Americans need to talk to each other

You don't have to agree with someone to have a conversation with him or her. Indeed, we've long believed that conversations between people who don't see eye to eye are healthy for the body politic. Unfortunately, those conversations can be hard to find in a nation that is, as former Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a Republican, said Tuesday, "pretty divided." He was answering a question we posed to him about the state of the union during the inaugural event of the Spirit of '76 Speaker Series, which was held before an audience at Lorain County Community College. (The Chronicle-Telegram is among the sponsors of the series, which runs through June as part of the county's celebration of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.) Kasich was right that division is one of the nation's biggest problems. He added that those political divisions mean Republicans tend to view Democratic electoral victories as an existential threat to the nation. Democrats, meanwhile, feel the same when Republicans win. "People have to realize that what the other side says is not as horrible as you think it is, and vice versa," he said. Yet we know plenty of Republicans who argued that former Democratic President Joe Biden's economic policies were a disaster. Likewise, they complained about his efforts to combat climate change and forgive student debts, to name but a few examples. These days we know plenty of Democrats who are concerned about Republican President Donald Trump, whose first year back in office has been … chaotic. There are legitimate concerns about his use of military power, his threats against allies over Greenland, his trade policies and the extreme tactics of those charged with enforcing federal immigration law. It's hard to come together, though, when the Trump administration is investigating and punishing political opponents, including the leaders of blue cities and states, comedians, colleges and federal officials who won't bend to his will. Another issue Kasich identified is that the legislative branch has ceded much of its authority to the executive branch, a problem that he correctly noted predated Trump. He said some congressional Republicans have shown a willingness to break with the president on issues such as extending Obamacare subsidies and the use of military force in Venezuela. He also conceded that there were plenty of politicians on both sides who were so "rock ribbed" that they struggled to reach across the aisle. "Until we pull out of that, we're going to continue to be a divided country, and that's not healthy," Kasich said. Kasich knows a thing or two about breaking with his party. He was the last Republican candidate standing against Trump in the 2016 campaign for the GOP presidential nomination. He went on to become one of Trump's fiercest Republican critics and famously broke ranks to endorse Biden in 2020. Kasich described Trump as a "negative populist," while styling himself as a "positive populist." He said that meant if someone had a problem, "I'm going to try to figure out how to fix it, not blame somebody else for it." How then does a nation as politically fractured as the United States come together to solve its problems? Too often the loudest voices in politics are from the extremes of both parties — especially in the echo chambers of social media. Kasich offered a few suggestions that merit consideration. First, he argued that the United States had become a nation more focused on "I" than we. He said a similar mindset had taken hold during the Gilded Age, which ran roughly from the 1870s to the 1890s and was defined in part by political corruption and economic disparity. (Kasich declined to say that America had entered a second Gilded Age, as some have argued.) Some of the issues of the Gilded Age, Kasich said, were only addressed when Americans embraced a more unified mindset, in part by coming together in civic organizations, which have experienced declining membership. Working collaboratively toward a common goal can make a difference, he said, especially when it comes to tackling issues locally. For example, he said the crisis of loneliness could be countered by local creating programs to visit folks who might be all by themselves. Even visiting an elderly person once a week would make a big difference. Such efforts would have another effect: getting people to interact with those from different walks of life, which would lead to the conversations that he correctly contended were so necessary. Finding common ground is rarely easy, but if you're only talking to people who agree with you, it's all but impossible. If Americans are to have any hope of bridging the yawning political chasm, we're going to have to start talking to each other.