. I would love to get rid of hyper-partisanship, but I don't think the elimination of the parties is possible unless we have a new constitution.

• 27:25Speaker 06

  Doug, what do you think?

• 27:26Speaker 07

  Oh, I think it's really difficult because the parties have ingrained, they're ingrained in the political system.

• 27:34Speaker 07

  And do I, I mean, I think things like open primaries could be, could be interesting. But I think it's going to be really hard to get rid of the parties from a practical point of view.

• 27:43Speaker 06

  You know, we had a guest on our show over a year ago who was the Senate, I believe, co-majority leader in Alaska, a Republican, very moderate, who said that she would not have been able to be elected if it weren't for the ranked choice voting that they put in place in Alaska that there was then a big movement to get rid of. And in fact, in many places where they put it in, the party that suffers from it ends up not wanting it. Nick?

• 28:15Nick Capodice?

  I just have a follow-up to that, which is, so the reason we vote on a secret ballot in the United States, we used to call it the Australian ballot. We stole it from Australia. But I think Australia could teach us a thing or two about democracy. Because they have ranked choice voting, they have very diverse parties, and everybody has a holiday for election day.

• 28:33Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 28:33Nick Capodice?

  And they have a democracy sausage, where everybody from different parties grill sausages and makes fun of the other person's sausages. Like, it's like a holiday with drums and pageantry and fun. I would argue that, you know, we took a lesson when we took the secret ballot from them, we should, you know, maybe consider some other lessons as well.

• 28:49Speaker 06

  Okay, let's go to another audience question or comment.

• 28:52Speaker 10

  Hello, my name is Chip Underhill. I live in Alton, New Hampshire. And I agree that politics is the front line of this conversation. I agree the politics is actually far larger than that. And the larger part is the morality and ethics. Two words I never hear used in this conversation. And I think that we, as a society, have abandoned any social contract. So if you are a parent, if you are a neighbor, go to the social contract. My God, what is ethical? What is moral? I've lost friends because they think I'm Democrat and they're Republican.

• 29:32Speaker 10

  I could be a Republican in five seconds, but the morality difference between the two is so extreme right now.

• 29:40Speaker 06

  Where do you think that that should come from? What part of our society can instill the morality and the ethics? Are you talking about a religious organization? Or like where should people be getting that from?

• 29:53Speaker 10

  Fabulous question. It starts at the top, and that's where it's ending right now. But meanwhile, on a local level, we're all so private, we're all so territorial and worried about our own investments and defenses, and we have given up. We've just sort of become numb. And I challenge us all to become more aware of the ethics and the morality of this, and make a decision based on that.

• 30:20Speaker 06

  Thank you so much for that. I'm gonna, yeah. I just want to get a thought from Nick about that, since you help teach people about the things they ought to know to survive in society. What about that?

• 30:36Nick Capodice?

  I thought you maybe saw me nodding along.

• 30:38Speaker 06

  Well, no, but I mean.

• 30:39Nick Capodice?

  A tear in my eye.

• 30:40Speaker 06

  Have you done shows on ethics and morality?

• 30:42Nick Capodice?

  Well, you know, not particularly, but what's interesting is we do a lot of shows on the concept of originalism, the concept of natural rights, and these things, it may sound like it's unrelated, but when we're talking, we're about to have the 250th anniversary. When we are looking at things like, what did the framers intend? And what did they want? A lot of the things they intended and wanted were moral and ethical things, you know? Natural rights, who are we? How to be kind to your neighbor? How to have a conversation with your neighbor? We are a nation built on protest and disagreement. That's how we got here. So to do that ethically, to argue ethically and with morality, it's something that the people who built this country would have wanted, and I agree, we do not see that much at all.

• 31:26Speaker 07

  We want people to look at your own values. Look at yourself. Look at your heart. That's where it's going to start. It's going to start with, are your values important to you? And are you living your values in terms of how are you treating other people across politics and otherwise? But it starts from inside each of us.

