“Talking Sense” gets us communicating across the political divide

With a divisive election behind us and the holidays approaching, many of us are wondering how to have respectful conversations with loved ones who hold different political beliefs than our own.

MPR partnered with Braver Angels, a non-profit that uses marriage and family therapy techniques to help bridge the political divide, to put together “Talking Sense” a workshop focused on tackling those difficult conversations.

Folks gathered together for the sixth and final Talking Sense workshop in Duluth on Thursday November 14th.

Talking Sense started as a reporting project a year ago before developing these workshops and taking them on the road.

Cathrine Reichert has been working on the project for a year and says the experience bringing the workshops into different communities has been largely positive.

“The communities have been receiving them really well. Everyone has really showed up to try to learn how they can better talk about politics but also dismantle some of the stereotypes they have about the other side,” said MPR Correspondent Cathrine Richert. “Now, this workshop, is unique because we are post-election now. So tonight, they’re talking more about how to manage stress after the election, how to continue to maintain relationships with people in your life who maybe have voted differently than you did in spite of some really passionate feelings about the election results.”

A skill for communicating with people with a different political world view than your own is to stay curious about beliefs you might not understand.

“What I think is important right now is that we keep listening to each other and we keep talking to each other with curiosity,” said Richert. “I know that as a reporter, every time I’m talking to someone who maybe I don’t totally understand or sees the world really differently than I do, it helps to just be curious. I think in that curiosity, you can find common ground and you can build a level of empathy for the person that you’re talking to when you really try to understand their motivations for how they see the world politically.”

The Braver Angels non-profit has a local Duluth branch, you can learn more here.

You can read more about Talking Sense here.