[00:00:00] Speaker A: This was very, very smart people, no doubt, but very concerned, regular people, about a narrow question. Not a large question, a narrow question which was, what would a trustworthy election look like? Right.
[00:00:20] Speaker B: These are our fellow Americans coming to this. Going to a lot of trouble because everyone in all those rooms knew they were working in aid of this trustworthy elections campaign. I really gotta salute them. And it took a lot of cogitating for this twelve person leadership committee to eyeball each other and listen, listen, listen and educate ourselves, enlighten ourselves as humans and Americans.
[00:00:50] Speaker C: Hey, there. It's Ramsey here. That was Larry Mays and Walt McKee, two volunteer leaders for the organization Braver Angels. We had a great discussion about how they got involved with braver angels, how the organization builds bridges between people with different political beliefs, and how they developed the trustworthy elections report, which has over 700 points of unanimous agreement from over 200 people from across the nation and across the political spectrum.
[00:01:16] Speaker A: Whew.
[00:01:17] Speaker C: Doesn't seem possible. Right. Well, let's jump in. Hi, Larry and Walt. Thank you guys so much for joining me today for this discussion. How are you guys doing today?
[00:01:27] Speaker B: Great.
[00:01:27] Speaker A: Good.
[00:01:28] Speaker B: Great to be here.
[00:01:29] Speaker C: Well, I know that you two guys are pretty good friends, and we met just recently. But for the sake of the audience, let's. Let's do some introductions and set the stage.
So, Walt McKee and Larry Mays, you are both volunteer leaders with the organization Braver Angels, which is dedicated to helping people from different sides of the political spectrum to relate well with each other. Larry, I understand you identify as blue, which means you generally lean left. And Walt understand you identify as a red, which means that you generally lean right.
So let's start with how you guys met. Like, what was the context? What was that? Like? Who wants to start off by telling some of that story?
[00:02:23] Speaker A: Well, Walt should because he's always better at remembering stuff than I am.
[00:02:28] Speaker C: Well, that means that you get to add the color commentary then.
[00:02:31] Speaker A: Yes. There you go. Go ahead.
[00:02:33] Speaker B: Well, basically, David Blankenhorn, who's the president of Braver Angels, felt that there was a grave concern about the trustworthiness or perception thereof of our elections. And he felt like something should be done. And so braver angels determined that they were going to have this trustworthy elections campaign.
Larry was recruited to be the blue co chair, and Walt me was recruited to be the red co chair. Braver angels always does things 50 50, blue and red.
And so we started meeting cold and out of the blue in these Zoom calls that went on for about 13 years.
[00:03:24] Speaker A: Almost two.
[00:03:28] Speaker B: But then off to the side, we started having the need for a little bit of coordination and interpersonal contact, and we started talking and, you know, a little bit of. We're both married men of a certain age, of a certain vintage, and we, you know, had that in common, and it was a great thing to have in common. And so we would share little anecdotes, totally positive, totally jovial. And that really provided a nice. A nice foundation for us to become friends over time. And I've really appreciated it, and I think it helped us be prepared for these meetings and tasks that we had to do to bring the trustworthy elections campaign to fruition.
[00:04:22] Speaker A: You know, I really couldn't improve on what Walt just said. It's weird. You know, I was recruited by David Blankenhorn as well, and to be a part of this effort. And in terms of the relationship, it made it easier, I would say, to be co chair for the blues and to work with Waltz, to which point, you know, we were like the tv show men of a certain age was one of my favorite tv shows, by the way, and they took it off.
[00:04:55] Speaker C: The air of a certain age, like 29, probably, right?
[00:05:00] Speaker A: Yeah. There you go. And married, right. With kids and the grandkids. And so there's a. I think that brought a certain. We had a certain perspective or view of life even beyond the task that was in front of us. Right. And there were things like how important, I think we, we both recognize in each other this need or this idea to be civil. Right. And to find a way to bring this project to shore. And you're dealing with a lot of different personalities. So it really made it easier for me to have to work with someone like Walt, who's very even keeled. And also beyond all this, really, really funny, which, to me, if a person's not funny, you got a real problem because the subject matter is tough enough. So anyway.