• 31:46Speaker 06

  Anna.

• 31:47Speaker 08

  I just want to jump in here because this is another interesting dynamic is there was a state legislator who put forward a bill a few years ago that was going to require a philosophy course for high schoolers. And when I first said this, I was like, this is going nowhere because like the idea of mandating additional things in high school in New Hampshire is not popular. But when I read the rationale, it was very interesting because he said, we are a very non-religious state. And so how are we teaching kids to evaluate right and wrong and so on? And so that really is really compelling to me. And I think that there's also, as you said, I mean Jeffrey Rosen from the Constitution Center just wrote a whole book about how when the founders talked about the pursuit of happiness, they were actually talking about the pursuit of these virtues in a very like classical philosophical sense.

• 32:31Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 32:32Speaker 08

  And so I think that there is something there about are we teaching our kids to value things if it's in the absence of organized religion, what does that look like? And also everyone going to church regularly, that was more of that social capital, right? So I'm not claiming everyone should suddenly start going to church.

• 32:46Speaker 06

  Right.

• 32:46Speaker 08

  But there's a piece there.

• 32:48Speaker 06

  Well, and I think one of the things that we've learned in recent years as sort of norms have been tested is how much of our democracy relies on people operating in good faith. That there might not be a law that says you can't do this, but we've just, that's just the way it's been done. So it's worked that way.

• 33:05Speaker 08

  Yes. So many of our checks and balances we've seen and guardrails have been about courageous people standing up and standing on principle in the face of others' people who are looking to erode that or trample on that. And most democracies fail not because of a military coup, but because of people working on the inside and slowly just taking power and people don't stand up to them.

• 33:28Speaker 06

  Let's go to another audience question or comment.

• 33:31Speaker 11

  Hi, my name is Cynthia Nichols. I'm from Grantham. I am worried about the silos, the silos of information that we're getting. And thinking about what you were just talking about, I wonder if we had more critical thinking in schools and more philosophy, people could evaluate that information better. And then the polarization of the way people are living, they don't understand each other's lives. So I'm an RN care manager and I take care of people on both ends of the spectrum. So people with a lot of wealth don't understand what it's like to be without that wealth. So basically, the silos. How do we bridge the gap between that?

• 34:11Speaker 06

  Doug, go ahead.

• 34:13Speaker 07

  Well, this is the key. I mean, and this means we've all got to get outside of our bubbles. I mean, you know, at the conclusion of our book, we said the most important thing you can do is go find somebody on the other side. Go ask them about their life. Ask them about their hobbies. Ask them about their work. And ask them about how they came to their political views. And then share the same. And we talk about this as changing the country, two people at a time. I just think this is so vital for people to go beyond their silos.

• 34:46Speaker 06

  Yeah, Nick.

• 34:47Nick Capodice?

  Yeah, just a follow-up to that. I absolutely agree, Doug. We were recently talking to a gentleman named Ben Klutzy, who teaches, I believe it's in Minneapolis. And he says, "To be able to talk to somebody with whom you disagree, who you might not even be in the same political frame as them, three rules must be followed." And they are like, "At-a-man-time, right? You've got to follow these three rules." Number one is respect. If I'm talking to you, I must talk to you with respect, no matter how much I disagree with you. I must treat you with respect. Number two is honesty. You have to tell the truth about why you feel the way you feel. Don't shroud it in some, "Well, I'm worried about this or that." Tell the truth about what you feel. And number three is curiosity. You can't fake it. You have to know why the person feels this way, why they want X to happen at a political level.

• 35:29Nick Capodice?

  If you obey those three rules, and nobody's trying to win, you will actually be able to have a conversation with somebody else.

• 35:35Speaker 06

  Let's go to one more comment here from another listener.

• 35:45Speaker 12

  Yeah, thanks very much. My name is Eric Turr, and I am one of those volunteer minimally-paid state representatives here in the state.

• 35:53Speaker 06

  Thank you for your service.

