Nolan Martin :
Hey everyone! Thanks for joining us on the NEGOTIATEx podcast. We are continuing our conversation with Diana McLain Smith, author of Remaking The Space Between Us. If you haven’t already checked out Part A of this show, be sure to do that first. Let’s jump into the conversation with Diana.
Diana McLain Smith :
And so when you just focus on, give me my rights, as opposed to, I am going to now act as if I have that right. I’m going to take responsibility for ensuring the survival of my community, my nation, my family. If you don’t do that, then things are going to go down. So the paradox is that once citizens have taken responsibility for the welfare of their nation and for their future, they have had the power to lead their nations out of darkness.
And in the Preface, I gave multiple examples. One example would be 300,000 soldiers stranded on the shores of Dunkirk at the beginning of World War II. If they had not been saved, it would have probably been the end of World War II. And it was a small fleet of boats with British citizens who went over to save them.
It was nonviolent mass resistance in India that freed India from British rule. It was the abolitionist movement that ended up slavery, it goes on and on.The civil rights movement, the suffrage movement, the labor movement in Poland, the military dictatorship being brought down in Argentina, the end the legal apartheid in South Africa. It just goes on and on and we never think of this. We think about how powerless we are. We don’t think about these moments in history when we’ve been able to turn things around. And by the way, I think we’re in the middle of turning it around again now, which is one of the reasons I wrote the book.
I wanted people to know that there are hundreds of thousands of people across our country organizing to work across divides on common problems to end the polarization that is pulling our nation apart. That movement is powerful. Even if it’s under the radar because of our media, you can find out about it. It’s not hidden. We’ll talk more about it in our conversation today.
NM:
Yeah, it’s good. One thing I wanted to ask you about was your book mentions forces that turn differences into divides, be they demographic, ideological, or other. Could you explain these differences and why they lead to greater polarization?
Unpacking The Forces That Transform Differences Into Divides [02:16]
DMS :
It’s forces that turn the differences into divides. Differences don’t have to become divides, right? So the question is, what is it that turned our differences into divides? And it’s particularly important we answer that question now because although we’re one of the oldest democracies as a multi group democracy, we’re really quite young. It’s only been since the civil rights laws of 1965 that we became a truly multi-group democracy where everybody had a seat at the table. And so figuring out how to harness our differences for the common good, how to harness our differences for creative answers to difficult problems that we’ve been unable to solve, that’s the question.
So, one of the ways we’re going to have to answer that is by trying to understand what we’re up against. Okay, and why is it that these differences get turned into divides? And I talk about five forces, and one is, we all share a history in which groups were sorted and ranked according to their innate characteristics, and that began with slavery. When slavery had to be justified, the way it got justified was to say that there’s a racial hierarchy. And on that hierarchy, some groups are not even human in their chattel. Okay. But that stayed with us at that notion of a hierarchy that you could rank and sort groups on stayed with us. And you can see it throughout our history.
Immigrants that came from Eastern Europe or came from Southern Europe were considered as worthy as people who came from Northern Europe. This ranking of groups. has been with us forever. And as James Baldwin said, history is not just about the past. History lives on in us. It’s in the present. So we all share that history. It should be something we’re not ashamed of. It should be something we understand and we say, okay, so what are we going to do to alter the course of the future? The past is the past. There’s nothing we can do about it. What do we do to alter the course of the future? So that’s history.
The second is we’ve all inherited from this history, a set of cultural beliefs, and those cultural beliefs lead us to think of groups more or less consciously, not always consciously in lesser, better zero sum terms. So those are cultural beliefs that are highly shared. We’re not even aware of them. Okay.
The third is that history and culture together has produced segmented hierarchical institutions. So all the institutions we’ve ever been raised in are highly hierarchical and many of them are quite segmented. A lot of organizational change efforts are trying to break out of silos. Where did we even learn to create silos? Who said we had to create silos? Okay? This is part of our heritage that we’re just completely unaware of. So we’ve grown up in these segmented hierarchical institutions and those shape the way we think and behave inside of groups and across groups.
