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Crossing the Divide: No silver bullet, but a start

On a recent Saturday, a dozen or so people gathered at the Glenwood Springs Library to learn how to agree to disagree. The training, called “Crossing the Divide,” was put on by Indivisible Roaring Fork, the local chapter of a national political group, formed in opposition to the Trump administration.

For about an hour, the small crowd sat in front of a large projector screen, learning how to engage with someone they disagree with. They listened to two presenters from the Western Colorado Congress, which is a non-partisan community organizing group in Grand Junction, who covered everything from active listening to a crash-course in evolutionary psychology.

Afterwards, the presenters divided the room into four groups. Each chose an invented personality, which the presenters handed out on slips of paper, and set about trying to put themselves in that person’s shoes.

Group three chose Roger: A 58-year-old man, from a working-class family, who owns a small mortgage company, which he built from the ground up. He does not like whiners and believes people are only responsible for themselves. Following the rules, according to Roger, is the way to get ahead.

The group was supposed to encourage him to support taxes on the wealthy to fund social spending.

Jerome Dayton, who organized the training with the help of Garfield County Democrats and Indivisible Roaring Fork, wants to be able to engage with people like his brother, who’s on the opposite side of the political spectrum.

“At least have a civil conversation with them, and maybe influence their thinking,” Dayton said.   

Group three put this into practice, as they set about figuring out Roger.

“Roger is a bootstraps kind of guy,” said one lady in the group.

How, then, would this self-made man respond to someone telling him the rich should pay more in taxes?

“I think what Roger might say is, ‘I think that I could hire two more employees and offer two more new jobs if I didn’t get taxed as much,’” said another in the group.

For 20 minutes or so, the conversation continues like this. Then, the group decided they would appeal to Roger this way: If the wealthy pay more in taxes, there are more opportunities for people to help themselves, just the way Roger did.  

“A single mother who gets tuition to a community college, who then gets a nursing-assistant degree, and is able to get a job and then she’s able to buy a house for her and her child…” the woman said.

Who knows? Maybe that mother goes to Roger for a mortgage.

The training ended after three hours. Some say it helped them cross the divide. Others disagreed.

“I just felt I was pressured not to say too much,” said one man in group three, who didn’t want to be identified. Politically, he says he’s right in the middle; the discussion, he felt, was too one-sided.

“I really wanted to do some sharing... and I just felt like it was mostly more toward the left-leaning. But maybe I’m more conservative than I really think I am,” he said.

 

For Dayton, the organizer, the event was helpful. He said it made him more willing to compromise.

 

“Taking absolute stances doesn’t forward the conversation, nor does it create the changes I’d like to see,” he said.

 

Crossing the divide, finding the middle ground, whatever you want to call it, seems hard. While the training was no silver bullet, all participants can agree on one thing: It was a start.

 

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