[00:05:59] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And that's sort of the whole spirit of braver angels. Right. To build relationships, to help people build relationships who have very different perspectives. So, you know, what was it like as you each sort of became part of sort of the braver angels movement? And we know what brought you to braver, braver angels. Larry, you want to start on that one?
[00:06:25] Speaker A: Yeah. So I have a friend, Lou Fin, who's probably one of the well known in the country, and called me up and said, hey, Larry, I like for you to think about getting involved with braver angels. And. But before that, I want you to meet a friend of mine, David Blankenhorn. And I kind of chuckled. I said, wait a minute. He said, I went to Harvard with him. And I said, wait a minute. David Blakenhard from the Bush administration, the guy that wrote the book on fathers? Yeah. We were friends at Harvard and had done some work together years ago. Never heard that story. Blew my mind. It's the fact that the two of them knew each other and, you know, we're still connected in some ways. And David set up a meeting with myself. Lou, and I recruited a gentleman by the name of Reverend Jeff Brown. And we started having discussions with a gentleman by the name of David Owensky, who was sort of on the payroll, if I understand it right, of braver angels, and was really keen on this particular topic initially. Long story short, there was some planning. There was a workshop I think Walt could talk about in Maryland. The first in person workshop was in Boston about two years ago, in which we brought people from the left and from the right and went through what's called a common ground process and was really, really, I went in with, I have to say, very low expectations. In fact, a guy that I know well, a blue, came in and said, I'm not taking any crap today from anyone. That fire was going to be directed to people on the red side. Right. And I was like, oh, boy. You know, but.
And this is serious. I remember thinking in my mind, okay, we may not come to any agreements today, but the discussion in the process is important, you know, and I'll just wrap up by saying we went through a process that at the end, there were 16 agreements in regards to what a trustworthy election would look like. And I was, you know, over the moon in action, shocked by that, by that result.
[00:08:37] Speaker C: Yeah.
Well, that's interesting. So, you know, here I think many people who had never been in part of an experience like that would expect to have people sort of set up camps and have cover and be, you know, shooting darts at each other.
But, you know, I'm curious how the process.
So, Walt, like, how does the process that braver angels have, how does it prevent things like that? And, like, what? Tell us a little bit more about the process that helps to have. That helps. Braver angels have reds and blues, speak well and civilly and productively well in.
[00:09:20] Speaker B: These workshops initially and then during ongoing relationships, I'd say it's two things. One is specific to braver angels, and that is all. The workshops are conducted by trained moderators, and those moderators are in the mix front and center, and they politely educate the participants in everybody's role. And how things work. And they can, the participants can relax and participate as appropriate. But then the other thing that I would say is that in the youth education of my particular religious education, my tradition, back around 9th grade, I was taught that all relationships are based on trust. And the source of that trust is repeated, mutually positive experiences. And these workshops, the components of them, the workshop as a whole, the meeting, meeting, meeting, these are very positive, mutually positive, shared experiences. They make it so that the people know who are participating in a brave rangel situation that by opening themselves up, they're going to gain from it and not be damaged by it. And no one's going to use that openness to cause harm to them, including, you know, psychically and intellectually, but rather they'll gain from it, you know, and those are the two main things in my mind that make it so that braver angel is successful. You know, we end up having a situation where reds and blues will listen to each other and knowing the character, the person they're talking to, and will want to come through for that other person, you know, not just intellectually, but, you know, viscerally on a human basis. They don't want the other person to be scared or to be upset or sad or fearful or angry.
And instead of taking the hammer that you'll see with people arguing on Facebook or other forums like that, they'll want things to be better for the other person. And when you got two people coming at it, red and blue like that, really productive things can happen. Rewarding things.
[00:12:02] Speaker A: Yeah. The ball is absolutely correct. There's a certain part of the process that I think is pretty powerful, and that is you get, you have what's called, depending upon how much time you have, what's called two questions of curiosity. Right? Where you get to ask the person of an opposite political thing. You're paired off, first of all, and you get to ask the person and you told beforehand, I think this is, to Walt's point, that's very, very powerful, I think. And that is you could. Whatever questions that you have are the two questions of curiosity. So they should be thoughtful, but they're not got you questions. The idea is not to give someone a question, to put them on the spot, but a thoughtful question that actually, for you, the questioner receives information, right. So that both sides and both sides understand in that kind of intimate conversation, you're going to have that opportunity. And those questions of curiosity are quite interesting.
