How to stop having the dumbest possible conversation on important issues

Our Beyond Polarization research offers a way forward

The reasons that American politics are so completely miserable and simultaneously ineffective are complex and interwoven. Forces like new media, algorithms affecting our news diet, spending more time alone, money in politics, and evolving perceptions of what is right and what is harmful have combined into a toxic sludge.?

As a result, we now spend more time than ever having the dumbest possible conversation on a wide variety of issues: business taxes, immigration, carbon emissions, etc.

?This conversation happens every day. It looks like this:

Person 1: We have to put a stop to [policy issue]!

Person 2: No, [policy issue] isn’t a problem at all!

The issues above are incredibly complex. And there’s obvious appeal in claiming that the correct tax rate, number of immigrant work visas, or carbon emissions is zero. Zero is much easier to sell than what politicians should be saying, which is, “Hey, this is complicated. Can I show you some graphs?”?

And while we’re busy having the dumbest possible policy conversation, those issues go unaddressed. Getting the right answer on taxes, immigration, and carbon emissions will mean tremendous benefits for our nation, in terms of prosperity and overall well-being.?But the right answer is not an all-or-nothing answer—it’s somewhere in between.

To get there, we need the expertise of highly educated experts with deep technical knowledge, but also we need politicians to draft bills and give them serious consideration, and we need voters to insist that elected officials support good policy.?

Erin Norman and I decided to segment voters on their values, instead of their political party, ideology, or issue positions, because we believe that binary politics is hiding a lot of complexity in voters’ views.?

Plenty of Republican voters are concerned about the environment. Plenty of Democratic voters think there’s too much red tape on businesses. And that’s just for starters. Yet we talk about the parties as though they’re monolithic and party members as though they are in 100% agreement with every plank in a platform.?

We created the Beyond Polarization segmentation to more deeply understand voters’ needs and values, because we believe that by doing so we can spot opportunities to build coalitions or find support for legislation where we would otherwise assume that none exist.?

And because talking about policy is different from talking about politics. It’s a conversation about how we collectively solve problems. By talking about problem solving, we can bring regular people back into our political process, which has otherwise been left to the people who create and benefit from polarization.?

The way to stop having the dumbest possible versions of policy conversations is to bring in more voices, for a richer and more nuanced conversation about what matters and how we can get there.