• 35:56Speaker 12

  And Representatives Manos and Korman are here as well. There's a conflict between what I think I hear people wanting when I go around knocking on doors, which is, you know, what are you going to do to lower the tension? What are you going to do to solve this conflict? We don't like the way it feels. And that's on both sides. But then you turn around to run for office, and, you know, the algorithms are all, as you said, pushing, you know, conflict. They're pushing, you know, division and... It's very hard to raise the profile, I guess, of non-division because it's hard to see. And I didn't know, maybe through shows like this, maybe through things like a caucus, but any other ideas for basically how to make non-division more visible and more shareable online?

• 36:38Speaker 06

  Can I just ask you a follow-up question? Do you find that it's difficult to be a braver angel in the legislature? Do you have a hard time recruiting other members? Do people want us, they find it's easier to be a politician when you just go to the extremes and do the clickbait and play the algorithms?

• 36:58Speaker 12

  I mean, I'll say so far, it's been interesting why people come to this, you know, because we're not a legislative caucus that takes positions on bills. So people come to it for whatever reason they're there. And I've been impressed at the degree to which some of our hard partisans show up at our events, just like people who you'd naturally associate with sort of the middle, you know. And so I don't think everyone has the same idea in their head about what this is. But I think they're all trying to find something better than what, you know, what they're experiencing. That would be, that would be my guess. And it was easier when our numbers were close. I will say that.

• 37:34Speaker 06

  Yeah. Stand by, because in a moment, we're going to talk about some more solutions. You're listening to The Middle, coming to you from Concord, New Hampshire, in association with NHPR.

• 38:16Nick Capodice?

  Have any of you out there ever Googled your own name, like actually done it? You'll find your address, your phone number, maybe even that police report from the time you went to see Rain Man in the movie theater, but you were underage? Maybe that one's just me. But here's the thing. There are companies called data brokers, whose entire business model is collecting your personal information and selling it to advertisers, to strangers.

• 38:40Nick Capodice?

  Sometimes to people running scams. And once your data is out there, it just keeps circulating. That is where incogni comes in. Incogni contacts data brokers on your behalf and sends them removal requests over and over. So your info doesn't just pop right back up. You set it up once and they keep working in the background. You can even track the progress on a dashboard. And for our listeners, we have an exclusive 60% off an annual incogni plan. Just go to incogni.com/civics or use the code civics at checkout. There's a link in the episode description. Remember, they can't harm you if they can't find you.

• 39:23Nick Capodice?

  Holiday season is coming and I don't think I have to tell you this might be a tough one because things are expensive in the fall of 2026. Everyone I know is looking for ways to make a little extra money. Prowling around the side hustle subreddits. But I will say, if you're looking to sell something to launch a store fast before the holiday rush, Shopify is the one stop shop platform for making a professional looking store without touching a line of code. You can sell anything and you can sell it anywhere that people shop online. You can have it done in minutes and you can launch before Black Friday, that time of year when more people are already shopping and ready to buy.

• 40:06Nick Capodice?

  So if you're ready to launch your business before Black Friday, go to Shopify.com/civics to start your free trial. That's Shopify.com/civics. Just go to Shopify.com/civics today to hear your first.

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• 41:27Speaker 06

  This is The Middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson at the Capital Center for the Arts in Concord, New Hampshire this week in partnership with NHPR. And we are talking about how we can restore civility to our politics. I'm joined by Anna Brown, Executive Director of Citizens Count, Nick Caparicce, co-host and Senior Editor of New Hampshire Public Radio's Civics 101, and Doug Teschner, a member of Braver Angels and a former New Hampshire State Legislator. Before we go back to the audience, let's talk about some of the solutions because I know you've all thought about this. Nick, on an individual level, what do you think people can do to have better conversations with people they disagree with?

• 42:02Nick Capodice?

