Tag: Movement Building

Polarizing narratives are key tools of nonviolent mobilization and social justice activism. But today, deep-seated polarization, exacerbated by a growing faction that rejects basic democratic norms and practices, threatens the foundations of our democracy. Differentiating between healthy and toxic polarization is vital among activists and peacebuilders to inform and align our strategies. What aspects of polarization are healthy and normal in a democratic society, and when can this polarization tip over into toxic conditions?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23CtERK86RI

In this recent Horizons Project event, hosted by the TRUST Network in partnership with the Alliance for Peacebuilding and Humanity United, we explored these questions with scholars, activists, and peacebuilders.

Watch the full event below!

Identifying Polarization

Although fundamental questions about the nature of US democracy (and whose voices count) date back centuries, since the 1960s, we have seen a trajectory of increasing political polarization. Today, our political affiliation informs most of our basic decision-making processes. According to Peter T. Coleman, professor at Columbia University and author of The Way Out, political polarization impacts us to the point of geographic sorting both in physical and online spaces. In the US, voters segregate into different communities, which creates physical and psycho-social structures that maintain this state.

In the social sciences, political polarization can be identified in many different forms.

Affective polarization, or the feeling of warmth we feel towards our in-group and contempt we feel towards the other side;

Ideological polarization, or how our beliefs and values around certain issues diverge;

Perceptual polarization, or the degree to which you view the other side as extreme compared to your own.

Toxic polarization exists as a state of intense, chronic polarization – where there are high levels of contempt for a person’s outgroup and love for one’s own side. It can create ideological rifts, where actors see the other side as an enemy with irreconcilable differences. However, the levels of toxic polarization we are experiencing today can arguably be considered a good thing. Coleman argues that after major disruptions to the status quo, we are more susceptible to change.

“You see an event like – COVID-19 and racial injustice in America and the Trump administration and a variety of things – there’s tremendous instability,” Coleman said. “Under certain political conditions, [this] can lead to dramatic, positive change.”

Tabitha Moore, Vermont racial justice advocate finds that healthy polarization can be a vital tool for social justice organizing.

“Polarization can be a really wonderful tool to identify where everybody falls on a continuum as far as belief in particular human rights,” Moore said. “Not necessarily with us or against us, but how do you promote or inhibit people being… able to get their basic needs met?”

After the murder of George Floyd, Moore found that polarization helped to mobilize people around the issue of police violence, but also to critically examine how racism impacts public health.

“People really started to pay attention to the ways that racism is impacting public health, so here in Vermont, that’s been used as a way to create more movement around declaring racism to be a public health crisis, which would allow for more access to resources to deal with and dismantle it from a systemic perspective.”

In activist spaces, polarization serves as a tool for mobilization within a community in order to force systemic change.

“People are using this opportunity to draw that line in the sand and say, ‘do you stand for this?’ Whether it’s pushing legislators and lawmakers to take that stand and be honest and clear about where they are, it can be used for good,” Moore said.

When Toxic Polarization Limits Activists’ Work

The levels of polarization we are experiencing today are not necessarily the problem that needs solving. However, in the US, we lack the structures to prevent toxic polarization. A study by Predictwise in 2018 found that in 3,000 counties across America, one of the main predictors of political tolerance and intolerance, was the degree to which those communities had crosscutting structures between red and blue voters – spaces like sports teams, labor unions, workplaces, where people have to live and grow together with voters different from themselves.

Toxic polarization can be the symptom of a larger problem. “I always come back to Audre Lorde’s saying that the Master’s tools will never dismantle the Master’s house because what I see happening is that we’re using toxic polarization to try to solve the problem,” Moore said. “When we get a small piece of the pie or a piece of the puzzle or a seat at the table, what’s happening is that there are so many people who are being harmed that we have to determine who gets a seat at that table and who’s going to be there to make the decisions.”