Marketing and sales, or manufacturing and marketing or, the people in the hierarchy up top and those below. So all of that comes into play. And then the fourth is that we have unconscious cognitive biases and implicit biases that make it hard for us to see when we’re making matters worse for ourselves or others. So implicit biases around race, around gender, around age, around weight, disability. Mazarin Banaji, if you go to her implicit attitude test, IAT on the internet, you can take your own test to score your own implicit biases. It’s an awakening. Okay. That’s one kind of bias we have, but the other biases we have are just cognitive biases.
We tend to look for confirming data. To our views rather than disconfirming data. We can see what others are doing to upset us but we don’t see what we’re doing to upset others. We’re not aware of those and as long as we’re not aware of them, they can control us. We can’t control them. So that’s the fourth.
And then the fifth is we all have psychological defenses designed to protect our identities our status and our self esteem by ignoring or minimizing our role in making matters worse. And the problem there is the more you minimize your role for making matters worse, the less power you have. Okay. Cause you’re saying, hey, what can I do? I got, hey, wasn’t me. And if it wasn’t, you’re kinda screwed. Cause there’s nothing you can do. Okay. And I think one of the great things about me as a kid is I was delusional enough to convince myself there was something I could do. Okay. But it worked. All right. It worked really well.
And there’s obviously limits. To what we can do. No question. And if I’m going to air, it’ll be on the side of overestimating what I can do, but I’d much rather that than give up the ghost before I’ve even given it a try. So those are the five forces.
Aram Donigian:
I love how you frame the five forces. We could spend the next probably month. Talking about each one, right? And you go into great depth in the book. So many kids really do believe they look at something and say, I can fix that. And I’ll tell you the, how everything you said, understand our history, not be ashamed of it. Okay. But recognize that’s part of the history and we’re going to do something about it. This idea that we actually have. Trained ourselves to create silos and those might be social silos, but they are organizational as well. I’ll tell you what you mentioned about biases. I am always more afraid of my implicit bias than my explicit, I, people can call me to the carpet on, I can build some awareness. It’s really hard with the implicit piece.
DMS :
This is the point of the reason why I talk about relationships is so fundamental is because you have to rely on others to help you see. What you don’t see, because you’ll never see them because they’re implicit. But if you say to people, look at if I do or say something that you think I’m just looking for confirming data, or I’m not seeing my role, or I look like I’m biased against a group or a person, would you please point it out?
Okay. But point it out. Don’t call it out. People are making each other ashamed of these things and there lies nothing but sorrow because no one is allowed to learn and we all have them including the people who are calling people out.
AD:
All right, we could go a lot deeper here. I don’t need to because I want to start transitioning into all right, so some things we can do. But is there anything else that you’d like to share from a sort of foundational understanding that might be critical to listeners, just to understand before we start getting into kind of things we do to remake this space.
Navigating The Interplay Between Citizens & The Press In Shaping Our Polarized Landscape [08:46]
DMS :
The only other thing I’ll say, I know you want to move on, so I’m going to say it briefly, we can dig into it more later, is I’ve become increasingly obsessed with the role that 24/7 news media on cable, on print, whatever, all kinds of media, news media, the role that they play and the role citizens play with them to keep us stuck in this polarized reality. So it’s not caused by them, the citizens and the press.
But citizens and the press have a dynamic relationship with each other that is keeping us stuck. And so we might want to come back to that at some point, or I could say something now about it. You tell me when you want to do it.
AD:
Why don’t you go ahead and say something now towards we do want to bring up that relationship between citizens and the press.
DMS :
Okay. So the big thing is I was on this jihad, against the way the press covers the news and a lot of people who are much more comprehensive than I will be, talk about, you what they say called the Outrage Theory of change that much of the press subscribes to. Jay Rosen, I think is one of the ones who’ve mentioned this. And the idea is if they point out a problem and all the people who are to blame for causing the problem, then it will lead to change. But it often doesn’t because they say nothing about what people are doing to solve the problem and they don’t get to some of the things people might be creating or working on.
And so it just builds outrage in the public square. And Roger Ailes once said to Judy Woodruff, and I thought it captured it perfectly. He said, you get two candidates running for office and they’re both on a stage. One gives the three point peace plan for the Middle East and the other one falls in the orchestra pit.
Who do you think the press is going to cover? Okay. And it’s the orchestra pit. They have to make money. And so they are riveted on the extreme. They’re riveted. The extremists jump in the orchestra pit almost every hour. Okay, as a way to get press coverage. And so I was like, God, the press has got to stop doing this.
