How can we transcend political divides?
- How can we transcend political divides?
- Not left, not right, but upgrade.
- Audrey Tang (who studies how to use tech to strengthen democracy) has found that if you take a representative sample of a population and put them together with minimal scaffolding, they'll naturally build bridges and find consensus.
- Sometimes they find ideas that 80% of the population likes.
- I'm energized by Rob Sand, a democratic candidate for governor of Iowa.
- His slogan is: "Not redder or bluer, but better and truer."
- He does town halls across the state.
- In each one, he starts off by observing that modern politics is broken, that it splits us into two tribes, instead of being part of the same tribe of American.
- He has all of the republicans, democrats, and independents raise their hands in turn, and has the audience clap for each group.
- Then he has the crowd sing America the Beautiful together.
- A communal cleansing ritual.[hj]
- Some participants have spontaneously broken into tears and described it as a transcendent experience.