February 1, 2023 • 35 mins
Tom Cosgrove is the founder and president of New Voice Strategies and is the co-creator of the documentary film "Divided We Fall." In this episode, we talk with Tom about making human concoctions with people who have different political beliefs and who come from different backgrounds.
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Tom Cosgrove (00:09):
What we discovered in filming them, what they discovered about
themselves, is that when they droppeddown into their humanity, when they
found those moments, when they could beempathetic with someone who didn't have
their ideology, that didn't support Trump,for example, they found a connection.
Sam Fuqua (00:28):
That's Tom Cosgrove, and this is Well, That Went Sideways!
A podcast that serves as aresource to help people have
healthy, respectful communication.
We present a diversity of ideas, tools,and techniques to help you transform
conflict in relationships of all kinds.
On this episode, we talk with Tom Cosgroveabout making human connections with
(00:53):
people who come from different backgroundsand different political beliefs.
He's the founder and presidentof New Voice Strategies, a
nonprofit with a mission of healingdivides, restoring compassion,
and strengthening self-government.
He's also co-creator of thedocumentary film, Divided We
Fall (01:15):
Unity Without Tragedy.
I'm Sam Fuqua, co-host of theprogram with Alexis Miles.
Hi Alexis.
Alexis Miles (01:23):
Hi Sam.
Sam Fuqua (01:24):
We're really glad to be joined for this conversation by Tom Cosgrove.
Tom, welcome.
Tom Cosgrove (01:30):
Thanks for having me.
Sam Fuqua (01:31):
Tom, you were just describing before we started the recording, you were
describing yourself as a civic futurist.
What is that?
Tom Cosgrove (01:39):
You know, I like to believe that, um, you know, the, the
principles that got outlined almost 250years ago in our, in our Constitution
and how generation after generation wehave worked to improve upon those, um,
leads America on a path to the future.
And so I like to believe in that.
I like to believe in the idea that wecan work collaboratively, together to
(02:02):
constantly improve among, ourselves.
Sam Fuqua (02:05):
I think you like, like many of us, uh, particularly with
the election of Donald Trump in 2016,found a heightened level of division of
ranker, and many of us struggled with aninability to, uh, to talk about it if we
met people who were on the other side.
You had a fairly, I think, simplebut brilliant idea to bring
(02:25):
those people together in a film.
Can you tell us about it?
Tom Cosgrove (02:29):
Yeah.
So back in the summer of 2016, LarryAnderson, who's an amazing video
editor, cameraman in Boston, who, wewere working on another project there
for Boston University, and we werejust really, I think, more disgusted
than frustrated as we looked at whatwas going on in that campaign and the
political culture that was surroundingit, and for whatever reason, we
(02:53):
decided we wanted to put the blame ofthat culture on reality television.
This idea that we, you know, thatwe fascinate ourselves with other
people's foibles and problems, um,fascinated by people who don't even
get paid to put those on the screen.
And that, that had somehow shifted theculture that was allowing for Donald
Trump and, and other things of that ilk.
(03:17):
And so we said, why don't wecreate an alternative to that?
Why don't we create adifferent kind of reality show?
And so we set off on a journey to do that.
Uh, it took us, um, two yearsto, um, go from a title idea and
a concept to actually filminga group of divided Americans.
(03:38):
And so in the end, we twice filmed adozen strangers that were divided over
Trump on a simple zero-to-ten scale.
With zero you strongly disapproved,and ten you strongly approved.
And we had an equal number of people fromboth ends and, um, what we discovered in
(03:58):
filming them, what they discovered aboutthemselves is that when they dropped
down into their humanity, when theyfound those moments, when they could be
empathetic with someone who didn't havetheir ideology, that didn't support Trump,
for example, uh, they found a connection.
And Larry, uh, Larry described itpretty simply, was that they learned
(04:20):
or there came a moment when theylearned to listen with curiosity
instead of animosity to each other.
Sam Fuqua (04:26):
Let's listen to an excerpt from the film.
Uh, we'll hear several participantssharing their observations on the
challenges we face when we try totalk with another person whose views
are very different from our own.
Person 1 (04:40):
It's not about convincing someone that I'm right,
they're wrong, or vice versa.
It's about finding the common ground andrealizing that there is common ground.
Person 2 (04:49):
Well, we're coming in to prove that our way is right, instead
of like coming in to listen and to hearlike, okay, why do you feel that way?
Why is it that way?
It's just like we want to comein and dominate the conversation.
Person 3 (04:59):
Admitting to being wrong, that ego, uh, that people aren't
willing to say, "You know what?
I don't have all the facts.
I don't have all the info."
Uh, it's like that being vulnerable thing.
On the other end of that,people will ridicule you and
shame you for being vulnerable.
They have that attack mode.
Person 4 (05:16):
To Dan's point, no one wants to step outside their bubble and be
vulnerable or be the bigger personand, you know, try to understand
the other side of the argument.
Person 5 (05:27):
You just have to be willing and committed to put that
work in and to take that extraeffort to look for those bridges.
Look for that shared respect, and to findsomething of value in another person.
Person 6 (05:39):
What's really dividing all of us is anger.
You can't be angry and listen.
It doesn't work that way becauseyou, when you're angry, you
only hear what you want to hear.
Sam Fuqua (05:51):
That's an excerpt from the documentary, Divided
We Fall (05:53):
Unity Without Tragedy.
Do you think that's what brings outempathy is just opening yourself to being
curious about someone with whom you mayhave a sharp disagreement politically?
Tom Cosgrove (06:06):
I think it, I think it's a start, right?
So we, we just had, uh, uh, becauseof COVID, we just had our live show,
first live showing of the film,and a third of the participants
came out for it to be in a castaudience, talk back panel afterwards.
But more importantly, to spend Saturdaywith us so that we could film them again.
(06:28):
Um, and I'd like to produce a sequel wherewe get into what created this connection.
'Cause not only did they find thisability in the, um, you know, the 48 hours
that they were with us when we filmedthem, they've stayed in touch, they've
stayed connected with each, each other.
And, you know, we, we drewpeople from both casts.
(06:49):
Half of those were fromBoston and half from Chicago.
Some had been on online panels together,but they'd never been in a physical
space together, and they just, they,you know, it was a little love fest.
They were excited to be with each other.
And by the time the weekend had ended,they committed to all coming together in
(07:10):
mid-August, uh, in Massachusetts, whichwas like the crazy part of the first
cast we filmed when we got to Sunday.
One of the participants volunteeredhis house three weekends later on Cape
Cod for a Sunday afternoon barbecue,and eight of the twelve were there.
So like, I think people are hungry tofind connection with each other and
(07:31):
learn that we, if we go into everythingwhere we have an expectation, we're gonna
school each other on, on our beliefs, uh,there's not a lot of progress with that.
If we go into it and we set somenorms around how are we gonna engage?
Am I willing to sit and listen to yourather than yell at you, for example?
We can find that the common groundwe have is that we all live in this
(07:53):
country and we want it to succeed.
And as time goes on, thesharpness of the positions we
hold start to soften, you know.
One of the participants was asked, well,all the participants were asked in the
talk back to share something that appalledthem, uh, over the course of the weekend.
It didn't end up in the film.
(08:15):
And just so your listeners don'tthink that we were overly selective,
we had 58 hours of footage by thetime we were ready to edit it, a
57-minute show for public television.