And there’s a group called Solutions Journalism Network that is actually doing that. They’re reinventing the news. They’re amazing. They’re focusing not just on problems, but they’re also focusing on solutions. So that was where a lot of my attention went. And then I began to see the reason why these guys are so successful.
By the way, there is an emerging model of journalism, which I call the Engage model. Okay, which not only focuses on problems, but focuses on solutions, focuses on what people are doing to come together. That’s the Engage model. Solutions Journalism Network reports a lot about it. Christian Science Monitor has a great press. There are a lot of people who are starting to do that.
Okay, so you have the Outrage and you have the Engage. The Outrage is clearly the dominant model. And, that’s very annoying because it’s hurting us. Then I began to realize that citizens have an outrage mindset, where they’re focused only on the problems. They’re consumed by threat. They are getting so fearful that they want to go to the outrage news outlet because they know they can find the threats they’re afraid of and they can protect themselves. They think that’s the answer. So they click. They pay money, they subscribe, they write outrageous comments, okay, and they outdo the outrage model, okay.
So there’s this sort of hand and glove between the outrage model of the news and the outrage mindset of the citizen. And they’re feeding each other, okay. And so I think we need to shift to an Engage mindset. Where we start to think about what can we do to solve problems in our communities, to work with others, to make progress, to start thinking about the upside that we have to work towards, not just the threats we have to guard against.
AD:
You’re absolutely right.
NM:
So follow up there is like, how do we do that? Like, how do we come up with the solutions? Is it through asking good questions? Is it through understanding both sides? Like, How do we get better at that?
Harnessing Community Action To Combat Hate & Foster Inclusion [12:36]
DMS :
Negotiation is so brilliant at this, principled negotiation. And that’s a lot of what I’m seeing happen organically in communities across our country. People are saying, we have a common problem here. Let me take an example, which speaks to polarization. In Billings, Montana, back in the 1990s, there were a series of three hate crimes. And the first one was a native American home that someone vandalized and put a SWAT stick on it and said, die.
And then a little while later, an African-American church was intimidated by skinheads. And then a little while later, young six year old boy put a manure in his window at Hanukkah and somebody threw a brick through it, the community responded. In essence by saying, not in our town. The painters union went and painted the house for free.
White neighbors started accompanying the African-American congregants to their church. And the local paper published a menorah in the paper and hundreds of people put a menorah in their window. And so a woman by the name, this is an example, okay, of what? A woman by the name of Patrice O’Neal. just like you and me.
She’s a filmmaker. She goes that’s really interesting. I’m going to go film what they did. So she went and she filmed what they did. It ended up becoming a PBS special called Not In Our Town. And Not In Our Town ended up becoming a national movement and they have chapters across the country. But back then in the 1990s, she and Ryan Miller, her partner, decided after doing the film that they would go back to Oakland, California where they’re from and start showing the film in the Bay Area.
And so they showed it to the communities there and people from all walks of life came to these things. Law enforcement, educators, faith leaders, regular citizens, everybody came to these things. And at the end she said okay guys what do you think about these folks in Billings, Montana? And they said, I don’t want to talk about Billings, Montana.
I want to talk about our community. Okay. Are we creating a community that is strong enough to repel hate? Are we creating a community where people feel like they belong? Are we creating a community where we’re going to be proud and safe to raise our kids? And that was the origins of it. That’s just what one person did, but they started getting creative about what are the fundamental interests that people have in common?
Everybody wants to be safe. Nobody wants their kids not to be safe, okay? People don’t like hate. Even when they’re hateful, they don’t like hate. They want to reduce hate. I’m not going to go into the detail I just went into, but in Maine, the problem was, in Lewiston, Maine, it was a deteriorating economic situation because the mills had gone south.
Everybody wanted a better economic situation. Okay. In order to get it, they had to start to embrace Somali refugees who were migrating to the town. It ended up, the Somali refugees turned around the entire economic situation, but not without a fight from some white nationalist kind of folk in the state.
And so people got together and created Maine People’s Alliance where everybody came together to push back on these forces of hate and instead got people working together and getting creative about solutions, including rank choice voting so that people like LePage, who became governor, couldn’t get elected again. So these are the kinds of things people are doing and can do in order to create a different future than we have now.