When I had a chance to co moderate in Boston, I walked around and was listening to some of the questions and I have to say they were very thoughtful. But beyond that, there was a certain time limit for that process, that part of the process to take place. They did not. The participants in questions of curiosity did not want to stop talking. In fact, when I was going around instead trying to wrap it up, there was an obvious irritation.
[00:13:38] Speaker C: They were getting into it.
[00:13:40] Speaker A: It was real engaged, but it wasn't a shouting match or anything like that. It was real questions. And they thought they had someone. Walt mentioned the word trust. They saw that they had someone in front of them that they could reveal and also receive the information that they were curious about.
[00:14:00] Speaker C: And would you say that these techniques are generally transferable to real life that you and other people have, and getting into interactions with people, asking genuine, curious questions, you know, things like that, too?
[00:14:22] Speaker B: I'd say yes and no. If I'm dealing with someone who is not an experienced, braver angels type person, they're not coming into it with the same mindset. They've got their hammer in their pocket, and they want to win. But I don't want to be that person anymore. So it's not to say that I'm going to shut them down and say, you know, no talk about politics, no talk about religion, but I will adopt a braver angels approach and just listen, and they'll go on and on, and, you know, I don't know everything. Maybe I'll learn something, or at the very least, maybe they'll come away from our encounter not feeling hammered, and maybe there'll be a future, you know, for us to communicate.
[00:15:15] Speaker A: Very true. I mean, years ago, and I referred back to the book recently, Stephen Carter wrote a book almost over 20 years ago about civility, right? And at that time, the country. The country was having its anger issues aired out in public, let's say, especially in the political arena. But, you know, if you read the book and it's, you know, about 300 pages or whatever, what it really comes down to are the things that we learned as two year olds in a classroom, right, how we figured out how to play together, how to talk together, how to cooperate in a way that everyone gets their needs met. But the thing that's essential as we become adults, where I think that is most important, is the ability to listen, the ability to listen to what the question is and not interject what you think, what the person is saying. You really need to listen to what the question is. Mortimer Adler talked about in his book, how to read a book. The best thing you could do if you were going to read a book is to allow the speaker to speak for him to speak for themselves. Right. And don't interject what you think the answer should be or that kind of thing, but respectfully, listen to the argument. I think to the degree that braver angels, through a process and through the workshops and other things, attempts to actually, each person listen to the other side, I think there's tremendous benefits to doing so.
[00:17:01] Speaker C: Absolutely.
Well, let's. Let's pivot to talking about the trustworthy elections report. You guys mentioned that earlier, but let's dig into kind of what was going on there.
[00:17:13] Speaker A: What was that?
[00:17:14] Speaker C: So you two were.
Yeah, you two were on the leadership team for that. And I understand it was based on the input of more than 200 volunteers collected through workshops across the country, much like you were describing to us. What was that process like to collect the input that went into the report? In what ways was it difficult, and in what ways did it work? Well, what was that process like?
[00:17:46] Speaker B: Well, I think we had about 26 of those workshops across the country, and each of those workshops, as we said, were about, I think, eight red, eight blue, plus maybe two moderators. And those workshops would have the purpose of trying to arrive at unanimous points of agreement about things that would improve the trustworthiness of elections, not just mechanically, technically, make them more efficient, but make them more trustworthy. And of those 200 odd volunteers and those 26 workshops, they came up with over 700 points of agreement. Unanimous. Now, a lot of those were overlapping. So we had a gentleman on our team named Bill Carberry, and he would receive that data in from the moderators and put it into spreadsheets. And over time, we, as humans, look at it and say, well, you know, this one is pretty close to this one. So we'd have to categorize them and distill them down to what we felt were the common points of agreement.
And it took, you know, this wasn't just twelve people sitting in a Zoom room of good intention. We were being informed by all these 200 people coming up with these unanimous points of agreement. These were points of agreement that were based on exactly what Larry was saying.
Someone would sit there and listen, or maybe half the group would sit there and listen, listen until the listening was done, and then the other side would listen until that listening was done.