In activist spaces, toxic polarization can prevent us from breaking down barriers and humanizing each other. They can also uphold siloes, keeping existing members of activist movements from voicing different views, given the pressure to adhere to within-group expectations.

“When I think about people who have middle of the road views or are feeling a little lost in all of it, what I often hear is that they’re afraid that if they speak up in one way that they will be shamed in the end, and so they remain silent,” Moore said.

How Do We Humanize the Other?

With increases in toxic polarization comes decreases in social identity complexity. Our different group memberships and identities – whether political, racial, or religious – are much more likely to line up, and in the process, we become less tolerant of members of outgroups. Bridging the divide calls us to acknowledge the complexity of our own belief systems and complicate our understandings of other people.

“If I happen to hold identities that are contradictory…the more I’m aware of those, the more I give the other side some slack or the more I can take different perspectives because I’m used to living in that space,” Coleman said. “It’s about spending time with people and getting to know them that matters, but that is another way to complicate your understanding of them, of yourself and the issues.”

“When we can start to create a multi-dimensional model for understanding, that’s when people might be able to start understanding complexity. When I look at policies and governance in this world, it is very much a linear thing, so how do we even begin to conceptualize a government framework that is nonlinear?” Moore said. “It becomes really difficult for the individual to conceptualize themselves or anybody else as nonlinear or non-complex…it’s when we start to think outside of the bounds of what we set up as our societal parameters for what’s acceptable and allowable. That’s when we can get to complex thinking.”

Bridge-Building and Moving Forward

Patterns of toxic polarization are difficult to break. They resist change and cannot be solved by dialogue alone. Coleman emphasizes the value of utilizing community-based structures, where people live and work together, to complement bridge-building efforts. In movement spaces, activists build bridges and break down barriers by moving beyond talk.

“A basic staple that we in our field of conflict resolution do, which is to sit down and talk to people, is sometimes inefficient and ineffective. In fact, what some evidence is suggesting is that what we really need to do is move together, we need to get up and move.” Coleman said. “I think activists understand this because activists march together in unison, and there is something about the simple act of doing that which synchronizes people neurologically and synchronizes them emotionally. It elicits more cooperation. We know that, yet we still try to sit people down and have these conversations, which most of the time is useful, but not under these conditions.”

“I think the answer does not lie in adjusting our ideals to bring them in line with our practices. We should be working on bringing our practice more in line with our ideals.”

Toxic polarization is not sustainable, but more importantly, it is the symptom of large-scale, structural problems.

“Toxic polarization is a tool of not just white supremacy, but all forms of supremacy. So as long as we continue to use these tools, the Master’s tools are not going to dismantle the Master’s house,” Moore said. “We need to look at indigenous ways of knowing and being in the world. We need to look at the things that existed for 10,000 or however many thousands of years that were actually successful and see if, maybe, that could put a dent in it.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23CtERK86RI

What are the common values that underpin US democracy? What is the “big story” we all share about how society should work and how we fit together as citizens?

In the US today, with levels of toxic polarization astoundingly high, the narratives we use to make sense of the system and the sacred values we hold around democracy seem to be as divergent as ever. But by understanding these narratives and values, we can begin to rediscover how to respect different world views and commit to America’s future together.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIBHvIHQgm0

Experts shared some of their latest research and practice in a recent session on Democracy Narratives and Sacred Values co-convened by the Horizons Project with the Alliance for Peacebuilding for their Spring Series on Preventing and Reducing Conflict and Instability in the United States: Shaping What Comes Next.

Narratives matters

Narratives are about how we make sense of the world and the overarching way we understand what’s happening around us and our place in it. The Opportunity Agenda describes the concept as “a Big Story, rooted in shared values and common themes, that influences how audiences process information and make decisions.” They are shaped and reinforced by political discourse, media, social media, symbols, and even conversations at the dinner table.

What does all this mean for American democracy? Julia Roig, President of PartnersGlobal says that being curious about the big stories we and our fellow citizens tell ourselves about our system is essential.

