WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.379 You know, if you open your phone right now, look 00:00:02.379 --> 00:00:05.719 at the news. Oh, boy. Or, God forbid, you scroll 00:00:05.719 --> 00:00:07.320 through the comment section on some political 00:00:07.320 --> 00:00:09.419 post. That's a good idea. You get this picture 00:00:09.419 --> 00:00:12.740 of America that's just, it's loud. It's so angry. 00:00:13.119 --> 00:00:14.960 It feels like two completely different species 00:00:14.960 --> 00:00:17.399 of people are just screaming at each other. Exactly. 00:00:17.820 --> 00:00:21.219 And the story we're told. constantly is that 00:00:21.219 --> 00:00:23.920 this is just the new normal, that we're this 00:00:23.920 --> 00:00:26.620 polarized, this tribal. And, you know, there's 00:00:26.620 --> 00:00:29.300 no going back. It's the dominant narrative, isn't 00:00:29.300 --> 00:00:31.719 it, that the United States is, well, a thing 00:00:31.719 --> 00:00:33.619 of the past. But we have a stack of documents 00:00:33.619 --> 00:00:36.579 on our desk today that suggests that whole narrative 00:00:36.579 --> 00:00:40.149 might be. Well, factually wrong. Yeah. We are 00:00:40.149 --> 00:00:43.049 doing a deep dive into an experiment called America 00:00:43.049 --> 00:00:45.689 in One Room. And I mean experiment in the most 00:00:45.689 --> 00:00:48.030 scientific sense. This was not a corporate retreat. 00:00:48.289 --> 00:00:51.310 No, no feel good circles here. This was a rigorous 00:00:51.310 --> 00:00:54.929 scientific stress test on American democracy 00:00:54.929 --> 00:00:57.369 itself. So what happens when you take a statistically 00:00:57.369 --> 00:01:00.490 perfect slice of the American electorate? People 00:01:00.490 --> 00:01:03.750 who disagree on, I mean, everything. People who 00:01:03.750 --> 00:01:06.090 would not be caught dead in the same room otherwise. 00:01:06.290 --> 00:01:08.890 And you actually put them in the same room at 00:01:08.890 --> 00:01:11.930 a resort in Texas for four days. The results 00:01:11.930 --> 00:01:14.709 are, and this isn't an exaggeration, pretty shocking. 00:01:15.099 --> 00:01:17.180 We're talking about a level of depolarization 00:01:17.180 --> 00:01:19.260 that most political scientists would have told 00:01:19.260 --> 00:01:21.939 you was impossible. Right. So the mission for 00:01:21.939 --> 00:01:24.140 this deep dive is to try and answer this one 00:01:24.140 --> 00:01:29.019 huge question. Is all this division we see, is 00:01:29.019 --> 00:01:32.420 it a permanent feature of our software or is 00:01:32.420 --> 00:01:34.859 it just a glitch in the interface? And if it 00:01:34.859 --> 00:01:37.140 is a glitch, this experiment might have found 00:01:37.140 --> 00:01:40.180 the patch. But to get there. We really have to 00:01:40.180 --> 00:01:41.799 look at the setup. I mean, if the methodology 00:01:41.799 --> 00:01:43.879 is flawed. Then the whole thing is just a nice 00:01:43.879 --> 00:01:46.959 story. Exactly. If this was just like 500 people 00:01:46.959 --> 00:01:49.439 who volunteered because they love talking politics, 00:01:49.659 --> 00:01:52.019 it means nothing. Precisely. That's selection 00:01:52.019 --> 00:01:54.500 bias. The enemy of good data. If you just ask 00:01:54.500 --> 00:01:56.420 for volunteers, you get the loudest people. Yeah. 00:01:56.480 --> 00:01:58.519 The ones who want to argue or are already super 00:01:58.519 --> 00:02:01.400 engaged. So the organizers, this was Stanford 00:02:01.400 --> 00:02:04.239 professors James Fishkin and Larry Diamond. From 00:02:04.239 --> 00:02:05.760 the Center for Deliberative Democracy. Yeah. 00:02:05.939 --> 00:02:07.859 And funded by an organization called Helena. 00:02:08.400 --> 00:02:11.439 They had to avoid that bias at all costs. So 00:02:11.439 --> 00:02:13.840 how do you do it? How do you build a mini America 00:02:13.840 --> 00:02:16.539 without just getting the policy majors? They 00:02:16.539 --> 00:02:19.319 used a process called deliberative polling. And 00:02:19.319 --> 00:02:21.500 to find the people, they worked with NORC at 00:02:21.500 --> 00:02:23.379 the University of Chicago. They didn't just, 00:02:23.419 --> 00:02:25.479 you know, call random numbers. They used something 00:02:25.479 --> 00:02:28.770 called stratified random sampling. Okay, break 00:02:28.770 --> 00:02:30.830 that down for us. That sounds like a lot of jargon. 00:02:30.909 --> 00:02:33.250 Think of it like baking a really, really complex 00:02:33.250 --> 00:02:36.210 cake. You need the exact ratio of ingredients. 