And then they wouldn't just come to some compromise. They would come to unanimous decision. These are our fellow Americans coming to this, going to a lot of trouble, because everyone in all those rooms knew they were working in aid of this trustworthy elections campaign. I really gotta salute them. And it took a lot of cogitating for this twelve person leadership committee to eyeball each other and listen, listen, listen, and educate ourselves, enlighten ourselves as humans and Americans. And finally, we met in one room, physically up in Boston for a day. What was that, November 3 or fourth?
[00:20:38] Speaker A: Yeah, somewhere around there. Yes. And I think it was November 3.
[00:20:42] Speaker B: And that was. That was like our congress, you know, had the opportunity to have, you know, all of the feelings in the air. And that's where we hammered out the final, you know, gospel of trustworthy elections for us. And I do realize that I love hearing myself speak, so I want to pause here so that Larry can.
[00:21:07] Speaker A: No, no, Walt, you're doing just fine. You know, I'm going to force Walt to say a little more. Before we met in Boston, Walt, you got to talk about the philosophy, the term that you used. And we actually borrowed that term.
And when we met and the following day to hammer out some agreements, we really followed that philosophy. And I like Walt to talk about it a bit.
[00:21:34] Speaker B: I said to Larry at the time, if we write a book about this whole process, the title should be collaborative consensus. Because that was. That's what we were aiming to do and what we did. And it wasn't a consensus like you see in some places, where it's really more of a compromise. This was a collaborative process aimed at getting a consensus at the end, but lots of listen, listen, give and take. Oh, really? I didn't know that type of thing, you know? You know, for instance, I was. Larry educated himself on the voter id issue and then turned around and educated me. And I thought I knew what I was talking about when it came to voter id. But I was just going with what I had talked to people about.
And we both kind of walked away, kind of scratching our heads like, wow, we'll give you the details on that later. But just saying that we were in the throes of collaborative consensus, I felt like kind of calmed us sometimes because we realized, no, it's not the moment, not the heat of the moment or whatever. We have a process that we're going on, so let's finish it step by step.
[00:22:57] Speaker C: I really like that phrase, collaborative consensus. It's, it, you know, compromise, at least lately, it seems like it involves a, you know, mutual loss just as much as a mutual win, at least in terms of perception. It's like you have to give up something to get something. But I really like that how collaborative consensus sort of implies that both groups are trying to find something that was better than either one of them could have come up with on their own.
[00:23:25] Speaker A: And so.
[00:23:26] Speaker C: Yeah, sounds like a great book. I'll read it.
[00:23:30] Speaker A: It's the best. No, it's absolutely true. And, you know, when we're in Boston, we're not, it's, it's not a reset. It's based on, you know, all the workshops to that point that had gone on and the stuff that had been unanimous and agreed on. So there were certain things that we were hammering through that we said, well, this is what the workshops came up with. Right. And I have to say, those discussions in Boston in November, they were contentious.
There was some heat in there.
[00:24:04] Speaker B: But we also knew that we had a day.
We didn't have unlimited time. We had basically a business day. And so we had dinner the night before as a group to kind of indulge ourselves with just the interpersonal, you know, getting together. But in that room the next day, apart from sandwich time, we were diligent. And in the braver Angels tradition, we got ourselves a moderator.
[00:24:36] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:24:37] Speaker B: Bill Dougherty, one of the founders, is a counselor and a moderate graver angels moderator. And he kept us on track. And if we started indulging ourselves and going off, he'd say, excuse me, that's not the point.
You can get together next week and do that.
[00:24:57] Speaker C: These direct comments to the moderator do not direct them to each other.
[00:25:01] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
The awkward moments are always very precious because you like, oh, my God, what's going to happen next?
Bill was really good. He's really skilled at being a moderator and being a therapist and that sort of thing. So it worked out well.
[00:25:17] Speaker C: That's awesome. Well, let's talk about where, where you guys ended up a little bit. So you said that the recommendations were many, but they distilled into some basic categories. And I do have the report basically in front of me. So the seven, I can, I can rattle off the seven broad areas of concern as stated in the report, and maybe you guys can, you know, riff on one or two of those areas of concern that are of particular interest to you. Maybe that you were surprised by what happened or they're, they're particularly near and dear to your heart, but I'll rattle off those seven, and then you guys can, can grab on to one or two.