So there was a lot that wasnot, you know, not in the film.
And one young African American womanwho was in the film said, "You know,
(08:36):
it was the moment when I, I was toldthat I should get over slavery."
And totally understand that.
And it went on, and one of the Trumpsupporters, um, or Trump supporter
at the time said, "You know, Ihaven't watched this film in a couple
years and I'm appalled at myself."
(08:56):
And when we filmed him, he was veryoutspoken about the border wall.
Uh, and, you know, three years goby and, and that he didn't like
holding that argument anymore.
Alexis Miles (09:09):
So Tom, I wanted to ask you about process and, and practices that
you use, 'cause lots of people have donethis experiment of bringing polarized
people together in an attempt to createunity and community and it hasn't worked.
Tom Cosgrove (09:27):
Mm-hmm...
Alexis Miles (09:28):
So can you talk more about what process, what practices
made this work so that otherpeople might attempt to replicate?
Tom Cosgrove (09:38):
So, I mean, that's part of what I wanna try to, uh, explore in a,
in a, you know, in a 30-minute form withthis sequel so that there is something
out there for people to watch and say,okay, this is how I can try it in my life.
Um, 'cause some of the stuff wedid just isn't replicable, right?
Like, give up your life for 48 hoursand be with a group of strangers in a
(09:59):
kind of offbeat or interesting place.
But other things I think are replicable.
And the first is with, is engagingwith people about who they are
that isn't about what they believe.
And that's when connectionstarts to appear in the room.
And confusion.
(10:19):
And the other part of it was whenthey gathered, they had no idea who
anybody else was in terms of tribal,red, blue, tribal kinda stuff, right?
Um, so I think the first part of thatis our exercises where you have to
sit in conversation with someone else.
And one of them, I learned from a graphicjournalist in San Francisco, even though
(10:41):
uh, I learned it from a woman namedWendy MacNaughton, and it is an old art
school class, drawing class exercise.
Uh, what we did was something I learnedfrom Wendy, and the very first thing they
did when they came together after, youknow, we introduced each other, was they
randomly got a partner and they had todraw each other's space for three minutes.
(11:04):
And the rule was you had to look at eachother's face for three minutes and not
take, and you weren't allowed to take thepen off the paper or look at the paper.
It wasn't about the artyou were about to produce.
It was about this uncomfortablehuman moment of looking at someone
else's face, particularly their eyes.
'Cause we don't, I mean, we don't reallydo that with the people we love for that
(11:24):
length of time, let alone a stranger.
And then after that they shared astory with each other of a time someone
surprised them with compassion, andthey were asked to write it down so that
they could tell it back as that person.
So I, you know, we would all sharestories and I would say, "Hi, I'm,
I'm Sam, and here's my story."
(11:46):
And Sam would say, "Hi, I'mAlexis and here's my story."
"I'm Tom, here's..."
Well, that took up a fairly good chunkof time, and then we broke for dinner.
And like any well run household, peoplewere asked to either be on helping
to serve or help clean up, right?
(12:06):
And then we said, okay, here's yourfirst real challenge of the weekend.
We would like you to establish therules you want to have for this
conversation, the norms you wanna hold.
And to be honest, when Larry and I firsthad this idea of this film, we actually
thought you could be in a process.
You could spend days just trying to getagreement on how you were gonna do it.
(12:30):
And, you know, this thing wasover and done in 20, 30 minutes.
And the, the fun part was the longestdebate in either cast was the Gen-Xers
debating if they could swear, and if so,which words and in what settings, so that
it wouldn't be offensive to anyone, butjust be their, usual energetic f-ing self.
Sam Fuqua (12:55):
You know, these are such great, uh, ideas and I think the
work you've done and others have donein implementing them is laudable.
But how do we expand that?
How do we carry that forward?
I mean, we, we, I'm usinga generalization here.
Tom Cosgrove (13:09):
Mm-hmm...
Sam Fuqua (13:09):
We listen to the media, we listen to, that often reinforces our view.
We live where we live oftenamongst people who think like us.
And certainly, our own networks aremade up of folks often of like mind.
It's, it's really difficult to, tobreak out of that and do the kinds
of things that you have, uh, puttogether in a very structured way.
Tom Cosgrove (13:30):
Yeah, I mean, so there's a couple things I could say about that.
First of all, we set out to createa television show because that is
how you get people to change, right?
Like television so, has for ge, you know,uh, decades, half century really in,
infuenced who we are and how we operate.
And if, uh, there's the, there's,there's a, uh, sociologist pollster
(13:52):
who died, I don't know, 20 years agonamed Daniel Yankelovich, who in the
nineties wrote a book where he talkedabout the power of proxy dialogue.
Like we would see people on a televisionshow and, um, and they, they might
be describing a trip they're gonnatake on, a meal they're gonna engage
with, something they're doing in theirlives, and people can be so immersed in
(14:16):
following that character, an individualon a show, they might imagine that
they've already done the same thing, orthey've just opened their mind to it.
So what, part of what we were tryingto do with the diversity of people
we put, uh, in the room to film wasso a viewer could find themselves
(14:37):
among those 24 people, uh, and, andsay, "Oh, I, I like, I like how J.J.
ended up here.
I like what he, you know, I canopen my mind to better behavior or
taking my good behavior in real lifeinto social media," for example.
That was the goal.
We didn't get there.
I mean, we didn't, we ended up with afilm instead of a series and not without
(15:02):
trying, but a lot of it had to dowith COVID and the timing of all this.
And then I'd say like, you know,a simple rule for people, uh, and
again, it gets to be one-sided.
You have to set your ownexample in this stuff.
There's a guy named Arthur Brooks,who was a longtime conservative, ran
the American Enterprise Institute,has written a whole, you know, number
(15:24):
of books, uh, of the people I know.
He's spent the most time withthe Dalai Lama and yet late
in life, he became a Catholic.
So, you know, he's a, he'sa mix of, of contrast.
But Arthur has a book that came outa couple years ago, 'cause, Love Your
Enemies, and, uh, he talks about inthat book that, you know, anger is a
(15:45):
normal, it's a normal emotion, right?
Uh, believing about believing somethingpassionately, we all want to do that.
And so often something we are passionateabout isn't gonna come to pass.
Um, we're allowed to get angry about that.
The difference is that I can have mybelief and I can be angry that my way
(16:09):
isn't gonna happen, but I don't haveto hold the other person in contempt.
And it's this contempt culture.
And it's not that contempt hasn't existedfor generations of human beings, but
we're in this moment where contemptand hate and fear, and I can go on and
on, have all been monetized in a waythat has just never happened before.
(16:35):
You know, the, the, the hate megaphonethat social media has, that they make
a buck on, is a lot of the problem.
Sam Fuqua (16:45):
It's a culture of resentment to me, you know, like, you should resent
this other person for reasons X, Y, Z.
Yeah.
Tom Cosgrove (16:51):
Yeah.
Sam Fuqua (16:51):
And, and...
Tom Cosgrove (16:52):
And that, you know, and fear of the other, again, it's like biblical.
It goes back so far about people have, youknow, written about that kind of stuff,
and we're, that's what we're living with.
Like I, you know, the easiestmotivator to get somebody to
vote isn't vote for something.
It's to vote against something.
