海角大神

It鈥檚 common to see assumptions being made about political party affiliations based on individuals鈥� occupational identities. We drill into a particularly outdated and stubborn case in point.

Here鈥檚 another story about how mindset matters. In this case, too, an emerging shift in thought could ease a situation some judge to be dangerous.

In the first of two writers鈥� perspective pieces today, our Washington bureau chief takes us aboard Air Force One as a fraught election season makes its final approach.

You may still be catching up about the region over which Armenia and Azerbaijan are fighting. A veteran reporter鈥檚 then-and-now take provides essential context.

For students experiencing homelessness, school represents structure, continuity of care, and security. We look at how that informs new policy in America鈥檚 largest school district.

Our half-dozen progress points this week show gains for some of the planet鈥檚 farmers, fathers, finned creatures, and more. Click through and feel a little better about the world.

When asked by California to help it prevent Russian interference in the Nov. 3 elections, the Rand think tank didn鈥檛 focus too much on ways to block Russia鈥檚 attempts to use online falsehoods to divide Americans and push them to extremes.

Rather, in a study released in October, Rand鈥檚 national security experts gave this advice: Convince Americans 鈥渢hey have聽more聽in common聽with those who are different from them than they may believe at first glance.鈥�

The best antidote to anyone trying to manufacture conflict between people (which includes far more than Russia) is to help people 鈥渞each a consensus 鈥� a bedrock of American democracy,鈥� the Rand report stated.

California need not look too far for nonpartisan initiatives already helping people find common ground through 鈥減rinciples that bring us together,鈥� as one group puts it. They include Braver Angels, the Hidden Common Ground 2020 initiative, America Amplified, the Bridge Alliance, and the National Issues Forums.

Such groups share a belief that a divided society is not inevitable. They already have much going for them. More than two-thirds of Americans believe people in the United States 鈥渉ave more in common with each other than many people think,鈥� according to a 2020 survey by Harvard University鈥檚 Carr Center for Human Rights Policy.

The latest example of this trend is One Small Step, a project of public radio鈥檚 StoryCorps. It is bringing together strangers on opposite sides of the political spectrum and recording the conversation. The purpose is to help them past the dehumanization 鈥� or the 鈥渃ulture of contempt鈥� 鈥� in American discourse and equip people to better deal with authentic disagreements.

A leading group in this emerging activism is More聽in Common, a nonprofit research group that conducts polls and offers tips on how to talk with people who disagree with you. It finds about 80% of Americans say that being pitted against each other is a threat to democracy. Perhaps that explains why the share of Americans who feel they live in a divided society has fallen from 87% to 48%, according to More in Common. The key to this political resiliency lies in local communities: Sixty-eight percent of Americans say they trust their local officials to do what is right while 57% say people in their community with different views treat each other with respect.

鈥淲ith Americans feeling so divided at the national level, it is the local level, in communities and neighborhoods, where there is the greatest opportunity to build confidence in the integrity of our聽election,鈥� concludes More in Common.

As political temperatures rise before the election 鈥� along with fears of foreign interference and postelection violence 鈥� these groups are showing that U.S. society is stronger and more unified than many headlines depict. Americans enjoy their shared experiment in self-government. When reminded, they want to keep it.