So we got fair and equal access to voting, verifiable voter identity and eligibility. That was the second one. Third one, transparency and accountability.
Fourth is redistricting and gerrymandering.
Fifth is confidence in vote counting.
Then you have safety and security in the elections. Process and finally, peaceful transfer of power. So I'm just struck that that is very comprehensive. That pretty much covers the covers the waterfront on that stuff. So let's jump onto that. Larry, you want to go first? What are one or two of those and tell us more about them.
[00:26:57] Speaker A: Yeah. And again, I appreciate you're saying basically the, it, comprehensiveness of the seven, seven questions. And again, that comes not, this comes from the grassroots. This actually comes from the workshops. Right. These areas are kind of made sounds.
[00:27:15] Speaker C: Like people were very concerned about a lot of different things and they brought all of their concerns up. And I guess if you have a bucket, that means that you had to come to at least some, some kind of agreement on all of those areas, which is really fantastic.
[00:27:31] Speaker A: Well, the first one for me, I think we alluded to it earlier, was, was voter id.
And I was very, you know, this was a very tough one as being a blue, being a person, you know, african American. And my grand, my grandfather, my father wasn't able to vote. Right. So this is something that in terms of voter id, anything that had, would make voting not easy would be a problem for me. But, you know, as we were going through the process and someone I really, really respect as a serious blue progressive, one of the workshop in Boston said, I don't see what the big deal is in terms of showing id.
You know, we have a driver's license and that sort of thing. Now, in fairness, that was debated and shot down on the blue side. Right. But, you know, it was fascinating to me. And as we got later on down the road here, as I started looking at, you know, some data, I was shocked to learn that Lollipop for several years had shown that most people were supportive of voter id.
Now one can get into the debate whether it's government issued id, whether it's photo id and all this other stuff. But at the end of the day, there's a, I think folks had a, you should show some type of id as, of open. Right. And so, and another thing, as I looked at the history that, the history of United States and the world, if you will, there's some kind of check or oppression or stop someone from voting. And here's the thing about United States. It didn't matter what race you were, right? They were. If you were not a white male landowner, if you didn't own land, you care if you're a white male or not. You didn't get the vote. Sorry. Right. And then you go along and you go through the 1415 amendments for African Americans and you go, go through the suffrage movement. My point being is that, and when you look at the rest of the world, suppression of voting or stopping someone from voting is not a new idea. Right. And that's something that every country or any democracy, whatever you want to call it, needs to fight against. Right. And I think that basic understanding that everyone, that we're all in the same boat in terms of at some point someone may deny, or someone has tried to deny yourself the right to vote, I think is a, is an equalizer to the degree. I don't know if that makes much sense.
That's the way I see it.
[00:30:32] Speaker C: Yeah, for sure.
[00:30:36] Speaker B: So what was one that you. I'm sorry, go ahead, Ramsey.
[00:30:41] Speaker C: Well, I was going to say what was one of these areas of concern that stood out for you?
[00:30:46] Speaker B: I think the one that I liked the most, so to speak, or I liked working on, was redistricting and gerrymandering, because there seemed to be just such a common ground amongst everybody that this was not only a broken situation, but harmful.
And everybody thought we should do better. And just, and real quick, what do.
[00:31:13] Speaker C: You mean by gerrymandering? Just in case anybody is scratching their.
[00:31:16] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:31:17] Speaker B: Every ten years there's a census, and the elections district for both Congress and local legislative districts in the states are redrawn in light of that census. And typically politicians in office, in power get to redraw them to their benefit, and that makes it harder for people to challenge those incumbents. And so the consensus of the points of agreement was that politicians currently in power should be removed from the process and there should be an independent commission with non current office holders on that commission.
[00:32:03] Speaker A: Yes. You know, we have a gentleman that's a part of, that was a part of the team who was an elected official in Massachusetts. The legislature gerrymandered his district, changed it to a district that he would be less competitive in. And the gentleman lost on election night, looked like he had won by vote. After recounting, he lost by one or two, and then it went to the courts and that sort of thing. But the point was, you know, the overwhelming power of his legislative friends, if you will, you know, to redistrict the thing the way that they did was wrong. Right. And this gentleman happens to be republican. Right. The legislator was, legislature was overwhelmingly democratic. Right. Doesn't matter which side it happens on. It's, this is wrong. Right. And, you know, to the point about, you know, having a commission is right. And you take elected officials out so as to not politicize, if you will, in a bad way, the process. Right. And I think that's. I think that's right in my mind.
