Between Americans: Recent Episodes
Boting Zhang
Twelve Americans who voted for Donald Trump and twelve who voted for Hillary Clinton spent one year trying to talk across the political divide. Here's their story.
"If you listened to these voices hoping for some kind of shared national vision, I think you'd be disappointed."
"I pray for a leader that can elevate us out of this national conversation that has gotten so dirty."
"Everyone's all, 'We love Obama!' He was never helping out at any of our reservations, never nothing."
"It's really hard to come up with a representative comment about Christians, because we don't even agree."
"While Americans can have conversations, I think our elected officials are failing to lead by example."
"I've transitioned into a chronic disbeliever in the idea of democracy in this country."
"I've seen the flip side where there isn't a rule of law, where there is a lot of corruption."
"Maybe democracy is a process, and the next step is always born out of conflict? But something does feel broken."
"Oh…yeah. That's right, people don't always live in the bubble of reading Politico Pro updates."
"My job requires me to be able to talk to people who I could not be farther from in life."
"The reality that we can't even agree on what facts are is, to me, the biggest obstacle towards fixing the divide that we have."
"The idea that you can make a society safer by not letting people say terrible things is a pathological illusion."
"I would love to see politics at the highest levels begin to work from a position of honesty and vulnerability."
Some participants couldn't be reached for an exit interview, but even that is part of the story.