00:02:36.550 --> 00:02:39.610 Right. So NORC basically built a mirror image 00:02:39.610 --> 00:02:41.930 of the U .S. Census. They made sure their group 00:02:41.930 --> 00:02:45.169 of 523 delegates matched the country perfectly 00:02:45.169 --> 00:02:49.849 on age, race, gender. education where you live. 00:02:49.969 --> 00:02:52.509 And crucially, your politics. Absolutely. So 00:02:52.509 --> 00:02:55.509 if, say, 28 % of America is conservative, rural, 00:02:55.610 --> 00:02:58.650 and over 60, then 28 % of the people in that 00:02:58.650 --> 00:03:00.750 room had to be conservative, rural, and over 00:03:00.750 --> 00:03:03.069 60. That sounds incredibly difficult to pull 00:03:03.069 --> 00:03:05.819 off. It is. They had to recruit people who normally 00:03:05.819 --> 00:03:08.580 never talk about politics, people who would never 00:03:08.580 --> 00:03:12.319 go to a town hall. They paid them, covered their 00:03:12.319 --> 00:03:15.080 travel to Grapevine, Texas, basically treated 00:03:15.080 --> 00:03:17.379 them like VIPs. And this was back in September 00:03:17.379 --> 00:03:20.139 2019. Now, just to be sure about the science 00:03:20.139 --> 00:03:23.219 here, they didn't just survey the people in the 00:03:23.219 --> 00:03:25.120 room. No, that's a great point. Because, I mean, 00:03:25.120 --> 00:03:27.120 how would you know the world didn't just change 00:03:27.120 --> 00:03:30.000 that week? Maybe some big news story broke and 00:03:30.000 --> 00:03:32.139 changed everyone's mind at the same time. That's 00:03:32.139 --> 00:03:34.099 where the control group comes in. They had another 00:03:34.099 --> 00:03:38.379 group, 844 people, recruited the exact same way, 00:03:38.400 --> 00:03:41.439 but they all stayed home. And they took the same 00:03:41.439 --> 00:03:44.419 surveys at the same time. So if opinions shifted 00:03:44.419 --> 00:03:46.719 in the room, but not for the people at home. 00:03:46.819 --> 00:03:48.800 You know the event caused it. You've isolated 00:03:48.800 --> 00:03:51.520 the variable. Precisely. Okay, so the stage is 00:03:51.520 --> 00:03:55.180 set. You have 523 strangers in a resort. But 00:03:55.180 --> 00:03:56.680 you can't just, you know, throw them in a room 00:03:56.680 --> 00:03:58.659 and say, go. That would be a recipe for a fist 00:03:58.659 --> 00:04:01.139 fight. Right. And I was reading about the rules 00:04:01.139 --> 00:04:03.460 of engagement they used, and one just jumped 00:04:03.460 --> 00:04:06.879 out at me. The no tribal words rule. This was 00:04:06.879 --> 00:04:08.659 Larry Diamond's idea, and it's, I think, brilliant. 00:04:08.960 --> 00:04:10.979 In all the briefing materials and the discussions, 00:04:11.219 --> 00:04:14.099 they banned four specific words. Which were? 00:04:14.639 --> 00:04:18.240 Democrat, Republican, Trump and Obama. Wow. OK, 00:04:18.339 --> 00:04:20.680 that seems incredibly hard to do. You're talking 00:04:20.680 --> 00:04:23.839 about American politics in 2019. You can't mention 00:04:23.839 --> 00:04:26.509 the president. Or the former president. It sounds 00:04:26.509 --> 00:04:28.410 a little artificial, but it's actually really 00:04:28.410 --> 00:04:30.569 strategic. Those names, they're like semantic 00:04:30.569 --> 00:04:33.230 triggers. The second you call something the Trump 00:04:33.230 --> 00:04:36.029 plan. Half the room shuts down. Exactly. It just 00:04:36.029 --> 00:04:38.829 triggers that identity. My team good, your team 00:04:38.829 --> 00:04:41.629 bad. So by taking out the labels, you force people 00:04:41.629 --> 00:04:45.350 to actually look at the mechanics of a policy. 00:04:45.649 --> 00:04:48.129 Yes. You have to argue the idea on its merits, 00:04:48.149 --> 00:04:50.610 not based on who's attached to it. It shifts 00:04:50.610 --> 00:04:54.470 the conversation from who proposed this. to what 00:04:54.470 --> 00:04:56.829 does this actually do? A problem -solving session 00:04:56.829 --> 00:04:59.589 instead of a political debate. That's the goal. 00:04:59.810 --> 00:05:01.910 Speaking of what does it do, let's talk about 00:05:01.910 --> 00:05:03.709 the homework, because this wasn't just, you know, 00:05:03.709 --> 00:05:07.449 casual chats. They gave these people a 55 -page 00:05:07.449 --> 00:05:09.689 briefing book. A heavy load, for sure. I mean, 00:05:09.689 --> 00:05:11.870 I can barely get my coworkers to read a two -page 00:05:11.870 --> 00:05:14.930 memo. Right. But that document is what we mean 00:05:14.930 --> 00:05:19.379 by good conditions. It covered five huge polarizing 00:05:19.379 --> 00:05:22.600 topics, immigration, the economy, health care, 00:05:22.800 --> 00:05:25.980 foreign policy, and the environment. And I can 00:05:25.980 --> 00:05:27.920 only imagine what a nightmare it was to write 00:05:27.920 --> 00:05:31.199 that book. How do you write 55 pages on immigration 00:05:31.199 --> 00:05:34.060 that isn't biased? Well, you bring in experts 00:05:34.060 --> 00:05:36.139 from both sides. Yeah. They had a bipartisan 00:05:36.139 --> 00:05:39.180 advisory committee that vetted every single sentence. 