“Finding the right big story for US democracy is so important right now,” she said. “This is not about clever messaging campaigns. It’s about engaging with our deepest understanding of what democracy means to us, why it’s important, and how our engagement at this level of meaning-making is needed to drive new behavior and systemic change.”

When sacred values get activated

Like narratives, sacred values operate at a subconscious level. They are the values we act on as a duty, rather than a choice.

“They are literally processed in the brain differently than normal values and in different places,” explained Nichole Argo, PhD, is the Director of Research and Field Advancement at Over Zero.

While anything can be sacralized, in our democracy sacred values often form around issues like family separation, gun rights, or being pro-choice or pro-life. Argo pointed out that if someone breaks your moral rule and treats your sacred value like a regular value, it will backfire.

“Your brain just knows you shouldn’t break the rule. If it feels like you might, or you are being asked to, you’ll be enveloped in anger, shame and moral outrage.”

Her research shows that values tend to become more sacred when people thing they are at risk of losing something that matters (economic security for example); their in-group cares deeply about a value; or they experience discrimination or rejection. These slights can be real or perceived, but the result is the same if your sacred value is in jeopardy: outrage, anger and a disgust toward the person violating your sacred value.

The lesson here is that sacred values themselves are not a problem. But when citizens disagree over what should be sacralized and don’t understand how to communicate around these values, we get begin to denigrate or dismiss those who think differently.

“We need to recognize that when sacred values exist, you can’t make marketplace tradeoffs or try to persuade someone their value is wrong. But you can seek to understand what’s beneath it, acknowledge it, demonstrate respect for them and their value, and preserve the relationship,” she said.

How well do we know “the other side”?

Interestingly, the left/right political divides that don’t always hold when it comes to sacred values. A 2020 survey by Over Zero and the American Immigration Council found that immigration issues were considered sacred by at least a third of the sample, both on the left and the right. More than half of respondents (56%) sacralized family separation, for example.

The study also found that while liberals generally sacralize open stances (i.e.  open immigration) and vice versa for conservatives (i.e., withholding public support for unauthorized immigrants), there are issues where those on the left and right converge. Several members of both groups support the open stance of creating a pathway to citizens for DACA recipients.

The democratic norms we hold on the left and right also don’t fall that far apart, but our perceptions of how those outside our groups connect to these norms are very off-base.

In a recent nationally representative experiment led by Dr. Michael Pasek at The New School and Dr. Samantha Moore-Berg at UPenn, participants were asked about norms around fraud-free elections, equal rights, abuse of power by government officials, and protections from political interference in law enforcement investigations. Scores ranged from 1 (not at all important) to 100 (extremely important). Both Democrats (Mean = 90) and Republicans (Mean = 87) held these democratic norms to be important.

The researchers then asked Democrats and Republicans to indicate how important they thought the average member of their political in-group and out-group would find these norms to be. Both groups were accurate in rating their own group’s value placed on these norms but were severely inaccurate in ranking their out-group. Democrats scored Republicans at a 55 and Republicans ranked democrats at a 48.

In another recent study, America’s Divided Mind from Beyond Conflict, Program Director Michelle Barsa and her team found that Democrats and Republicans tend to overestimate the extent to which members of the other party disagree with, dislike, and dehumanize them. When asked how cold (0) or warm (100) they feel about the other party, Republicans give Democrats a score of approximately 34 out of 100, while Democrats give Republicans a score of 28 out of 100.

This drastic difference in perception of our in- and out-groups has huge implications for American democracy, explains Barsa.

“We found that the more inaccurate and biased participants were in their meta-perceptions (believing that ingroup members valued norms that outgroup members did not) the more willing they were to violate democratic norms themselves.”

The path forward

So where do we go from here given our divergent narratives, behaviors around sacred values, and wildly inaccurate perceptions about out-group norms?