(17:13):
And unfortunately, hugelyunfortunately, in the last chunk
of years, that big reason to voteagainst something's about race.
I was the program, co-program director ofthe Democratic National Committee in 2004.
And I'm literally the person who broughtto everybody and said, "Hey, there's
(17:35):
this state senator out in Illinoiswho's running for the United States
Senate, and he's an amazing speaker.
And look at this New Yorker article, andwe should make him our keynote speaker."
Right?
And you know, if we remember what BarackObama said on the stage in Boston, he was
the first to take the, you know, the colorcodes of the news networks on election
(17:59):
night, red and blue, and turned it into aspeech where he was preaching for purple.
And you know, hope, right?
Hope was the message.
It was awesome.
Biggest turnout in the historyof the country at that point.
And we all wanted to believe as I, as acivic futurist did, that we've hit this
(18:23):
moment where we were gonna be on thisaccelerated path to a better future, not
understanding the Jim Crow faction ofAmerican culture that is still out there
and the blowback that came from them.
And that's what we're living in right now.
We're living in that blowback.
Alexis Miles (18:41):
Tom you talk about hope.
So I, I know that the film hadits first showing in Boulder,
and to a sold out house.
Did the audience's response give youhope that we are coming to a place
where we can have these conversationsand reach a sense of unity?
Tom Cosgrove (19:03):
Yeah.
You know, it's an interesting thing'cause I've, you know, you and I have
both been in, in those theaters, uh, atthe, at the, uh, at the Dairy Arts Center.
Nobody left, right?
Typically, when the show endsand its talkback time, you know,
there's at least a trickle of peopleout of the seats, nobody left.
Um, and we could have keptgoing in the questions.
(19:24):
So I think that was the audience itself,thinking, oh, there's a lot to learn
here and I wanna be curious about.
And so yeah, that part was hopeful.
But, but the, the more hopeful part wasthe words that came out of the, uh, out of
the cast when they were asked questions.
I mean, like Nikki, uh, Miller,um, she's married now, I think
(19:49):
her last name is now Strait.
She's a, she was the youngest personthat we filmed, and she was also the
only, at the time, the only singlemother, and from outside Chicago.
And, she talked about how importantit is to learn to be wrong and how
as humans, we just hate it, right?
(20:10):
Nobody wants to be wrong, but if wecan't accept that, you can't grow.
And then I came across this awesomequote this week, um, from this
film that, um, somebody askedme to watch to help him with.
It was, it was about, um,uh, these two high schools in
Cleveland, Mississippi, Brown v.
Board of Education never came to be there.
(20:31):
They are still separate.
And one of the people in thecommunity was interviewed and he,
he said, uh, "Change is inevitable.
Growth is optional."
And I'd like to believe about, youknow, the sold out crowd, there
was a lot of chosen growth thatpeople stepped into and I think will
(20:53):
stick with them after they left.
Alexis Miles (20:58):
I watched the film again, uh, a couple of nights ago, and I
noticed, so I've said it several times,but I get this reaction every time I
hear this woman describe her proudestmoment as being when Trump was elected.
Tom Cosgrove (21:14):
Yeah.
Alexis Miles (21:14):
So even though I know there's going to be transformation
over the course of the film,I still get that gut reaction.
But having looked at this filmhas helped me to understand that
I can just sit with that feeling.
Tom Cosgrove (21:30):
Mm-hmm.
Alexis Miles (21:30):
Of, of that stomach churning feeling, and just keep
watching it for points of humanity.
And I say that because one woman talkedabout the role of eating meals together.
Tom Cosgrove (21:42):
Mm-hmm.
Alexis Miles (21:42):
That, that was helpful for her.
So can you say something about that?
Tom Cosgrove (21:46):
Yeah.
Alexis Miles (21:46):
And earlier you talked about giving people chores, like you helped
set up for dinner or you clean up after.
So what's the role ofthose kinds of things?
Tom Cosgrove (21:55):
Yeah, you know, it's interesting.
So, I put together a really broad groupof advisors from around the country,
um, before we filmed it because Iwasn't sure what we were doing, right?
So reality television is marketed as, uh,it's not marketed as reality television.
That's not what the industry calls it.
They call it unscripted program.
(22:16):
There's no script.
They're just these moments where they knowthese emotions are gonna be in the room.
They're, they, they've artificiallyset it up for people's emotions
to over, to flood the room.
And then when it's all finished,they create a story arc out of
that, and that's what we watch.
And I had no interest in that.
Uh, and I had no interest in just bringinga group of people together and saying,
(22:39):
you know, "Okay, you're on your own,you know, um, and we'll, we'll, we're
gonna film you while you figure outwhat you wanna talk about or et cetera."
We need to have some flowed.
So I engage with a lot of people,ethicists and people in the civil
discourse space, and politicalpeople that I've known and, and
(22:59):
Motus Theater here in Boulder.
And over time, I shaped what Icalled a conversation choreography.
We're gonna start with this exerciseor this discussion point we're
gonna put in the room, and thenwe're gonna move to this one and
then to the next one, and so on.
And so part of that purpose was we'regonna begin and spend a good chunk of
(23:20):
time, um, hearing about each other,um, and things we've lived our lives
through in a way that maybe thatopens me up to be curious about.
And then we're gonna have a meal.
And we wanted the meal to be, notthat we were serving them, we wanted
them to be invested in this weekend.
(23:42):
And so very early on, the investmentwas half of you are serving and
half of you are cleaning up.
With, you know, we, we had twogreat locations, this double-edged
theater in Western Mass.
that has a live-in, uh,cast company and does camps.
So they had, you know, they had a kitchen.
They had the space for it.
They had a shop.
(24:02):
And likewise experimental station inChicago, which is just this really cool
building nonprofit that has lots of thingsin it, and so we were able to bring a
caterer in there and had this big table.
Both places having a bigtable matter 'cause nobody was
shuttled off to the kiddy table.
Uh, nobody got the round table, wanted,they wanted to be at the square table.
They were all together.
(24:24):
And so that was there and we wanted totake advantage whenever we were having
a meal and so, the setup on Friday afterthat meal is when we move into a room
where we ask those two questions that Iknow is gonna put the difference there.
And that is your most andleast proud moment in your
own lifetime as an American.
(24:44):
And I knew that Trump and Obama weregonna be part of that conversation.
You know, the surprise in the Gen-Xerswas the weeks after 9/11 were the
proudest moment for three-quartersof the people in the room.
And in that cast, the restof the pride was Obama.
(25:04):
You know, it was the youngercast in Chicago where uh, the
pride in Trump came in the room.
But the next day at breakfast inMassachusetts, they still were not sure
who was who as a group, 'cause we didn'tlet any crosstalk happen Friday night.
But as they came to breakfast with us, Iassigned them to a table looking to do it
(25:28):
as randomly as I could, standing at theentrance to this diner in, in, uh, Elmer's
Diner in, in Nashville, Massachusetts.
But I purposely put them in theirtribes, in their red and blue groups.
And I knew that when that recognitionwas gonna be there, the conversations
would change in, in, at both tables.
(25:49):
And the bigger change is really in theTrump table because they're no longer
alone and they carry a level of shameand embarrassment about their support
for him or their voting for him.
And we did the same thing in Chicago.
All, they had already figuredout who was who because of
Friday night's conversation.
We still left it that way.