[00:33:24] Speaker C: Yeah.
Well, so now that we have a report that had a tremendous amount of input and organization and a very broad, you know, range of solutions, what, what happens to that report? So what, what are braver angels plans? What are your hopes that will happen to that report and what may happen as a result of that?
[00:33:54] Speaker B: Well, first, if any of your listeners would like to see the report, if they just Google Braver angels trustworthy elections, they'll go right to the landing page where they can see a summary, the full report, and other information about it.
[00:34:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:34:09] Speaker C: And I'll try to put that in the show notes, too. I'll try to put a link in the show notes. Yeah, go ahead.
[00:34:14] Speaker B: Thank you. So we are doing, the most important thing that we're doing is podcasts because everyone knows that that's the best thing that you can do. But bottom line, generally, we're trying to get the word out through both traditional methods, which means mailing it out to legislators and people in the media and academia. But we're also trying to do popular culture things like speaking to groups that invite us podcasts and that sort of thing.
[00:34:44] Speaker A: Yeah. Social media. So everything in it. Everything and anything. And I look today, there were several different articles nationally, local articles, that mentioned the Braver Angels report, which is encouraging. Right. I think as we get further along in this current election cycle, I think what the report talks about is going to be very apt. And beyond that, I want to just reiterate the point that this is not a report that was created by a think tank with professional pollsters and that sort of thing. This was very smart people, no doubt, but very concerned, regular people, about a narrow question. Not a large question, a narrow question, which was a trustworthy. What would a trustworthy election look like? Right. And I think the fact that the question was narrow and people had to think that through is what gives it potency and why it's effective.
[00:35:56] Speaker C: So what would it look like? So does that imply that the solutions are descriptive in terms of what sort of would happen in such an election? Or is it, you know, directly prescriptive in terms of, like, this should be implemented. That should be implemented.
[00:36:18] Speaker B: I think they're general. This should be done. That should be done. We don't give the exact nuts and bolts because something that might be workable in California might be different from what's workable in Texas. You know, and we want to expect the rights of Texans in California's to know that and to figure out what works best in their scenario. And then hopefully, you know, there's that old saying about America being the laboratory of democracy that is, as things are tried in one place or another, someone will say, oh, yeah, the way they did it in California, that was a good, clean, simple way to do it. Let's not reinvent the wheel. Let's try that here. You know, and we're not saying that we're the end all, be all, you know, the human journey will go on. But I think that we did a pretty good job on behalf of America and braver angels in the time that we had.
[00:37:22] Speaker C: Well, any elections are interesting in the sense that even the federal, even elections for federal offices, including the presidency, are done by the states. And so we have literally 50 plus different ways that even the federal elections are conducted. So is that to mean, can I take that to mean that, you know, at jurisdictions and local levels and counties and states, you know, any, anyone could grab onto this report and, you know, talk to those that work and plan and operate in those elections at, you know, local levels and state levels, you know, is that something that you would encourage?
[00:38:04] Speaker B: That's our very grand.
[00:38:06] Speaker A: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. You know, and, you know, it's fascinating to me that, like, for example, there's a pew report that came out in February, and it talked about certain things that bubbled to the top, that it was also, in our report, paper ballot backups, you know, which in our case, we talked about audits, voter id. Right. We talked about that early weeks and early voting, all that sort of stuff. That was, these are things that bubbled up or were discussed and reported. And, you know, another one would be making election day a holiday. 72% of Americans support that. If you listen to most media personalities, you have no idea that's the case. You would think that's the most preposterous idea that someone ever heard. But most Americans support such a thing, right?
[00:39:09] Speaker C: I mean, why would you not want a day off?
[00:39:13] Speaker A: Well, you know.
[00:39:18] Speaker B: Before the podcast starts wrapping up, I did want to share with you the three principles that we strove to adhere to during making of this report. And those are one, voting should be easy, cheating should be hard. Two, every citizen should have an equal say in who will govern them. And this is done through free and fair elections. And three, the american government will fail if candidates refuse to accept any outcome other than victory. And these are three things that we kept reminding ourselves of as we proceeded through. And one reason that we did do that one day, intensive meeting in November is that we wanted to be, we wanted to roll this report out during 2024 because we knew that a lot of people were going to be talking about elections and we wanted this report to be in the mix right to the finish line.
