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One Paramount Priority
In the four years since the last US presidential election, Diane Hessan (MBA 1977) has been interviewing more than 500 voters, talking about everything from gun control to COVID-19. This years-long project has made clear to Hessan that many Americans share common ground on issues that matter to us—but that our perceptions of the other side are tearing us apart, she writes in an election-day opinion column in the Boston Globe.
An entrepreneur, author, and founder and chair of the consumer collaboration agency C Space, Hessan writes that many Americans have come to see the other party as an adversary for a range of reasons. “We have a divisive president—and the extremes get the air time, both among our political leaders and the media. The algorithms created by our social networks fuel the fire even more. This all reinforces a narrative that people from the other party are crazy, selfish, and focused on the wrong issues.” Almost no one is happy about it, by the way: All but 10 of 500 voters reported feeling distressed about the division.
That said, Hessan reports that finding common ground might be easier than one would think. Most people would support stronger gun controls, a path to citizenship for dreamers, preserving Obamacare with a public option, increasing taxes on the wealthy, and the right to abortion, recognizing that the decision would be excruciating. “The majority are just trying to make ends meet financially, stay healthy, and give their children a better life than they have. The majority hate Trump’s tweets and believe that the media is biased,” she writes.
In spite of this, our beliefs about the other side keep us inexorably divided. What to do about it? Presidential promises for unity aren’t sufficient, for starters, she says. The solution has to include the media and its outsize responsibility in shaping public opinion. Governors could serve as role models, demonstrating what public safety could look like. The winning party must resist the urge to gloat after the election is finalized, and our representatives in Congress must set the tone for more productive dialogue. It will take deep listening, Hessan writes, and leveraging the ideals we do share to pave a new path for the future.
See her methodology here.
Click here to listen to our 2017 Skydeck podcast with Diane Hessan, “What Really Motivates American Voters?”
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