Americans who kindly disagree

One measure of the health of American democracy is The Lugar Center’s Bipartisan Index. Each year, it counts the number of bills in Congress sponsored by lawmakers from both parties. The most recent survey shows a modest gain last year. Such numerical tracking, however, does not capture something else: the tone of disagreement in dealing with big issues.

Outside Washington, that tone is often less strident, even respectful. “We can disagree and stand firm for our beliefs and principles, but we should never forget the dignity of the other human being,” Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, said last year. “Civility is not a weakness.”

That conviction is the basis of an initiative for civic renewal by the National Governors Association called Disagree Better. It seeks to restore an ideal that cordial disagreement is a source of unity rather than of division.

“We’re trying to give people permission to have strong ideological views without vilifying the other side as a threat to democracy,” Utah Republican Gov. Spencer Cox, current chair of the association, wrote in the Deseret News.

Opinion polls show most Americans are exhausted by political division. In September, the last time the Pew Research Center asked, 61% of voters said talking about politics with people they disagree with is stressful and frustrating.

The governors’ campaign coincides with a raft of similar initiatives by civil society organizations and local elected officials to counter cynicism, enmity, and disengagement. City mayors, for example, have built a growing number of bipartisan coalitions to jointly address issues such as climate change, violence, and child hunger.

In Washington state, the Democratic-controlled Legislature passed more than 80% of its bills this year with support from a majority of Republicans. A consistency of bipartisanship, Senate Majority Leader Andy Billig wrote on a state website, reflects a determination to “disagree without being disagreeable.”

Citizens are central to that idea. In Tennessee, for example, a group called TN11 brings together an unlikely coalition – among the members a firearms instructor, a pastor, a former highway patrol captain, and a family therapist – to help state lawmakers find new solutions to gun violence through a balancing of gun rights and gun safety. Their work started with three days of just listening to each other and resulted in five legislative proposals.

“People are more hostile to others in the abstract than when they meet them in person,” wrote Arthur Brooks, a Harvard professor of business and government, in his book “Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America From the Culture of Contempt.” Worn out by division, many Americans are finding that the real vigor and value of disagreement rest in first caring for one another.