AD:
Those are great examples. Are there other simple and practical yet effective ways that we can be increasing cross group interactions, even building friendships with, what we call those peoples, the people that we’re often quick to despise and vilify. What else should we be doing?
Prioritizing Relationships Over Arguments In Bridging Divides [16:07]
DMS :
The first thing I would say is don’t make a case. Don’t build a case for your point of view, build a relationship. So take a page out of the book of Matthew Stevenson, who built as an Orthodox Jew, built a close relationship with the heir apparent of the white nationalist movement. Okay. You couldn’t find more different people. He said, I’m never going to persuade this guy. He’s been brainwashed his whole life. I’m going to build a relationship with him so he can see what a Jew really is like. Okay. And then through that relationship, both minds began to change and they began to transform.
So the first thing is to try to build a relationship, not immediately get into the places where you’re different. The second is to look for common ground and the common ground, and by the way, sometimes there isn’t common ground. You got to create common ground. Okay. So I’m not a common ground kind of girl, but you got to create common ground. But that said, it’s not like there’s no common ground. We share a lot of the same values. We care about a lot of the same things. We want the same things for our kids. Okay. We may differ over how to get there. The person who has worked for me for 26 years voted for Trump. I did not vote for Trump. I will do everything in my power to make sure he never reaches office again.
And we are very close and we have a lot in common. But it isn’t Trump, but there’s lots that we do have in common. Okay. And I learned a lot from her about how she sees the world. And then the last thing I’d say is don’t try to do this alone. There are a gazillion organizations out there. Go on the internet, go to Starts With Us. That’s just one Starts With Us. Go to weaver.org. Go to Not In Our Town. Go to Braver Angels. There’s a whole host of organizations that you can go to that, let me just get, give you the names of some, Urban Rural Action.
AD:
I know Joe Budman’s organization.
DMS :
Oh yeah, of course you do. And Joe. Country First, which Adam Kinzinger started take one small step, Citizen Connect has a whole host of organizations. Listen First Project. Don’t try to do this on your own. Okay. This is hard stuff. We’ve been so brainwashed over the past 10, 15 years. Don’t try to do this alone. Get help. Work with other people.
AD:
I love that because just the advice, right? The building relationship, the creating common ground. I’m with you. I don’t think common ground always naturally exists. Requires some work sometimes enough of an optimist to probably get this through my Roger Fisher roots, which is, I believe we work hard enough. We can find it.
DMS :
Yes, we can. Or create it.
AD:
Or create it. That’s right. That’s a better word. That’s much better.
DMS :
No, it’s both. We’ll find some and we’ll create some, but it’s not like it’s never going to be found or created.
NM:
Digging in further, as we think about the things citizens can do to remake the space between us, is it fair to categorize these actions as things individuals can do, things groups or communities can do, mindset or behavioral thing? Structural or systematic things and so on, or would you apply a different categorization or thinking about next steps?
Addressing Polarization Through Personal Initiative & Community Engagement [19:05]
DMS :
The reason why I wrote the book is because if you look around at what people were focusing on as a way of solving polarization and advancing. The progress of our nation. Almost everything was looking at things like, what can we do? And by the way, I think these are all worthy things to do. How do we regulate social media? How do we pass laws around AI? All of which we have to do? How do we reform our primary system? Should we be a multi-party democracy? All of these things are absolutely critical and all of them are out of our direct control. So I wanted to define a problem that only we can solve. No one else can solve it. And that’s the space between us.
We are in control of how insular and closed minded our groups are. Nobody else, just us. It’s true the news affects it, there’s no question. Algorithms affect it, no question. But we are in control of whether we go along with that or whether we pursue things outside of our little tiny world that we live in, okay? And nobody is going to tell us or make us create bridges across groups. That’s entirely up to us. So this is entirely within our control. And the funny thing is that until we do that, none of these other reforms can happen. They won’t happen. Okay. So this is ground zero from my point of view. If we don’t do this, it’s game over.
So it’s on us. We got to do it. It’s the most important systemic change we can make because it is systemic. It’s the informal system.
NM:
So the challenge is out there for all of us.
DMS :
Yes, it is.
NM:
Great.
AD:
Now, one of the, one of those systemic problems is source of frustration, I think for many Americans are, which we would consider our current political system broken. Are there structural changes that are feasible, not only for elected leaders, right? But for all of us to stop what you’ve described in the book as us being potted plants.