(26:09):
Then on Sunday, we switch it up.
By Sunday, we put them in these pairs.
We do this exercise Saturday nightwhere we ask them to pair up with
the person they're least likely tobe friends with, or least likely to
be connected with when they leave.
And so everything is inthose pairs on Sunday.
And so each table is, youknow, was equally divided.
(26:30):
But again, food is what, it comforts us,you know, it nourishes us, it's a platform
we're familiar with conversation around.
So yeah, it was very purposeful.
Sam Fuqua (26:43):
You also have a couple of other projects that I'd like to talk to
you about that maybe are in more earlierstages, but relate to our history,
our culture, and how we understand oneanother in the United States today.
Uh, can you tell us aboutthe Constitution project?
Tom Cosgrove (27:01):
So we've, we have a project, uh, it's called the Preamble Project:
We the people, that I started developingin the fall of 2020, in part because,
again, watching the election play outand how, uh, little movement is left in
adult America on one side or the other,and then witnessing the insurrection on
(27:22):
January 6th, realized that a lot of ourfuture is, uh, is in the hands of people
who are a long way from having the right,having the legal age right to vote, right?
So these are the students of today.
And I discovered that the,uh, ad industry has already
identified them as a generation.
(27:43):
So if you've been born since2010, you're Gen Alpha.
And so in 2032, Gen Alpha and GenZ are gonna be by far the plurality
of American voters, and they mightbe right on the cusp of being
the majority of American voters.
And so how much belief they havein our democracy and their place
(28:06):
in it, is really gonna matter.
So we decided to create something inpart because Constitution Day, which is
not a federal holiday, it is a federalday of observation, when it was created
in 2005, in the law that was passed, itsays all government offices must provide
(28:28):
educational programming, all federalgovernment offices, on Constitution
Day, and all schools, whether that's acollege or it's a kindergarten class that
receives federal funding in that fiscalyear, must also provide educational
programming on Constitution Day.
And I thought wow, youknow, here's our hook.
(28:50):
Here's this opportunity.
Every school in America issupposed to be doing this.
If we could create a program aroundcelebrating some part of the constitution
that became annualized, we would helpkids grow a pro-democracy muscle, and
exercise it for at least 12 years.
(29:14):
And when I looked around, I saw, I mean,there are lots of Constitution Day things
and there are lots of people that havelots of fascinating, you know, well-run
programming around the Constitution.
Most of it centered on the amendments.
And the amendments are literally,you know, those rights from the,
that we indiv, you know, outlineour individual rights are also the
(29:37):
things we argue the most about.
We can, they can interpretthem in lots of ways.
And I thought, but, but the setupfor the Constitution, the preamble,
which was written to sell it,really, was the marketing paragraph.
If we don't have a belief in thosevalues, in those words, um, you know,
we're, you know, we got a lot to do.
And so that's what we set out to do.
(29:58):
And it just starts with literallythe very first three words,
which are "We the people."
The choice to represent thisnew nation, this new republic.
That, what was most important aboutit was we were a collective of people.
And I, you know, my own belief is our ownindividual rights won't exist if we aren't
(30:21):
collectively all seen equally in the 'We'.
We created it, we tested it lastyear, we're on track to launch
it to 6,000 middle and highschools, um, this September.
Sam Fuqua (30:33):
Another project you have started, I think, or you're at least
in the thinking about stages, relatesto the songs we sing and the songs that
we, we know that purport, in some cases,to celebrate what America is all about.
And maybe, maybe they're not necessarilythe right songs or there are other
songs that might be, uh, deeperand more meaningful in reflecting
(30:55):
the, the American experience.
Tom Cosgrove (30:57):
Yeah, so I mean, it's the sa, it's the same project, actually.
So we are working on creatinga, what would be the curriculum
or the program in the K-2 space.
Like how, how, where do you startthis conversation and then how
do you advance it over time?
And, we're really interested in, um,in doing it through song and art.
(31:19):
You know, again, it's a,back about the culture here.
And so to me, if we have a song thathas the same power for letting every
child see and feel themselves equallyin, in the 'We', we the people,
then it's like, now I know my ABCs.
It just becomes part of, part of life.
(31:40):
And so I've, you know, I've had a, aformer music critic in Boston who has
been doing a search of songs throughoutour history that fit in this lane.
There's a huge chunk of music that'sin, you know, the 1960s and seventies
all out in the civil rights era.
But the, the song of theAmerican Revolution was a
(32:02):
song called The Liberty Song.
It was written by a mannamed John Dickinson.
He was inspired to write a song'cause he'd written a series of
essays, and he didn't think enoughpeople were reading his essays.
If I, if I'm remembering thehistory of this correctly.
And so he wrote a song with the ideamore people would be exposed to it.
(32:23):
And what my favorite parts of thisliberty song were, in one of the
last stanzas he talks about, um,"United we stand and divided we fall."
And I always thought of that line about"divided we fall" to Lincoln's speech,
and yet it was baked into the musicof the revolution when people decided
(32:44):
they wanted to break away from Britain.
I think what you and I talked about,Sam, was that, uh, Tom Morello of the
Rage Against the Machine was writingthis, this culture newsletter for the
New York Times, and the very first issuethat he wrote, he wrote about Joe Hill.
And so Joe Hill was, could be thoughtof as America's most famous communist.
(33:09):
So he was an organizer inthe teens in the twenties.
He was a, he was a "wobbly."
He was a member of theInternational Workers Party.
He eventually was hung on trumpedup charges in Idaho in the 1920s.
But what Morello writes about isthat Hill was a songwriter, and
he was a songwriter that inspiredpeople like Woody Guthrie to follow.
(33:31):
But there's no recordings of Hill, uh, ofanything that he wrote and saw and sang.
But there is this quote where hesays, "Why waste my time writing
a pamphlet that might be read oncebefore it's thrown away when I can
write a song that will be repeatedover and over in hearts and minds?"
And I went, "Oh!
Yeah!"
(33:51):
Like, that's, that's the power of music.
Sam Fuqua (33:55):
Tom Cosgrove, it's great to spend time with you.
Thank you for your, foryour time and for your
Tom Cosgrove (33:59):
work.
Yeah.
Thank you and Alexis, Sam,for, for the invitation.
This has been a lot of fun.
Sam Fuqua (34:05):
Tom Cosgrove is the founder and president of New Voice Strategies,
a nonprofit with a mission of healingdivides, restoring compassion,
and strengthening self-government.
He's also co-creator of thedocumentary film Divided We
Fall (34:20):
Unity Without Tragedy.
You can watch the film and findout more about his work at the
website, newvoicestrategies.com.
(34:42):
Thanks for listening toWell, That Went Sideways!
We produce new episodes twice a month.
You can find them whereveryou get your podcasts, and on
our website, sidewayspod.org.
We also have information on ourguests and links to more conflict
resolution resources at the website.
That's sidewayspod.org.
(35:05):
Our production team is Mary Zinn,Jes Rau, Norma Johnson, Alexis Miles,
Alia Thobani, and me, Sam Fuqua.
Our theme music is by Mike Stewart.
We produce these programs in Coloradoon the traditional lands of the
Arapahoe, Cheyenne, and Ute Nations.
(35:26):
To learn more about the importanceof land acknowledgement, visit
our website, sidewayspod.org.