  For me, the most important thing, and I got to give credit to Jen Marchia, who was in our episode about political framing. For me, the most important thing is that we don't have to agree on anything, but we have to agree on what we call something. For an example, you brought up the White House earlier on. If somebody said, if somebody referred to what happened to the East Wing of the White House this week, and they referred to it as a, you know, the people's house demolished and paid for by bribes from rich billionaires around the world. Somebody called said that, that person will never be able to have a conversation with somebody who says, this is an important, necessary upgrade to allowing our, you know, more people to come to the United States and visit, and dignitaries to visit the White House. Because, because one person says an upgrade,

• 42:46Nick Capodice?

  the other person says an illegal demolishing. If we don't have the word for something, you know, somebody can call immigration, you know, a human crisis, and somebody else can call it an illegal invasion. Right? If we don't have the right agreed-upon language for what we call, what we are seeing in front of our very eyes, we don't have a truth that we can agree upon that is right. Right there in front of us, there is no way that we can begin to have a conversation with somebody else.

• 43:10Speaker 06

  But Anna, isn't that now like rule number one for political strategists is just change the terminology? Don't call it, you know, climate change, call it something that's less scary to people. Or don't, you know, there are all these examples of like Frank Lunt's coming up with a new term of how we can describe something. So that it, you know, it's not partial birth abortion, it's, you know, you know what I mean?

• 43:33Speaker 08

  Oh, absolutely. I think that a sort of call to actions, because we're like, what can individuals do? Was the original question, I believe, is just be aware of your own language. Because it is true that the person listening to you, because our brains love shortcuts, right? For evolutionary purposes, you need to know, is this person a threat to me? Or are they a part of my tribe? So you're going to look for all of the cues to give your brain a shortcut to safety. So if you're trying to have an open conversation with someone, just try to make their job a little bit harder. Which, yeah, it's policing language, it's semantics, but this is, I think this is, this is where we're at. Is people have been given too many clear cues of, okay, if they said illegal immigrant, okay, they're, they're Republican.

• 44:13Speaker 06

  Right.

• 44:13Speaker 08

  They, they said undocumented asylum seeker, they are definitely Democrat. And sometimes when you're just speaking, it just comes out of your mouth and you're not really thinking about that in that way. But here's the other thing I will say, that if you want to have these meaningful conversations, you cannot go in with your goal to be that change that person's mind.

• 44:30Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 44:31Speaker 08

  Humans can, we can smell it. We can smell it like bacon on the fryer in the morning. And it just will not work. So it's, this sounds so hard and practicing this as an individual is very hard. But you have to, when you start a conversation with someone, you have to legitimately be open to them changing your mind. Or, or you won't find any common ground with them either.

• 44:52Speaker 06

  Or even just listening to what they have to say and being actually curious about it. As usual, my favorite part about this show has been the amazing audience questions and comments. As wonderful as our esteemed guests are, I want to get to more of these. So come on back down and let's, uh, let's do that. I also love the idea that I have no idea what you're going to say and we don't know where we're going to go with this.

• 45:16Speaker 14

  Hi, my name's Bert Cooper. I'm from Concord, New Hampshire. And I don't often get a chance to meet with people from the other side, but I did when we had a local issue in Concord that involved schools. And people from both sides of the political aisle felt that they had issues that they wanted to deal with. And it was a situation where we had to come up with a compromise amongst the group who were from political extremes. And, you know, it was one of the few situations where you get a chance to talk with the other people. The other opportunity for that is at the polls on Election Day.

• 45:58Speaker 14

  I volunteer at the polls as a legal observer at the polls on Election Day. That's like one of the few times I get to talk with the people on the other side. I mean, it's just, to me, I think the idea of having political events where you're there in person is really important. And I think the idea of having a national election day that's a holiday, that everyone goes to the polls, I think that would help in some small degree to get us talking once again. Because you'll talk about the school issues, you'll talk about the local issues, you'll talk about taxes. Then you'll find out, you know, there's other issues that are in common too.

• 46:41Speaker 14

  So I think we should think about that as an important way to gather the population together.