Reimagining Democracy:
From Adversaries To Allies In Shaping Political Reform [21:01]
DMS :
All the stuff I’ve talked about so far stops us from being potted plants. But I think the question of political reform, people like Jane Mansbridge and Lee Drupman have far more to say about that of intelligence than I would, but they will talk about implementing things like ranked choice voting.
So primaries are less polarized, having multi party systems. They have all sorts of technical solutions to what is primarily the systemic consequence of an adversarial democracy. And we were founded as an adversarial democracy. We don’t conceive of ourselves as friends, we conceive of ourselves as adversaries. So where I’m more inclined to cut in is reframing the underlying image of democracy, where we see one another as friends and cultivate an abiding interest in the interest of our friend, which is what you do in a friendship. You care about their interests. You don’t just run over them and you’re not going to have a friendship very long.
And if we did that, we would convert rivalrous self interest into more equitable self interest because we would care that no one group over time is disadvantaged because we would see it as that’s not the way you treat a friend. So that’s more where my mind goes on the formal stuff. I’d highly recommend Lee Drutman, whose work I think is terrific and Jane Bansbridge.
AD:
That’s a great answer on kind of a strategic level. Let’s go a little more tactical now. When this program airs, Diana, we will have elected our next president along with a number of other representative positions, without a doubt, half the people listening to the program are going to be maybe angry, maybe lost or anxious, might be other ways and half are going to be, you may be gloating and happy.
So how would you advise our listeners, regardless of their response to the election results to create belonging and demonstrate empathy with others. So we might start moving forward. And again, putting ourselves in November of 2024.
Navigating Post-Election Challenges: Strengthening Community Ties In Times of Political Uncertainty [23:04]
DMS :
Also, the podcasts I’ve been on have migrated from asking me, so how optimistic are you about the future to, Oh my God, the election’s coming up, we’re screwed. And what I would advance a couple of months ago, as I said, in the long term, I’m optimistic in the short term, I think we’re in for some pain and I think we are in for some pain around the election. I can’t imagine there not being. And that’s the nature of democracy in some ways. The way it’s set up now is someone loses, right?
And so there’s going to be disappointment. And given the stakes, and given the polarization, and the intensity, and the vilification, it’s going to be very intense. So it’s all bets are off as to what happens. Now, let’s say Harris and Waltz win. We saw what happened in 2020. So that’s very worrisome. Could be a lot of challenges that we were talking about uncertainty before.
It could drag out the uncertainty for months, which is breeding ground for violence and disruption. And so I worry about that. And if Trump wins and he who shall not be named, then, there could be mass demonstrations. And we’ve seen what happens when there are mass demonstrations. Somebody on the right could drive a car through the crowd.
Okay. Again, so I’m very concerned about violence. So the one thing I think all of us can do is I think we’ve all got to invest in strengthening the immune system of the citizens immune system, which are strengthening these organizations that are really working across divides. to try to bring people together to work on common problems at the local level.
These organizations are anchor. These organizations are where we can find people who are going to try to calm the waters, not escalate it, understand the desperation and anxieties that people have. And I think, the more people listening can connect themselves to these organizations, the more they will have vehicles through which they can play a constructive role at a time that will be very difficult. But it will be very difficult. And marginalized groups, I think, are going to feel the pain the most, as often as the case. And it’s very worrisome to me. And so I think we need to be watching out for one another a lot.
AD:
I think the tendency towards becoming paralyzed is strong to do nothing or to react with violence. It goes back to some of the concepts from difficult conversations, which is my tendency is to do nothing, which means to try to bury it. That doesn’t work well for toxic waste, nor does it work well for these problems. But my fear is that I’m going to throw fuel on the fire and I think knowing how to navigate something different is fairly key.
DMS :
Yeah, that idea originated with our friend Chris Argyris. He talks about the left hand column, which is, he used to ask us to take a piece of paper and put a line down the middle and on the right, write down a dialogue we had that was difficult. And on the left hand side to write down what we were thinking and feeling and not saying.
And, as you point out, a lot of people stifle what they’re thinking and feeling and not saying because for fear that they’re going to explode. And the problem isn’t that they are censoring. The problem is that we think in such a way that if we raise it, we’re screwed, and if we don’t raise it, we’re screwed.