Tod Lindberg, a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute says that despite these tensions, we shouldn’t underestimate the sources of resiliency

“I think the answer does not lie in adjusting our ideals to bring them in line with our practices. We should be working on bringing our practice more in line with our ideals.”

Argo offers that future research could test strategies like employing threat reduction narratives, signaling norms of deliberation and dialogue within our political groups, or affirming the shared values and intentions of different segments of the population as they pertain to immigration stances, for example.

Barsa suggested that “Since we know that group norms impact sacralization, there may be potential to target in-group norms.”

She proposes looking at norm change or demonstrating that a perceived norm is not in fact sacralized by the group to the extent members might think it is. She also suggests we should try to cultivate a superordinate American identity beyond our political or group identities.

The path out of this is long and complicated but not impossible. Ultimately, as Julia Roig said, “We are called to stay curious, to interrogate our own worldviews and the stories we tell ourselves about our own identity and those who disagree with us. In a healthy democracy, different points of view of policy are welcomed and should lead to better outcomes.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIBHvIHQgm0

This overview was created after a convening of organizations and networks who are endeavoring to map the larger “ecosystem of social change,” including social justice, bridge-building, and democracy organizations, practitioners, and organizers. This is not an exhaustive list of mapping efforts but rather a working document that we intend to periodically update as we learn of more efforts and seek to make sense of the diverse lenses they provide to our understanding of the ecosystem. If you have a map or know of a map that is not listed below but should be please email us at [email protected].

Democracy Strengthening

• Bridge Alliance: Bridge Alliance created their Democracy Field Overview which combines civic engagement, electoral reform, policy and issues work of the many unique organizations and funders working within the political and civic reform sectors. It is a useful tool for those in the democracy field to learn about complementary work.
• Citizen Connect: Citizen Connect is a website with many organizations from the bridging field & democracy spaces – a place where ordinary citizens can go to find out what’s going on and how to get engaged. The website currently has 600+ organizations and has the potential to become a coordinating space for larger ecosystem efforts.
• Critical Connections Forum: CCF sought to get to know the democracy landscape (including 300+ different organizations). CCF sought to get to know the democracy landscape, and includes 300+ different organizations. They identified several areas in which to dig deeper: Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (TRHT), bridging, bottom-up political organizing, and participatory governance. They are making sense of the democracy “movement of movements” and identifying where critical connections have not yet been made. They have connected with others through the Co-Intelligence Institute. They’re largely focused on building baseline maps of the current state of relationships of organizations. Caleb from CCF authored Organizing for collective impact: The making of a mass pro-democracy movement which drew on this map.
• Democracy Funders Network: The Democracy Funders Network (DFN) is a cross-ideological learning and action community that helps new and existing funders better understand and respond to the long-term challenges facing U.S. democracy. DFN takes a big-picture view of the challenges facing American democracy and the approaches to solving them. They believe that rather than one silver bullet that will enable American democracy to thrive over the next fifty years and beyond, many approaches are necessary to sustain democracy over the long-term. In addition to working with their diverse network of partners, they frequently release resources such as: “Preventing & Addressing Political Violence in 2022,” “A Funder’s Guide to Combatting Disinformation,” and “Non-Partisan Pooled Funds: Elections Edition.” Visit https://www.democracyfundersnetwork.org to learn more.
• FixUS: FixUS has developed their Landscape Review to curate the many existing organizations devoted to improving the state of US democracy through political, economic, cultural, and other changes.
• Mapping American Social Movements: This project produces and displays free interactive maps showing the historical geography of dozens of social movements that have influenced American life and politics since the late 19th century, including radical movements, civil rights movements, labor movements, women’s movements, and more. This project allows us to see where social movements were active and where not, helping us better understand patterns of influence and endurance.
• SNF Agora Institute: Mapping the Modern Agora integrates big data on civil society organizations to map the modern agora at scale. Specifically, it creates a comprehensive map of the civic life in US communities, develops a more coherent classification scheme for civil society, and develops new lines of research and inquiry that can emerge from creating a picture of the whole. They aspire to map not only the geographic aspects of civil society, but also the digital ones. And they hope is that this can become a tool for researchers and practitioners to better understand, make sense of, and invest in strengthening civic spaces in modern democracies.
• Uphold Our Democracy: Uphold Our Democracy is currently mapping the US democracy space to inform next steps and a future strategy for the informal coalition that came together in 2020. They are looking at mapping the bridgers, social justice movement leaders, people working on democracy reform efforts, and then folks in the litigation space. They’ve also identified two periphery groups: funders and other the core members of the Uphold Our Democracy Coalition, as it was initially convened. Uphold did work on an initial mapping of organizations and training resources in 2020 that is publicly available here. Relatedly, there is the Global Democracy Coalition. This coalition is run by International Idea and Counterpart International and is very focused on The Summit for Democracy.