• 46:47Speaker 06

  That just reminded me of the other thing that we all have to do as our civic duty that makes us come together with people that may not agree, and that is jury duty, where, by the way, everybody has to reach the same conclusion at the end. So we have to actually be able to convince each other. Doug, you wanted to say something?

• 47:02Speaker 07

  Well, I just think citizen-led solutions, which is really what he talked about, working on community problems with your neighbors, this is so important. And it's part of the reason now that people are in so much in churches and Rotary Clubs. But when people come together to solve problems, it can be so important.

• 47:22Speaker 06

  Another member of the audience here.

• 47:24Speaker 15

  Hi, I'm Rachel from Lebanon, New Hampshire. And Robert Putnam came up earlier. And as we know from his work, social and community connection is an early link in the chain that leads to a strong civil society. And so to me, increasing social connection is a way to, an action that we can take to combat the us versus them mentality that we're facing these days. So I plan community events where I live up in the Upper Valley, which is New Hampshire and Vermont. And it seems like people are really desperate for something to do and for human connection. But still, some folks will tell me, they sit in their car and they're just anxious to come in to something like a happy hour, you know, which is pretty low key. And so it can be hard to get them to come off the couch, out of their car, and into these events.

• 48:08Speaker 15

  So to me, from my experience, I think that some folks lost like the muscle of being a joiner and going out and trying new things. And also, I think it's just, there's really real significant financial and family pressures now that make it hard for people to have their basic needs met, let alone to have time and energy after work to go socialize. So do you think that having a greater social safety net, so that people don't have to struggle as hard just to get through the day, would allow us to have more energy to invest in our local communities?

• 48:44Speaker 06

  Great question. And Nick, I wonder though, if we did have more time, would we just waste it doom scrolling on social media? Or would we actually go out and...

• 48:54Nick Capodice?

  You know we would. No, we really would. I mean, I spend way too much time on this. I was just thinking kind of wistfully, Doug, when you were talking about how my father and I used to argue about so much stuff. When I was, I grew up in the back of a Honda Accord, listening to Rush Limbaugh. And by the time my father died, he had an "I'd rather be occupying Wall Street" bumper sticker. So what he always taught me was the importance of being willing to change and being curious and just going out and having a good time with other people. I mean, that's not what we're here on stage to talk about, but like the abandonment of the third space in the world, not just the United States, is so depressing to me. The bar, the hangout, the after-school place, kids... Playing with each other in the playground like it if we don't have that we do lose that

• 49:39Nick Capodice?

  muscle we do lose that muscle and it needs to be strengthened and me playing slay the spire on my phone is not helping so I really I think we should all work out that muscle because if we do we're going to be able to talk to each other.

• 49:52Speaker 06

  I just want to bring up the fact that you know I know we all want to forget about it now that it even ever happened but we are just a couple of years out of a global pandemic that did change our ability to go do those things and that has had a lasting effect and I wonder if five years from now we'll be a little more back to the way that we were before the pandemic Anna.

• 50:12Speaker 08

  I just as when I was hearing that and hearing about you know people sitting in their cars and being anxious made me think of conversations that we have once again had at the UNH Franklin Pierce School of Law about how some law students are coming now in now and they're lacking some of those skills that you need as a lawyer to be really really social and stand up in front of a room and and answer questions on the spot you know and sort of on the fly like that and and so I don't think that's just law students right that's all of us I think that that was a deficit that all of us are up against I think about myself I've struggled with anxiety in my life and unfortunately the way out of that is to make yourself uncomfortable to make yourself do the uncomfortable

• 50:54Speaker 08

  things it's not fun but I think that there is and also it's uncomfortable to have a conversation with someone who doesn't agree with you to be in a room to play a sport you've never played before okay adults we hate getting embarrassed we hate making fools of ourselves and doing a new activity trying something new just like having that uncomfortable conversation we're gonna avoid it so I think I hate to say it but it's kind of on all of us to do the uncomfortable things.