[00:40:24] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:40:27] Speaker C: I mean, doesn't it always help to have a deadline, too? But, yeah, no, this is, I mean, in many ways, it feels like our last, best hope this election cycle to really make an impact. So where do you guys go from here? You know, you've, you are leaders within Braver angels. What, what's on the horizon for you guys? What are you going to do next?
[00:40:50] Speaker A: Well, they're trying to tell us what to do, Walt, but I don't know.
[00:40:56] Speaker B: Well, I hope that we can, you know, have a lot more situations like this where Larry and I can enjoy telling people about the report and our experience that led to the finishing of it. I'd actually like to participate in a couple of workshops just because they're so satisfying and so reassuring, you know, and, and probably I had been thinking, oh, now we can relax and not have dinner time interrupted by, you know, transportation meetings. But, but I see that that's.
[00:41:34] Speaker A: Well, we have, coming up is the Braver Angels convention annual convention. I think that's in June or July.
[00:41:43] Speaker B: I think it's July in Wisconsin.
[00:41:46] Speaker A: Right. And this report is going to be front and center. And those of us who worked on it, it's going to be a big part, as I understand it, a big part of that convention. Last year, Walt, I, and the project leader, Rena Bernards, did a little, had a panel discussion I thought went very well. Walt. And later on, we did a workshop, a breakout workshop at the convention. But I think what's interesting is the response from braver angels, people across the country, alliances and that sort very much were pleased and happy about the report and want to do more, if you will, and try to figure out how to build on what we were able to accomplish. And I just want to make one of the points, Ramsey Matt, is this was a volunteer army.
You know, we were not paid. We have our own professions and our own lives, and, but we felt that this was important, that our freedom, our democracy, our United States of America that we love, this was important to do whatever we had to, whatever sacrifices, if you will, we had to make to get this report out and to do those workshops. And I have to say that the twelve people that we worked together were just fantastic.
[00:43:10] Speaker B: Right.
[00:43:11] Speaker A: And, you know, particularly my co chair, Walt, was just fabulous. And we got to, at the convention. I don't smoke at all. Never have. But this man, because I like him. Yeah. He says, larry, you got to do one thing with me. We're going to have to smoke some cigars.
And we did. I think it was the ball. Was it about eleven or 12:00 at night?
This man has done it several times. He was a pro.
He'd had the lawn chairs. We were out there and people were walking by saying, oh, my God, who are those guys? Who are those guys?
[00:43:55] Speaker B: Also, we mentioned Bill Carberry, who was kind of our, our national coordinator, and he dealt with the technical information.
He made sure that the Zoom calls for the remote workshops and for our meetings were always working. And he was our database manager. We mentioned him. And I also want to mention project lead Rena Bernards, who was in supporting the committee and just whatever way it took, you know, sometimes helping herd cats to make things happen, a lot of cats.
[00:44:33] Speaker A: Very true.
[00:44:36] Speaker C: Well, you guys, you know, this, this was really great. I'm, I'm really interested in not just, you know, politics and fixing the system and doing reforms, but also doing it in a way that builds peace and that, you know, reduces tensions and for people to work together to find real and true solutions and not just have one side bludgeon the other until they win. So I can't think of a better example than what you guys did and the effort and all of your volunteers. So it was, means a lot to me that you would come on the podcast and talk. I've really enjoyed our time and thank you guys so much. I appreciate it.
[00:45:23] Speaker B: It was a pleasure.
[00:45:23] Speaker A: Same beer. Fantastic. Anytime. Love to do it again.
[00:45:27] Speaker B: Thanks, Ramsey.
[00:45:28] Speaker C: All right. Thank you for asking. What's worthwhile? Visit what's worthwhile.net to learn more about me, Ramsey Zimmerman, and please provide your name and email to become a supporter. I'm asking for prayer, advice, feedback and connections. The what's worthwhile podcast is on Spotify, Apple, iHeart, and Amazon. You can also
[email protected]. Dot thanks.