Nonviolent Action Campaigns

• Crowd Counting Consortium: The CCC has been tracking nonviolent protest activity across the US since January 2017 (demonstrations, rallies, including things like campaign rallies, strikes and other labor actions and nonviolent direct actions.) It’s a large database of geo-coded events including information such as participating organizations, crowd size, participant claims, protest reasons, protester tactics, police and counter protester responses, and issue tags. Data is publicly available via a GitHub repository where compiled versions of the data are updated on a weekly basis. It’s attempting to make available data sets that scholars can use to identify and analyze causes and consequences of trends within the United States. CCC has also worked with the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED).
• The Nonviolent and Violent Campaigns and Outcomes (NAVCO): The NAVCO Data Project is a multi-level data collection effort that catalogues major nonviolent and violent resistance campaigns seeking government overthrows or territorial independence around the globe from 1900–2014.

Polarization/Bridgebuilding

• Divided We Fall: Divided We Fall has created an ecosystem map of the bridge-building community as part of their Framework for the Bridge Building Ecosystem. They see this effort as a potential first step toward growing participation and collaboration across this ecosystem. This guide contains over 200 organizations that work on at least one of the following topics: Dialogue and Engagement, Youth and University, Advocacy and Research, Media and Journalism, and Technology.

Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation

• Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth: RJOY is engaged with a few mapping initiatives, particularly focused on truth telling, racial healing, and reparations initiatives in the United States. Much of their work is focused on how to weave these networks, identifying those who are under the radar or on the margins and those who are at the center of the work. Based on their connections, RJOY seeks to bring folks closer together to build relationships. By really centering their work on relationships, they seek to support the sustainability of the network to be able to weave itself. These efforts have led to the extension of the Iowa City Truth Telling Commission and a few other initiatives.
• The Bridging Divides Initiative: In partnership with the Truth Racial Healing and Transformation (TRHT) Movement BDI has mapped TRHT Movement Organizations and Transitional Justice Initiatives in the United States, overlaying some of those members with local government-led TRHT initiatives (collected by the New England School of Law), and/or with some other efforts affiliated with George Mason University’s Mary Hoch Center for Reconciliation.