• 51:17Speaker 06

  Let's get to another comment here.

• 51:22Speaker 16

  Hello my name is Dee and I'm from Kentucky New Hampshire I find it fascinating that we talk about bringing people together and one of the number one ways that I had students come together in my office was food because they have to be quiet and to listen when they put something in their mouth but at the same time it gave them time to think about what was actually being said and it was something that really brought them together to think and often sometimes it was just a listening learning experience for me and sometimes the moderation but mostly listening and I think that's a piece that we've been missing. But what I often heard from them was frustration because they were told things like "That might be your truth, but it's not the truth." They were told that they don't understand their world.

• 52:06Speaker 16

  And what was frustrating for me is I would listen to them speak and then I would listen to the adults that they would try to bring their situations and thoughts and concerns to, think about what is being said to them through the lens of how they grew up, the lens of their politics. And they didn't truly listen. Sometimes I think the adults needed to be eating too. So, my question is, how do we create an environment for the younger generation where we don't have to put food in people's mouths just to get them to listen? And what steps would you suggest?

• 52:38Speaker 07

  Well, that's a great... You know, one of the great books of our time is Stephen Covey, "The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People." And he talks about listening to understand. We don't listen to understand, we listen to reply. And we aren't teaching this in schools. Listening is so vitally important with humility and curiosity.

• 53:04Nick Capodice?

  We have met with teachers all across the country, specifically social studies and civics teachers. And if there is one group of people that is teaching America's students how to listen to understand, it is them. Like, they are doing the Lord's work out there. And there are people who are teaching them to listen to reply, and it's not the people in their schools. It is the people on Discord and on Roblox and then on YouTube that are teaching them to listen to reply, to win a fight as opposed to have a conversation. Let's get to another comment here.

• 53:34Speaker 17

  Hi, my name is Ross, I'm from Nashua. I had a question around, as it seems that we are moving further and further away from a shared reality within the United States about what is and what isn't important and what is and what isn't actually true. And we're also reaching a point where everybody thinks that certain things are more important and are on a shorter timeframe that need to be addressed now, whether that's the left with climate change, whether that's the right with immigration. How do you contrast those viewpoints where you have a set period of time that people think something needs to be done at with the realities of the current situation, especially if neither side accepts the other side's basis of fact?

• 54:20Speaker 06

  That is a very interesting question. Anna, I'm going to ask you to answer that question.

• 54:25Speaker 08

  Usually when people talk to me about like, how do we get to a better place on policymaking and find agreement? My answer is usually to not start with those super-high-pressure, highly-partisan arguments. You don't start the conversation with someone about gun laws or abortion. You start talking about the stop sign at the end of your road. So when we're talking at that level, though, and when you're talking about a lack of shared reality, I think of a book I read by journalist Monica Guzman, who has actually worked with Braver Angels. And she talks that a lot of times, we all share the same values, we're just ranking them differently. So I think that especially when you're in a conversation with a person like that, and

• 55:06Speaker 08

  you're just completely disagreeing about the timeline, the scope, is it a problem or not? I think you can start from a place of, we can both agree that this is a problem, that we do value this. What we're disagreeing is sort of the ranking and the prioritizing. And then I think that's where you can have more of that meaningful policy conversation of what are the immediate next steps. Because it's sort of, then it's that acknowledgement that, okay, we actually do both agree these are problems, potentially. And granted, maybe they'll just say it's not a problem at all, but you can probably still get to them, to Doug's point, underlying values, right? Do they care about having a clean, prosperous environment in the future? That's like a very fundamental, I think, most people would agree on, right?

• 55:50Speaker 08

  We have to start at that building block, then we start at that building block. But I do believe those building blocks are still there.

• 55:55Speaker 06

  Let's get to one final listener comment here.