And this podcast is a partnershipwith the Conflict Center, a
Denver-based nonprofit that providespractical skills and training for
addressing everyday conflicts.
Find out more at conflictcenter.org.
What we discovered in filming them, what they discovered about
themselves, is that when they droppeddown into their humanity, when they
found those moments, when they could beempathetic with someone who didn't have
their ideology, that didn't support Trump,for example, they found a connection.
Sam Fuqua (00:28):
That's Tom Cosgrove, and this is Well, That Went Sideways!
A podcast that serves as aresource to help people have
healthy, respectful communication.
We present a diversity of ideas, tools,and techniques to help you transform
conflict in relationships of all kinds.
On this episode, we talk with Tom Cosgroveabout making human connections with
(00:53):
people who come from different backgroundsand different political beliefs.
He's the founder and presidentof New Voice Strategies, a
nonprofit with a mission of healingdivides, restoring compassion,
and strengthening self-government.
He's also co-creator of thedocumentary film, Divided We
Fall (01:15):
Unity Without Tragedy.
I'm Sam Fuqua, co-host of theprogram with Alexis Miles.
Hi Alexis.
Alexis Miles (01:23):
Hi Sam.
Sam Fuqua (01:24):
We're really glad to be joined for this conversation by Tom Cosgrove.
Tom, welcome.
Tom Cosgrove (01:30):
Thanks for having me.
Sam Fuqua (01:31):
Tom, you were just describing before we started the recording, you were
describing yourself as a civic futurist.
What is that?
Tom Cosgrove (01:39):
You know, I like to believe that, um, you know, the, the
principles that got outlined almost 250years ago in our, in our Constitution
and how generation after generation wehave worked to improve upon those, um,
leads America on a path to the future.
And so I like to believe in that.
I like to believe in the idea that wecan work collaboratively, together to
(02:02):
constantly improve among, ourselves.
Sam Fuqua (02:05):
I think you like, like many of us, uh, particularly with
the election of Donald Trump in 2016,found a heightened level of division of
ranker, and many of us struggled with aninability to, uh, to talk about it if we
met people who were on the other side.
You had a fairly, I think, simplebut brilliant idea to bring
(02:25):
those people together in a film.
Can you tell us about it?
Tom Cosgrove (02:29):
Yeah.
So back in the summer of 2016, LarryAnderson, who's an amazing video
editor, cameraman in Boston, who, wewere working on another project there
for Boston University, and we werejust really, I think, more disgusted
than frustrated as we looked at whatwas going on in that campaign and the
political culture that was surroundingit, and for whatever reason, we
(02:53):
decided we wanted to put the blame ofthat culture on reality television.
This idea that we, you know, thatwe fascinate ourselves with other
people's foibles and problems, um,fascinated by people who don't even
get paid to put those on the screen.
And that, that had somehow shifted theculture that was allowing for Donald
Trump and, and other things of that ilk.
(03:17):
And so we said, why don't wecreate an alternative to that?
Why don't we create adifferent kind of reality show?
And so we set off on a journey to do that.
Uh, it took us, um, two yearsto, um, go from a title idea and
a concept to actually filminga group of divided Americans.
(03:38):
And so in the end, we twice filmed adozen strangers that were divided over
Trump on a simple zero-to-ten scale.
With zero you strongly disapproved,and ten you strongly approved.
And we had an equal number of people fromboth ends and, um, what we discovered in
(03:58):
filming them, what they discovered aboutthemselves is that when they dropped
down into their humanity, when theyfound those moments, when they could be
empathetic with someone who didn't havetheir ideology, that didn't support Trump,
for example, uh, they found a connection.
And Larry, uh, Larry described itpretty simply, was that they learned
(04:20):
or there came a moment when theylearned to listen with curiosity
instead of animosity to each other.
Sam Fuqua (04:26):
Let's listen to an excerpt from the film.
Uh, we'll hear several participantssharing their observations on the
challenges we face when we try totalk with another person whose views
are very different from our own.
Person 1 (04:40):
It's not about convincing someone that I'm right,
they're wrong, or vice versa.
It's about finding the common ground andrealizing that there is common ground.
Person 2 (04:49):
Well, we're coming in to prove that our way is right, instead
of like coming in to listen and to hearlike, okay, why do you feel that way?
Why is it that way?
It's just like we want to comein and dominate the conversation.
Person 3 (04:59):
Admitting to being wrong, that ego, uh, that people aren't
willing to say, "You know what?
I don't have all the facts.
I don't have all the info."
Uh, it's like that being vulnerable thing.
On the other end of that,people will ridicule you and
shame you for being vulnerable.
They have that attack mode.
Person 4 (05:16):
To Dan's point, no one wants to step outside their bubble and be
vulnerable or be the bigger personand, you know, try to understand
the other side of the argument.
Person 5 (05:27):
You just have to be willing and committed to put that
work in and to take that extraeffort to look for those bridges.
Look for that shared respect, and to findsomething of value in another person.
Person 6 (05:39):
What's really dividing all of us is anger.
You can't be angry and listen.
It doesn't work that way becauseyou, when you're angry, you
only hear what you want to hear.
Sam Fuqua (05:51):
That's an excerpt from the documentary, Divided
We Fall (05:53):
Unity Without Tragedy.
Do you think that's what brings outempathy is just opening yourself to being
curious about someone with whom you mayhave a sharp disagreement politically?
Tom Cosgrove (06:06):
I think it, I think it's a start, right?
So we, we just had, uh, uh, becauseof COVID, we just had our live show,
first live showing of the film,and a third of the participants
came out for it to be in a castaudience, talk back panel afterwards.
But more importantly, to spend Saturdaywith us so that we could film them again.
(06:28):
Um, and I'd like to produce a sequel wherewe get into what created this connection.
'Cause not only did they find thisability in the, um, you know, the 48 hours
that they were with us when we filmedthem, they've stayed in touch, they've
stayed connected with each, each other.
And, you know, we, we drewpeople from both casts.
(06:49):
Half of those were fromBoston and half from Chicago.
Some had been on online panels together,but they'd never been in a physical
space together, and they just, they,you know, it was a little love fest.
They were excited to be with each other.
And by the time the weekend had ended,they committed to all coming together in
(07:10):
mid-August, uh, in Massachusetts, whichwas like the crazy part of the first
cast we filmed when we got to Sunday.
One of the participants volunteeredhis house three weekends later on Cape
Cod for a Sunday afternoon barbecue,and eight of the twelve were there.
So like, I think people are hungry tofind connection with each other and
(07:31):
learn that we, if we go into everythingwhere we have an expectation, we're gonna
school each other on, on our beliefs, uh,there's not a lot of progress with that.
If we go into it and we set somenorms around how are we gonna engage?
Am I willing to sit and listen to yourather than yell at you, for example?
We can find that the common groundwe have is that we all live in this
(07:53):
country and we want it to succeed.
And as time goes on, thesharpness of the positions we
hold start to soften, you know.
One of the participants was asked, well,all the participants were asked in the
talk back to share something that appalledthem, uh, over the course of the weekend.
It didn't end up in the film.
(08:15):
And just so your listeners don'tthink that we were overly selective,
we had 58 hours of footage by thetime we were ready to edit it, a
57-minute show for public television.
So there was a lot that wasnot, you know, not in the film.