The problem is how we think, which is, I’m right, you’re wrong, my job is to get you to see it, you should be punished because you’re not only wrong, but you’re wrong for being wrong. And as long as we think that way, we’re going to be in trouble. So I think we should hold on to our right to make a mistake as long as we learn from it and give other people the right to make mistakes as long as they learn from it and truly try to help each other do better because we’re not going to get there by ourselves. We’re going to have to figure out a way to get there together.
AD:
Agreed. All right. So when this airs, Thanksgiving will only be a couple of weeks after the election. Do you have advice on how to do that at the Thanksgiving? Table and have meaningful conversation with those we love and care about friends and family,
DMS :
If I were sitting at that table You know what I’d do? I’d say.
AD:
Eat turkey
DMS :
Yeah, and I’ll probably eat turkey after saying this. I think the first thing I would do is I would try to hold the space and hold the people I would probably say, you know not talking about politics. Just how’s everybody feeling right now? How can people at this table help and what are your hopes for the future. And what are your worries? And how can you know those at this table, try to be helpful to you. I think that’s really the stance we have to take.
NM:
Your book covers both historical and current examples of success stories, and you’ve shared several already here today. Is there one in particular that you feel most strongly demonstrates how we as society might come together and re engage in meaningful dialogue for a better future.
Learning From Ideological Enemies Through Friendship & Understanding [27:50]
DMS :
God, it’s like asking me to choose among my children. The one I found most stunning, because it’s the most extreme, is befriending your ideological enemy. And I mentioned it earlier about an Orthodox Jew, Matthew Stevenson, and his friend Moshe Ash, who reached out and decided not to alienate or ostracize Derek Black, when it was uncovered that he was not only a white nationalist, but he was the godson of David Duke and the son of Don Black, who launched Stormfront, the first hate site.
Okay. And Eli Saslow wrote the book Rising Out of Hatred. And I use that as the most of the data for the essay, and I strongly recommend people read it. The person I pay the most attention to is Alison Gornick. What she does towards the latter part of the book, is probably the last quarter of the book, when Derek is really starting to think through his beliefs and reconsider them, largely with her.
The two of them said, let’s put our beliefs to test. Let’s do research together and submit our beliefs to scrutiny. Okay. Incredible thing. But at the end, she was quite challenging of him as well as quite loving towards him. When he reflected back on what allowed him to transform, somebody had said something like he was a smart kid and he read a lot about how his beliefs were wrong. And he goes, nah, he said it was friends regardless, who helped me see the impact of what I was doing. Friends regardless, who helped me see the impact of what I was doing. That is so unbelievable.
And, that is something we should extend to others. But it’s also, maybe we should ask our friends, what’s our impact? Okay? So we can see it, because I can guarantee you, people aren’t telling you. When you’re slip showing, they’re not telling you, you got to ask. And he asked, she answered, and it went both ways. And it was a beautiful friendship and they’re now married. It’s an extraordinary story.
AD:
What’s interesting is you talk about extending that to impact, asking others, what is my impact? How do you see? I always think of the concept of intent versus impact. I don’t know if I’ve ever framed it in that way, which is to ask someone, invite them to say, hey, tell me about the impact I’m having.
DMS :
So important. And by the way, my husband would always say when I would point out something he was doing that had a negative impact, because he and I differ on this construct. So he’ll say, that wasn’t my impact. And I would say I understand that it comes quite naturally. And by that, I wasn’t trying to be snarky. That’s how he was brought up. That’s how he was trained. That’s what he learned to do. Okay. And I said, if I thought it was your intent, I wouldn’t be married to you.
It’s just how you’re programmed, right? At the same time, I would say. That doesn’t get you off the hook, that it wasn’t your intent, doesn’t get you off the hook from looking at what you did to contribute to that impact, and it doesn’t get me off the hook from asking the question, why does that trigger me so much? Because that’s not good for me. And so then we can both help each other deal with the situation rather than cast blame.
AD:
Wonderful framing. Diana, at least twice in the book, you refer to this concept that coming closer together again will require passion, not numbers. So as we prepare to conclude here on what’s been just a great conversation, hopefully encouraging to others, can you share with us what you mean by that idea and maybe why we can take some positive perspective and have confidence in a better tomorrow?