Violence Prevention/De-Escalation

• Over Zero: Over Zero has been mapping groups that are focused on preventing and addressing political violence (many of whom don’t do that as their primary purpose but are playing a major role). They interviewed 50+ civil society groups in the US (state and national) and 12 international experts with experience in over 120 countries to develop this map and observed several different forums and roundtables over time. The team is in the process of finalizing a write-up and visuals.
• Peace Direct: Peace Direct’s primary purpose for mapping is to recognize local peace builders who are oftentimes doing work but are simply not recognized. On Martin Luther King Day in 2019 they mapped US peacebuilding. They have mapped about 200 racial justice efforts across this country—though some call it different things (e.g., “legal defense,” “water protection,” “peacebuilding with a racial focus,” or leaving out the word “peace” all together). Their primary audience are local organizations, and they seek to build networks through their Local Action Fund (LAF).
• The Bridging Divides Initiative: The Bridging Divides Initiative started as a mapping effort to try and understand both risk and resilience at a local level and make connections between them. BDI worked with ACLED to start their US-based coding, and they have a visualization of that data, also overlapping with some of the organizational data they compile. They often combine other types of event data around political violence and demonstrations, including about 12 different indicators to look at risk at a county level (specifically risk of political violence and democratic disruption.) This is displayed on a heatmap of the US and updated every two months. They collaborate with the Carter Center and some researchers at GW on this effort. They also work with Thought Partnerships Hub.One of their initial (and now dormant) efforts was a map of organizations that do bridging work that is available on their website. This bridging map serves as a template to show a lot of other different bridging efforts. In the last year they also started looking at threats and harassment of local officials together with the Anti-Defamation League and now the National League of Cities. They are planning to be able to share some initial details on that as early as October. Because of the sensitivity of the information, this data would be available by request-only. They developed a de-escalation directory, organizations that are offering de-escalation or bystander intervention training and/or Training of Trainers.

Violent Extremism

• The Southern Poverty Law Center: The SPLC has mapped hate across the US and the maps can be filtered by ideology and state. The data is also available for download. Additionally, SPLC has mapped Confederate monuments and has done snapshots like a map shows flyers and banners that have been displayed by far right hate groups. The Western States Center is a key partner of the SPLC.
• The Khalifa Ihler Institute: has mapped the Proud Boys and hate in general. Their founder Bjørn Ihler has been involved in a number of mapping initiatives. Specifically, he’s collaborated with the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation to create Antifascist Europe to monitor the development and transnational networks of far-right and right-wing populist parties as well as white supremacist, neo-Nazi and fascist groups.

*This article was written by Chief Network Weaver Julia Roig and was first published on The Fulcrum.

“How did we get to this point?” was how the third day of the January 6^th hearings began on June 16^th. Many Americans are asking the same question, with a mix of exhaustion, exasperation, and alarm that our country has devolved to the heightened levels of violence and dysfunction that the Select Committee has outlined thus far. It has been painful to re-watch the violence that took place at the Capitol, but also to hear the personal stories of the violent threats and intimidation unleashed on elections officials and poll workers throughout the country.

One of the thorniest questions of our times is how we will come together to reckon with the clear and present danger of the growing authoritarian threat in the United States ,while also healing a fractured nation dealing with collective trauma, distrust, outrage, and despair. The answer is that we must do both. While there are clearly urgent legal and political imperatives required in the short term, these actions and organizing focused on truth-telling and justice will not be unfolding in a vacuum and will form the foundations needed for long-term cultural and institutional transformations to take place.

As we engage with the January 6^th hearings as a nation, therefore, we have an opportunity to hold the tensions between accountability (insights + remorse + making amends); and healing (the process of making or becoming sound or healthy again) – as the only way forward. The path of truth, justice, and repair will be long, messy, and full of curves in the road, but the work of finding strength, not resentment, in our differences is an equally important ingredient to protecting our democracy.

First things first. The United States of America is a democratic republic founded on the rule of law, and in this system of government it is imperative that those who commit crimes must be held accountable, even – and especially – those given the privilege of serving at the highest levels of political power. The fact that these hearings are taking place at all, in some ways is a triumph of our democratic institutions. Although the Committee appears to be narrowly focused on the actions and responsibility of former President Trump and his top advisors, authoritarianism is a systemic threat that goes beyond any one person or persons. Whatever its partisan sources, laying out the evidence behind the attack on the Capitol is important for the American people and for future generations to know the truth. Our vigilance against the authoritarian threat must also include accountability at all levels of government and other sectors in society (such as media, corporations, or faith leaders) who continue to this day to spread or tolerate the same dangerous lies about the 2020 elections, or who are actively undermining both the integrity of and access to our electoral process.