And one young African American womanwho was in the film said, "You know,
(08:36):
it was the moment when I, I was toldthat I should get over slavery."
And totally understand that.
And it went on, and one of the Trumpsupporters, um, or Trump supporter
at the time said, "You know, Ihaven't watched this film in a couple
years and I'm appalled at myself."
(08:56):
And when we filmed him, he was veryoutspoken about the border wall.
Uh, and, you know, three years goby and, and that he didn't like
holding that argument anymore.
Alexis Miles (09:09):
So Tom, I wanted to ask you about process and, and practices that
you use, 'cause lots of people have donethis experiment of bringing polarized
people together in an attempt to createunity and community and it hasn't worked.
Tom Cosgrove (09:27):
Mm-hmm...
Alexis Miles (09:28):
So can you talk more about what process, what practices
made this work so that otherpeople might attempt to replicate?
Tom Cosgrove (09:38):
So, I mean, that's part of what I wanna try to, uh, explore in a,
in a, you know, in a 30-minute form withthis sequel so that there is something
out there for people to watch and say,okay, this is how I can try it in my life.
Um, 'cause some of the stuff wedid just isn't replicable, right?
Like, give up your life for 48 hoursand be with a group of strangers in a
(09:59):
kind of offbeat or interesting place.
But other things I think are replicable.
And the first is with, is engagingwith people about who they are
that isn't about what they believe.
And that's when connectionstarts to appear in the room.
And confusion.
(10:19):
And the other part of it was whenthey gathered, they had no idea who
anybody else was in terms of tribal,red, blue, tribal kinda stuff, right?
Um, so I think the first part of thatis our exercises where you have to
sit in conversation with someone else.
And one of them, I learned from a graphicjournalist in San Francisco, even though
(10:41):
uh, I learned it from a woman namedWendy MacNaughton, and it is an old art
school class, drawing class exercise.
Uh, what we did was something I learnedfrom Wendy, and the very first thing they
did when they came together after, youknow, we introduced each other, was they
randomly got a partner and they had todraw each other's space for three minutes.
(11:04):
And the rule was you had to look at eachother's face for three minutes and not
take, and you weren't allowed to take thepen off the paper or look at the paper.
It wasn't about the artyou were about to produce.
It was about this uncomfortablehuman moment of looking at someone
else's face, particularly their eyes.
'Cause we don't, I mean, we don't reallydo that with the people we love for that
(11:24):
length of time, let alone a stranger.
And then after that they shared astory with each other of a time someone
surprised them with compassion, andthey were asked to write it down so that
they could tell it back as that person.
So I, you know, we would all sharestories and I would say, "Hi, I'm,
I'm Sam, and here's my story."
(11:46):
And Sam would say, "Hi, I'mAlexis and here's my story."
"I'm Tom, here's..."
Well, that took up a fairly good chunkof time, and then we broke for dinner.
And like any well run household, peoplewere asked to either be on helping
to serve or help clean up, right?
(12:06):
And then we said, okay, here's yourfirst real challenge of the weekend.
We would like you to establish therules you want to have for this
conversation, the norms you wanna hold.
And to be honest, when Larry and I firsthad this idea of this film, we actually
thought you could be in a process.
You could spend days just trying to getagreement on how you were gonna do it.
(12:30):
And, you know, this thing wasover and done in 20, 30 minutes.
And the, the fun part was the longestdebate in either cast was the Gen-Xers
debating if they could swear, and if so,which words and in what settings, so that
it wouldn't be offensive to anyone, butjust be their, usual energetic f-ing self.
Sam Fuqua (12:55):
You know, these are such great, uh, ideas and I think the
work you've done and others have donein implementing them is laudable.
But how do we expand that?
How do we carry that forward?
I mean, we, we, I'm usinga generalization here.
Tom Cosgrove (13:09):
Mm-hmm...
Sam Fuqua (13:09):
We listen to the media, we listen to, that often reinforces our view.
We live where we live oftenamongst people who think like us.
And certainly, our own networks aremade up of folks often of like mind.
It's, it's really difficult to, tobreak out of that and do the kinds
of things that you have, uh, puttogether in a very structured way.
Tom Cosgrove (13:30):
Yeah, I mean, so there's a couple things I could say about that.
First of all, we set out to createa television show because that is
how you get people to change, right?
Like television so, has for ge, you know,uh, decades, half century really in,
infuenced who we are and how we operate.
And if, uh, there's the, there's,there's a, uh, sociologist pollster
(13:52):
who died, I don't know, 20 years agonamed Daniel Yankelovich, who in the
nineties wrote a book where he talkedabout the power of proxy dialogue.
Like we would see people on a televisionshow and, um, and they, they might
be describing a trip they're gonnatake on, a meal they're gonna engage
with, something they're doing in theirlives, and people can be so immersed in
(14:16):
following that character, an individualon a show, they might imagine that
they've already done the same thing, orthey've just opened their mind to it.
So what, part of what we were tryingto do with the diversity of people
we put, uh, in the room to film wasso a viewer could find themselves
(14:37):
among those 24 people, uh, and, andsay, "Oh, I, I like, I like how J.J.
ended up here.
I like what he, you know, I canopen my mind to better behavior or
taking my good behavior in real lifeinto social media," for example.
That was the goal.
We didn't get there.
I mean, we didn't, we ended up with afilm instead of a series and not without
(15:02):
trying, but a lot of it had to dowith COVID and the timing of all this.
And then I'd say like, you know,a simple rule for people, uh, and
again, it gets to be one-sided.
You have to set your ownexample in this stuff.
There's a guy named Arthur Brooks,who was a longtime conservative, ran
the American Enterprise Institute,has written a whole, you know, number
(15:24):
of books, uh, of the people I know.
He's spent the most time withthe Dalai Lama and yet late
in life, he became a Catholic.
So, you know, he's a, he'sa mix of, of contrast.
But Arthur has a book that came outa couple years ago, 'cause, Love Your
Enemies, and, uh, he talks about inthat book that, you know, anger is a
(15:45):
normal, it's a normal emotion, right?
Uh, believing about believing somethingpassionately, we all want to do that.
And so often something we are passionateabout isn't gonna come to pass.
Um, we're allowed to get angry about that.
The difference is that I can have mybelief and I can be angry that my way
(16:09):
isn't gonna happen, but I don't haveto hold the other person in contempt.
And it's this contempt culture.
And it's not that contempt hasn't existedfor generations of human beings, but
we're in this moment where contemptand hate and fear, and I can go on and
on, have all been monetized in a waythat has just never happened before.
(16:35):
You know, the, the, the hate megaphonethat social media has, that they make
a buck on, is a lot of the problem.
Sam Fuqua (16:45):
It's a culture of resentment to me, you know, like, you should resent
this other person for reasons X, Y, Z.
Yeah.
Tom Cosgrove (16:51):
Yeah.
Sam Fuqua (16:51):
And, and...
Tom Cosgrove (16:52):
And that, you know, and fear of the other, again, it's like biblical.
It goes back so far about people have, youknow, written about that kind of stuff,
and we're, that's what we're living with.
Like I, you know, the easiestmotivator to get somebody to
vote isn't vote for something.
It's to vote against something.
(17:13):
And unfortunately, hugelyunfortunately, in the last chunk
of years, that big reason to voteagainst something's about race.
I was the program, co-program director ofthe Democratic National Committee in 2004.
