Written by Jordan Lenoir
Braver Angels invites anyone and everyone to join them to help depolarize politics in America by bringing any political view to the table! This national cross-partisan, non-profit organization invites members red, blue and others to converse through shared and separated values and concerns to build more trust in politics.
On the Asheville FM Newshour, KP Whaley interviewed Tod Lester about his organization that is dedicated to bringing the citizens of America together from all political views.
Braver Angels recently conducted a survey regarding elections and how they can become more trustworthy for voters. Last year, Braver Angels held a convention that gathered 700 people where they collectively questioned, “what’s an issue that congress needs some help with or what are they not doing that we can do?” Lester revealed that following this questioning was “a series of 26 workshops, 194 evenly balanced red leaning and blue leaning participants, 747 points of unanimous agreements, they came up with 23 solutions on how to ensure that our elections are more trustworthy.” Lester shares that Braver Angels is holding an event on July 25th at Skyland United Methodist church in south Asheville at 6:30 to go through this report with all opposing political viewpoints and discuss the 23 solutions of trustworthy elections.
Braver Angels, which was established in 2016, is working hard to rebuild trust in American politics and they do this through workshops, skill building, surveys, parliamentary style debates, and inviting politicians to town halls. Lester shares that “we are focused on this toxic political polarization thinking there has to be a better way.”
Braver Angels’ main goal of their mission is to be able to bring all different political standing citizens together to come to reasonable compromises and agreements on what they collectively want to see change in politics. Lester speaks lightly on how politics tends to divide people/communities and how more recent divisions of sides have been difficult in America. Lester expresses that it is harder to build trust when people are discorded and reacting anonymously. He explains, “as long as people stay separate, they are going to think separately.”
For more about Braver Angels, visit https://braverangels.org/