The Power Of The Few:
Shaping History Through Passion & Persistence [31:25]
DMS :
Well, you know, this is one of the things that I must’ve said throughout the book. James Baldwin said, yeah, it’s a great quote. I want to quote it for you. This was during the 1960s. He goes “Well, I’m tired. I don’t know how it will come out. I know that no matter how it comes out, it will be bloody, it’ll be hard. I still believe that we can do with this country something that has not been done before.” What an extraordinary statement that is. We are misled here because we think of numbers.
You don’t need numbers, you need passion. And this is proven by the history of the world. And that’s what I try to drive home. Preface when I write about all the different nations that have, citizens have led them out of disaster. This is one of many stories I tell about our history, where the few who were passionate changed the course of history.
But I also want to ask your readers or your listeners to entertain a question before I go on with the answer, which is, so George Washington. Okay. It’s Christmas night in December, 1776. The war is going badly. The Continental Army is losing battle after battle. It’s so bad that the morale in the colonies has tanked and everybody’s losing confidence that we’re never going to win the War of Independence and people are no longer supporting it.
It was so bad that Thomas Paine wrote American Crisis. In December of that year, and Washington distributed it to all 5,000 of his troops to read, and it begins with that famous line, these are times that try men’s souls, and he goes on, the summer soldier, who abandons the nation. will long be forgotten, but he who stands by it now. It’s a great opening. Anyway, so here’s Washington. It’s freezing cold. It’s sleeting. It just turned to snow. It’s a bitter wind. He shows up at the edge of the Delaware River. He’s got 5,000 troops. 3,000 of them are fit for duty. So 2,000 of them are spent. Okay. And on the other side of the river are the British and they have 25,000 men and 30,000 if they need them.
So the guy next to Washington says, oh, look, it’s over. We’ve lost. It’s done. Okay. And I want everybody just for a moment to imagine, just ask yourself the question, what would have happened had Washington looking at the numbers or the polls, okay, today made a prediction and based on that prediction said, oh, you’re right. I’m done. I’m not going to do anything. I’m going to turn around. It’s all over. Gone. Okay. What would have happened? We wouldn’t be here today.
But Washington refused to just play the odds. He wanted to change the odds. He wanted to figure out how do we change the odds? All right, we got 3,000 men. They got 25,000, 30,000 if they need it. All right, what are we going to do? So he crosses Delaware and he attacks at Trenton, which is less well defended and he wins. And then he goes on to Princeton. Same thing.
And what happened as a result of that is he built up the momentum that he needed to change the shift morale and by shifting morale, he shifted support and he had people’s heads in the game again. All right. This is exactly what happened when Kamala Harris became the new nominee all of a sudden complete change. It is amazing. Look at what happened. None of that was predicted. Okay. That was changing literally changing the odds.
I think one of the things I always think about is how do we change the odds, not what’s going to happen? But how do we change the odds and that throughout our history has been the story of success and it has been the few It has always been the few.
AD:
That was a beautiful story. And your focus on the few reminded me of two things and I’ll share both of these. And unfortunately we probably won’t wrap up because they’re going to give you a chance to respond.
But one is this idea, at least in military doctrine about the forlorn hope, the idea of a vanguard that leads the way. Okay. It’s not a large force. It’s a force that can go accomplish what we need it to accomplish. They’re going to lead the rest of us forward.
DMS :
That’s exactly right.
AD:
And then the other thing is I’m listening to you. I was just thinking of Churchill’s quote after the battle of Britain, which was never in the field of human conflict. Conflict is what we’re talking about today. Was so much owed by so many to so few.
DMS :
That’s exactly right. And that’s, we never should forget that because it’s true. More of us need to be the few that’s right.
AD:
That’s right. You’ve given us that challenge on this. So thank you so much for your insights for writing the book Remaking The Space Between Us,folks, please pick it up. I think it’d be a great read for November 2024. Give us some perspective as well as a call to action of how we can be contributors in this effort. Thanks for taking the time to be with us today.
DMS :
Thank you guys. What a fun conversation with the two of you. I really appreciate it.
NM:
That’s good. Well, that is it for us on today’s podcast. If you haven’t already, please rate, review and subscribe to NEGOTIATEx podcast, and we’ll see you in the next episode.