And I'm literally the person who broughtto everybody and said, "Hey, there's
(17:35):
this state senator out in Illinoiswho's running for the United States
Senate, and he's an amazing speaker.
And look at this New Yorker article, andwe should make him our keynote speaker."
Right?
And you know, if we remember what BarackObama said on the stage in Boston, he was
the first to take the, you know, the colorcodes of the news networks on election
(17:59):
night, red and blue, and turned it into aspeech where he was preaching for purple.
And you know, hope, right?
Hope was the message.
It was awesome.
Biggest turnout in the historyof the country at that point.
And we all wanted to believe as I, as acivic futurist did, that we've hit this
(18:23):
moment where we were gonna be on thisaccelerated path to a better future, not
understanding the Jim Crow faction ofAmerican culture that is still out there
and the blowback that came from them.
And that's what we're living in right now.
We're living in that blowback.
Alexis Miles (18:41):
Tom you talk about hope.
So I, I know that the film hadits first showing in Boulder,
and to a sold out house.
Did the audience's response give youhope that we are coming to a place
where we can have these conversationsand reach a sense of unity?
Tom Cosgrove (19:03):
Yeah.
You know, it's an interesting thing'cause I've, you know, you and I have
both been in, in those theaters, uh, atthe, at the, uh, at the Dairy Arts Center.
Nobody left, right?
Typically, when the show endsand its talkback time, you know,
there's at least a trickle of peopleout of the seats, nobody left.
Um, and we could have keptgoing in the questions.
(19:24):
So I think that was the audience itself,thinking, oh, there's a lot to learn
here and I wanna be curious about.
And so yeah, that part was hopeful.
But, but the, the more hopeful part wasthe words that came out of the, uh, out of
the cast when they were asked questions.
I mean, like Nikki, uh, Miller,um, she's married now, I think
(19:49):
her last name is now Strait.
She's a, she was the youngest personthat we filmed, and she was also the
only, at the time, the only singlemother, and from outside Chicago.
And, she talked about how importantit is to learn to be wrong and how
as humans, we just hate it, right?
(20:10):
Nobody wants to be wrong, but if wecan't accept that, you can't grow.
And then I came across this awesomequote this week, um, from this
film that, um, somebody askedme to watch to help him with.
It was, it was about, um,uh, these two high schools in
Cleveland, Mississippi, Brown v.
Board of Education never came to be there.
(20:31):
They are still separate.
And one of the people in thecommunity was interviewed and he,
he said, uh, "Change is inevitable.
Growth is optional."
And I'd like to believe about, youknow, the sold out crowd, there
was a lot of chosen growth thatpeople stepped into and I think will
(20:53):
stick with them after they left.
Alexis Miles (20:58):
I watched the film again, uh, a couple of nights ago, and I
noticed, so I've said it several times,but I get this reaction every time I
hear this woman describe her proudestmoment as being when Trump was elected.
Tom Cosgrove (21:14):
Yeah.
Alexis Miles (21:14):
So even though I know there's going to be transformation
over the course of the film,I still get that gut reaction.
But having looked at this filmhas helped me to understand that
I can just sit with that feeling.
Tom Cosgrove (21:30):
Mm-hmm.
Alexis Miles (21:30):
Of, of that stomach churning feeling, and just keep
watching it for points of humanity.
And I say that because one woman talkedabout the role of eating meals together.
Tom Cosgrove (21:42):
Mm-hmm.
Alexis Miles (21:42):
That, that was helpful for her.
So can you say something about that?
Tom Cosgrove (21:46):
Yeah.
Alexis Miles (21:46):
And earlier you talked about giving people chores, like you helped
set up for dinner or you clean up after.
So what's the role ofthose kinds of things?
Tom Cosgrove (21:55):
Yeah, you know, it's interesting.
So, I put together a really broad groupof advisors from around the country,
um, before we filmed it because Iwasn't sure what we were doing, right?
So reality television is marketed as, uh,it's not marketed as reality television.
That's not what the industry calls it.
They call it unscripted program.
(22:16):
There's no script.
They're just these moments where they knowthese emotions are gonna be in the room.
They're, they, they've artificiallyset it up for people's emotions
to over, to flood the room.
And then when it's all finished,they create a story arc out of
that, and that's what we watch.
And I had no interest in that.
Uh, and I had no interest in just bringinga group of people together and saying,
(22:39):
you know, "Okay, you're on your own,you know, um, and we'll, we'll, we're
gonna film you while you figure outwhat you wanna talk about or et cetera."
We need to have some flowed.
So I engage with a lot of people,ethicists and people in the civil
discourse space, and politicalpeople that I've known and, and
(22:59):
Motus Theater here in Boulder.
And over time, I shaped what Icalled a conversation choreography.
We're gonna start with this exerciseor this discussion point we're
gonna put in the room, and thenwe're gonna move to this one and
then to the next one, and so on.
And so part of that purpose was we'regonna begin and spend a good chunk of
(23:20):
time, um, hearing about each other,um, and things we've lived our lives
through in a way that maybe thatopens me up to be curious about.
And then we're gonna have a meal.
And we wanted the meal to be, notthat we were serving them, we wanted
them to be invested in this weekend.
(23:42):
And so very early on, the investmentwas half of you are serving and
half of you are cleaning up.
With, you know, we, we had twogreat locations, this double-edged
theater in Western Mass.
that has a live-in, uh,cast company and does camps.
So they had, you know, they had a kitchen.
They had the space for it.
They had a shop.
(24:02):
And likewise experimental station inChicago, which is just this really cool
building nonprofit that has lots of thingsin it, and so we were able to bring a
caterer in there and had this big table.
Both places having a bigtable matter 'cause nobody was
shuttled off to the kiddy table.
Uh, nobody got the round table, wanted,they wanted to be at the square table.
They were all together.
(24:24):
And so that was there and we wanted totake advantage whenever we were having
a meal and so, the setup on Friday afterthat meal is when we move into a room
where we ask those two questions that Iknow is gonna put the difference there.
And that is your most andleast proud moment in your
own lifetime as an American.
(24:44):
And I knew that Trump and Obama weregonna be part of that conversation.
You know, the surprise in the Gen-Xerswas the weeks after 9/11 were the
proudest moment for three-quartersof the people in the room.
And in that cast, the restof the pride was Obama.
(25:04):
You know, it was the youngercast in Chicago where uh, the
pride in Trump came in the room.
But the next day at breakfast inMassachusetts, they still were not sure
who was who as a group, 'cause we didn'tlet any crosstalk happen Friday night.
But as they came to breakfast with us, Iassigned them to a table looking to do it
(25:28):
as randomly as I could, standing at theentrance to this diner in, in, uh, Elmer's
Diner in, in Nashville, Massachusetts.
But I purposely put them in theirtribes, in their red and blue groups.
And I knew that when that recognitionwas gonna be there, the conversations
would change in, in, at both tables.
(25:49):
And the bigger change is really in theTrump table because they're no longer
alone and they carry a level of shameand embarrassment about their support
for him or their voting for him.
And we did the same thing in Chicago.
All, they had already figuredout who was who because of
Friday night's conversation.
We still left it that way.
(26:09):
Then on Sunday, we switch it up.
By Sunday, we put them in these pairs.