For example, the Texas GOP recently voted in a platform that denies the validity of President Biden’s election. In New Mexico, a three-person commission in Otero County refused to certify the results of their primary elections, citing unsubstantiated complaints of Dominion voting-tabulating machines. The importance of shining a light on the January 6^th hearings is to acknowledge that the threats to America’s free and fair elections continue to spread throughout the country and must be confronted and defeated, especially from a larger number of courageous leaders from within the Republican party and conservative movement. In the near term, our gaze will have to shift from the January 6th hearings to focus on how the threats to democracy are metastasizing at the state level.

And yet once while establishing the truth, we need to also prepare to heal. As we head into the mid-term elections and rightly rely on both legal and political processes to demand accountability for anti-democratic rhetoric and behavior, our organizing tactics should also be grounded in a long-term vision for and commitment to societal healing and healthy pluralism. Distinct from holding political leaders accountable, is how we engage with our fellow citizens about these “threats to democracy,” including those who may be having a different reaction to the current January 6^th hearings. There are those who are either completely certain or confused about the 2020 elections. Many people no longer believe in the democratic system – that every American has a right and freedom to vote for a leader of their choice – because they no longer trust any politicians. All of us are being fed a media diet of fear of the other side and are falling victim to cynicism of political theater. Spanning from the COVID endemic to economic insecurity, these are difficult times for many Americans, who are feeling excluded, isolated, humiliated, unsafe, angry, or just doing their best to get by. Calls to please watch the hearings are often met by this segment of society with either disdain or frustration that the issues affecting their daily lives are not being prioritized. Reflecting on the importance of the hearings with this population can be quiet work, one on one, as Zimbabwean activist Pastor Evan Mawarire recently emphasized “people don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.”

Lies cannot be allowed to stand in a healthy democracy. Building a bigger coalition of trusted messengers becomes some of the most important work in effectively discussing the current threats to our democracy. This is not appeasement, nor blindness to on-going injustices and oppression in our society. This is an acknowledgement that one of the most tried and true tactics of any authoritarian regime is to divide and conquer, and to keep people confused and distrustful of each other. Part of the equation of protecting democracy, therefore, is the work it will take to break this cycle, to reinforce our shared identities as Americans, to rise above partisanship and to see past any one electoral cycle.

Programs like those led by Urban Rural Action, and the United Vision Project are creating bridges and helping Americans see that we can come together to find common ground and take action on issues we care about most, without centering our ideological identities. These kinds of programs directly combat authoritarianism that feeds off of making people feel like they are powerless to change things. The way that we organize together across difference, centering restorative relationships within our communities where multiple and intersecting identities are celebrated in all our complexities, allows Americans to remember that we belong to each other, and that we all want to live in a society that functions where we are free to work, love, and flourish.

We cannot merely vote our way out of the current democratic crisis, but the January 6^th hearings provide an entry point to build upon our common values and vision for the country. This moment is an important opportunity for a broader pro-democracy coalition to form. Citizens must feel that their voices matter and are counted, so voting integrity and participation is essential to democracy. At the same time saving democracy cannot be a partisan undertaking and we cannot engage with our fellow citizens only as voters. Thinking only in terms of “persuadables” or “the moveable middle” for example can be a dehumanizing mindset that ignores the complexities of Americans’ beliefs and values and in turn, that keeps us in a trap of us versus them. Experts who study successful pro-democracy movements have shown that progressives and conservatives must come together to stop those who are actively changing the rules of the game to stay in power undemocratically.

The time to act is now. Heeding the warning that our democracy is on the “knife’s edge” as Judge Luttig stated in his written testimony, requires what some peacebuilding experts refer to as a “multiple parallel approach” – acknowledging the diversity of actors and initiatives to be galvanized within complex systems. Accountability for crimes committed must come out of the January 6^th hearings. Conservative leaders must be more courageous, and when they are they must be supported and encouraged to expel the anti-democratic forces from within their ranks by progressives and liberals. All of us must vote and support pro-democracy candidates in the upcoming elections. And, at the same time, citizens must center our shared longer-term goal of healing our toxically divided nation if we are going to uphold our democracy.