• 55:59Speaker 18

  Hi there. My name's Leith. I'm from the great city of Concord, New Hampshire. So, over the summer, I worked for Capital Region Habitat for Humanity. Great organization, met some great people. We do some great work. We build houses, repair houses for people in need. And I found that through volunteering, you meet some really great people and can have conversations that you normally wouldn't just out in the wild. And I was wondering if you consider volunteering, and I wish there were more visibility for this because, you know, organizations like this really do need more people, if that's a way to build the sort of foundation to start political conversations, for example.

• 56:43Speaker 06

  That's a great point. Habitat is also an incredible organization, and let me ask you, because you talk about doing it in the summer, you're a student?

• 56:50Speaker 18

  I am, yes.

• 56:51Speaker 06

  What year are you?

• 56:52Speaker 18

  I'm a junior.

• 56:54Speaker 06

  In?

• 56:55Speaker 18

  In St. Paul's school.

• 56:56Speaker 06

  In high school?

• 56:57Speaker 18

  In high school, yes.

• 56:58Speaker 06

  Wow, great, great. Thank you for coming. Doug, what do you think about that? Is volunteering a way that people can start to have these conversations across party lines and learn how to interact with all kinds of different people?

• 57:17Speaker 07

  Well, yes, it is. I mean, this is the whole part of social capital. How do we get people to come out, to find, to connect with people, to make it attractive? Because we know it's hard out there. You have two working incomes, for the most part, and it's, it makes it harder for people. But how do we make it more attractive for people to volunteer? And even in our work with Braver Angels, just give me an hour a week, or give me small segments, and that makes it, not only does it give people hope, but it makes them feel connected to the, to other people, and it's so important. So I really appreciate that comment.

• 57:57Speaker 06

  I'm gonna just finally do a quick poll of the three of you, since we're here in New Hampshire and our listeners around the country are able to tap in for a moment into the Granite State. A lot of people ask me, when they hear about the middle, which, by the way, is about the geographical middle, the philosophical middle, the political middle, and also people that want to just meet in the middle and talk to people across party lines. But let's just talk about the middle, the political middle, for one second. Do you think, each of you, that the political middle still exists in this country? I just want a yes or a no from you. No.

• 58:31Speaker 07

  Yes. Oh, yes.

• 58:33Speaker 06

  Okay. It's two to one.

• 58:35Nick Capodice?

  I guess you guys win.

• 58:39Speaker 06

  Well, I want to thank my guests Doug Teschner, a member of Braver Angels and a former New Hampshire state legislator, is also author of the book Beyond the Politics of Contempt: Practical Steps to Build Positive Relationships in Divided Times, Anna Brown, executive director of Citizens Count, and Nick Capadice, host of NHPR's Civics 101. And to our terrific audience, thank you all so very much. Also, a big thanks to NHPR's program director Emily Quirk, the president and CEO Jim Schachter, NHPR's events manager Zoe Mitchell, our sound engineer Ethan Todd, to the Clay Pigeon String

• 59:22Speaker 06

  Band for the great music, and to the crew here at the Capital Center for the Arts and the B&H Stage here in Concord, New Hampshire. The middle is brought to you by Longnook Media, distributed by Illinois Public Media in Urbana, Illinois, and produced by Harrison Patino, Danny Alexander, Sam Burmestaz, Brandon Condritz, and John Barth. Our intern is Annika Deschler. Our technical director is Steve Mork. Thank you so much for listening. I'm Jeremy Hobson, and I will talk to you next week.

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  Shop Black Friday all month long at Blinds.com. Don't miss huge deals dropping every week.

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  At Farmers, we go out of our way to keep you in the know.

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  Like by singing, everything for emphasis.

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  That, and by providing you with coverage on a page, in easy-to-understand language, so you know what's covered and what's not.

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  No confusing legalese that no one gets.

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  In full transparency, we do have to put a disclaimer at the end of this ad, though. Just being honest, that's what you get when...

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  You have Farmers.

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  Learn more at Farmers.com. Underwritten by Farmers Truck or Fire Insurance Exchanges or Affiliates. Product not available in every state.