We do this exercise Saturday nightwhere we ask them to pair up with
the person they're least likely tobe friends with, or least likely to
be connected with when they leave.
And so everything is inthose pairs on Sunday.
And so each table is, youknow, was equally divided.
(26:30):
But again, food is what, it comforts us,you know, it nourishes us, it's a platform
we're familiar with conversation around.
So yeah, it was very purposeful.
Sam Fuqua (26:43):
You also have a couple of other projects that I'd like to talk to
you about that maybe are in more earlierstages, but relate to our history,
our culture, and how we understand oneanother in the United States today.
Uh, can you tell us aboutthe Constitution project?
Tom Cosgrove (27:01):
So we've, we have a project, uh, it's called the Preamble Project:
We the people, that I started developingin the fall of 2020, in part because,
again, watching the election play outand how, uh, little movement is left in
adult America on one side or the other,and then witnessing the insurrection on
(27:22):
January 6th, realized that a lot of ourfuture is, uh, is in the hands of people
who are a long way from having the right,having the legal age right to vote, right?
So these are the students of today.
And I discovered that the,uh, ad industry has already
identified them as a generation.
(27:43):
So if you've been born since2010, you're Gen Alpha.
And so in 2032, Gen Alpha and GenZ are gonna be by far the plurality
of American voters, and they mightbe right on the cusp of being
the majority of American voters.
And so how much belief they havein our democracy and their place
(28:06):
in it, is really gonna matter.
So we decided to create something inpart because Constitution Day, which is
not a federal holiday, it is a federalday of observation, when it was created
in 2005, in the law that was passed, itsays all government offices must provide
(28:28):
educational programming, all federalgovernment offices, on Constitution
Day, and all schools, whether that's acollege or it's a kindergarten class that
receives federal funding in that fiscalyear, must also provide educational
programming on Constitution Day.
And I thought wow, youknow, here's our hook.
(28:50):
Here's this opportunity.
Every school in America issupposed to be doing this.
If we could create a program aroundcelebrating some part of the constitution
that became annualized, we would helpkids grow a pro-democracy muscle, and
exercise it for at least 12 years.
(29:14):
And when I looked around, I saw, I mean,there are lots of Constitution Day things
and there are lots of people that havelots of fascinating, you know, well-run
programming around the Constitution.
Most of it centered on the amendments.
And the amendments are literally,you know, those rights from the,
that we indiv, you know, outlineour individual rights are also the
(29:37):
things we argue the most about.
We can, they can interpretthem in lots of ways.
And I thought, but, but the setupfor the Constitution, the preamble,
which was written to sell it,really, was the marketing paragraph.
If we don't have a belief in thosevalues, in those words, um, you know,
we're, you know, we got a lot to do.
And so that's what we set out to do.
(29:58):
And it just starts with literallythe very first three words,
which are "We the people."
The choice to represent thisnew nation, this new republic.
That, what was most important aboutit was we were a collective of people.
And I, you know, my own belief is our ownindividual rights won't exist if we aren't
(30:21):
collectively all seen equally in the 'We'.
We created it, we tested it lastyear, we're on track to launch
it to 6,000 middle and highschools, um, this September.
Sam Fuqua (30:33):
Another project you have started, I think, or you're at least
in the thinking about stages, relatesto the songs we sing and the songs that
we, we know that purport, in some cases,to celebrate what America is all about.
And maybe, maybe they're not necessarilythe right songs or there are other
songs that might be, uh, deeperand more meaningful in reflecting
(30:55):
the, the American experience.
Tom Cosgrove (30:57):
Yeah, so I mean, it's the sa, it's the same project, actually.
So we are working on creatinga, what would be the curriculum
or the program in the K-2 space.
Like how, how, where do you startthis conversation and then how
do you advance it over time?
And, we're really interested in, um,in doing it through song and art.
(31:19):
You know, again, it's a,back about the culture here.
And so to me, if we have a song thathas the same power for letting every
child see and feel themselves equallyin, in the 'We', we the people,
then it's like, now I know my ABCs.
It just becomes part of, part of life.
(31:40):
And so I've, you know, I've had a, aformer music critic in Boston who has
been doing a search of songs throughoutour history that fit in this lane.
There's a huge chunk of music that'sin, you know, the 1960s and seventies
all out in the civil rights era.
But the, the song of theAmerican Revolution was a
(32:02):
song called The Liberty Song.
It was written by a mannamed John Dickinson.
He was inspired to write a song'cause he'd written a series of
essays, and he didn't think enoughpeople were reading his essays.
If I, if I'm remembering thehistory of this correctly.
And so he wrote a song with the ideamore people would be exposed to it.
(32:23):
And what my favorite parts of thisliberty song were, in one of the
last stanzas he talks about, um,"United we stand and divided we fall."
And I always thought of that line about"divided we fall" to Lincoln's speech,
and yet it was baked into the musicof the revolution when people decided
(32:44):
they wanted to break away from Britain.
I think what you and I talked about,Sam, was that, uh, Tom Morello of the
Rage Against the Machine was writingthis, this culture newsletter for the
New York Times, and the very first issuethat he wrote, he wrote about Joe Hill.
And so Joe Hill was, could be thoughtof as America's most famous communist.
(33:09):
So he was an organizer inthe teens in the twenties.
He was a, he was a "wobbly."
He was a member of theInternational Workers Party.
He eventually was hung on trumpedup charges in Idaho in the 1920s.
But what Morello writes about isthat Hill was a songwriter, and
he was a songwriter that inspiredpeople like Woody Guthrie to follow.
(33:31):
But there's no recordings of Hill, uh, ofanything that he wrote and saw and sang.
But there is this quote where hesays, "Why waste my time writing
a pamphlet that might be read oncebefore it's thrown away when I can
write a song that will be repeatedover and over in hearts and minds?"
And I went, "Oh!
Yeah!"
(33:51):
Like, that's, that's the power of music.
Sam Fuqua (33:55):
Tom Cosgrove, it's great to spend time with you.
Thank you for your, foryour time and for your
Tom Cosgrove (33:59):
work.
Yeah.
Thank you and Alexis, Sam,for, for the invitation.
This has been a lot of fun.
Sam Fuqua (34:05):
Tom Cosgrove is the founder and president of New Voice Strategies,
a nonprofit with a mission of healingdivides, restoring compassion,
and strengthening self-government.
He's also co-creator of thedocumentary film Divided We
Fall (34:20):
Unity Without Tragedy.
You can watch the film and findout more about his work at the
website, newvoicestrategies.com.
(34:42):
Thanks for listening toWell, That Went Sideways!
We produce new episodes twice a month.
You can find them whereveryou get your podcasts, and on
our website, sidewayspod.org.
We also have information on ourguests and links to more conflict
resolution resources at the website.
That's sidewayspod.org.
(35:05):
Our production team is Mary Zinn,Jes Rau, Norma Johnson, Alexis Miles,
Alia Thobani, and me, Sam Fuqua.
Our theme music is by Mike Stewart.
We produce these programs in Coloradoon the traditional lands of the
Arapahoe, Cheyenne, and Ute Nations.
(35:26):
To learn more about the importanceof land acknowledgement, visit
our website, sidewayspod.org.
And this podcast is a partnershipwith the Conflict Center, a
Denver-based nonprofit that providespractical skills and training for
addressing everyday conflicts.
Find out more at conflictcenter.org.
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