On September 14, 2022, The Horizons Project hosted a webinar to bring together movement trainers, facilitators, and organizers to discuss the current state of movement-building support in the US and how training and convening spaces could be better coordinated and envisioned more creatively to build a broad-based pro-democracy movement to counter the rising authoritarian threat.

Maria Stephan’s opening remarks are below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idhRipoq19c

“Hello everyone and welcome to today’s discussion on Facilitating and Training in Cross-Sector Movements: Turbo-Charging Efforts for Coordination and Collaboration. Today we’ll be speaking with a distinguished group of panelists about the current state of movement-building support in the US, and how training and convening spaces could be envisioned more creatively to support a broad-based front or movement to counter the rising authoritarian threats and to build a democracy that works for all Americans. While our conversation today will be focused on the US, we think there is significant cross-border import and relevance.

Why are we having this conversation now? Like most or all of you in this room, Horizons is deeply concerned about the state of US democracy, which was formally classified as “backsliding” last year by the Stockholm-based International IDEA. We’re concerned about the alarming rise of political violence and extreme us vs. them politics. This is not our first experience with authoritarianism in the US, however: the system of Jim Crow following the end of the Reconstruction period was one of the most virulent and violent forms of single-party rule. While the January 6th 2021 attempted insurrection was a dramatic reminder that “it can happen here” (to cite Sinclair Lewis, who wrote about rising fascism in the US in the 1930s), the rise in political violence (mostly but not exclusively from far-right groups) and state and local efforts to undermine free & fair elections are worrisome no matter which issues we care about the most – whether that be climate, health care, workers’ rights, or many others.

At the same time, we know that the only way that we have ever gotten closer to freedom & justice for all in the US, and what plenty of research has shown to be the strongest bulwark against authoritarianism globally, has been powerful, broad-based coalitions and movements capable of mobilizing people across difference. The history of USA is in many ways the history of movements – to achieve independence from colonial rule, to abolish slavery, to make suffrage truly universal, to expand civil and political rights for all. These movements have relied on a combination of dialogue and nonviolent action to build bridges, build power, and build belonging.

Training and facilitation are essential to building movement strength and sustainability. They have played a critical role in pro-democracy movements in the US (including the Civil Rights movement), the Philippines, Serbia, South Africa, and countless other places. Members of our panel have written extensively on this topic.

At Horizons we believe that both dialogue and direct action, organization, and mobilization, blocking harm and building democratic abundance, are necessary to overcome the divide and rule tactics that endemic to the Authoritarian Playbook.

To help shed light on the roles played by movement training and facilitation in both upholding and reimagining US democracy, we will now turn to a very talented and accomplished group of speakers. Let me introduce them briefly.

• Ivan Marovic is the Director of Field Education and Applied Research at the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict. Since playing a leading role in Otpor, a youth movement which helped bring down Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia, Ivan has become one of the leading educators in the field of strategic nonviolent conflict.
• Nadine Bloch is the Training Director at Beautiful Trouble, a global network of organizers, artists, trainers, and writers where Nadine’s work explores the potent intersection of art, movements, and politics.
• Jake Waxman is an advisory board member and senior trainer with the Leading Change Network. He has led over 200 workshops and trained over 1,500 coaches and 15,000 participants in the craft of Public Narrative and Leadership, Organizing, and Action.
• Carlos Saavedra has been active in the immigrant rights movement for the last 20 years building and co-founding organizations for immigrant students and workers. Since founding the Ayni Institute in 2013, he has been coaching and training organizers and leaders in movement building.
• Reverend Stephen A. Green is an activist and pastor who leads with radical love in action through his ministry at the St. Luke AME Church in Harlem, and as Chair of Faith for Black Lives, a faith-based social justice organization. He is also the creator and host of the podcast, “Sacred Desk with Rev. Stephen A. Green,” which features conversations with thought leaders and change agents focused on the latest headlines.”