00:05:39.540 --> 00:05:41.699 Really? Yeah. So if they made an argument for 00:05:41.699 --> 00:05:43.639 a minimum wage hike, they had to make sure the 00:05:43.639 --> 00:05:46.319 argument against it was just as strong, just 00:05:46.319 --> 00:05:48.819 as well sourced. So everyone walks in the door, 00:05:48.920 --> 00:05:50.899 not just with their own opinions, but with a 00:05:50.899 --> 00:05:53.240 baseline of shared facts. Which is something 00:05:53.240 --> 00:05:55.120 we almost never have in real life. We're usually 00:05:55.120 --> 00:05:57.000 arguing from completely different sets of facts. 00:05:57.180 --> 00:05:59.120 Yeah. Here, everyone was working from the same 00:05:59.120 --> 00:06:01.300 textbook. And the event itself, it wasn't a free 00:06:01.300 --> 00:06:04.139 -for -all. It was structured. Right. Small groups 00:06:04.139 --> 00:06:06.379 and then these bigger sessions. The structure 00:06:06.379 --> 00:06:09.079 is key. The small groups had neutral moderators, 00:06:09.180 --> 00:06:12.360 people trained just to ensure civility and that 00:06:12.360 --> 00:06:14.800 everyone got to speak. And then the big plenary 00:06:14.800 --> 00:06:17.839 sessions. Hosted by Ray Suarez. And that's where 00:06:17.839 --> 00:06:19.879 the delegates could actually grill the experts 00:06:19.879 --> 00:06:22.779 and politicians directly. And these weren't B 00:06:22.779 --> 00:06:25.160 -list guests. We're talking Dennis McDonough, 00:06:25.259 --> 00:06:28.310 Obama's former chief of staff. Corey Shaikh from 00:06:28.310 --> 00:06:30.410 the American Enterprise Institute. They even 00:06:30.410 --> 00:06:33.189 had five presidential candidates show up. People 00:06:33.189 --> 00:06:35.850 like Julian Castro and Mark Sanford. So you've 00:06:35.850 --> 00:06:39.629 got a citizen from rural Idaho asking a direct 00:06:39.629 --> 00:06:42.009 policy question to a presidential candidate after 00:06:42.009 --> 00:06:44.129 having done all this homework. It's a level of 00:06:44.129 --> 00:06:46.589 civic engagement most of us just never experienced. 00:06:46.810 --> 00:06:49.500 OK, let's get to the results. The data. Because 00:06:49.500 --> 00:06:51.699 I think the assumption going in would be that 00:06:51.699 --> 00:06:53.980 people just double down on their beliefs. Right. 00:06:54.060 --> 00:06:56.319 The backfire effect we see on social media. You 00:06:56.319 --> 00:06:58.699 show someone a fact that contradicts their view 00:06:58.699 --> 00:07:01.620 and they just get angrier. Did that happen? No. 00:07:02.160 --> 00:07:04.579 The data shows the complete opposite. Across 00:07:04.579 --> 00:07:07.879 all five of those policy areas, they saw statistically 00:07:07.879 --> 00:07:10.819 significant depolarization. Okay, define that. 00:07:10.860 --> 00:07:12.639 Does that mean everyone just became a centrist 00:07:12.639 --> 00:07:15.759 mush? Not exactly. It's not that they all met 00:07:15.759 --> 00:07:18.220 in the middle, just to be polite. What happened 00:07:18.220 --> 00:07:20.360 was that the extremes collapsed. The extremes. 00:07:20.420 --> 00:07:22.819 Support for the most radical proposals on both 00:07:22.819 --> 00:07:26.279 the left and the right just, just, it plummeted. 00:07:26.519 --> 00:07:28.920 The whole room moved toward the center because 00:07:28.920 --> 00:07:31.079 they started to understand the real world complexities. 00:07:31.360 --> 00:07:33.899 OK, let's get into some specific numbers because 00:07:33.899 --> 00:07:36.459 these shifts are wild. Let's start with immigration, 00:07:36.779 --> 00:07:39.680 usually the third rail of politics. This was 00:07:39.680 --> 00:07:41.540 one of the most dramatic. Take the Republican 00:07:41.540 --> 00:07:44.600 participants. Before the event, 79 percent of 00:07:44.600 --> 00:07:46.500 them supported forcibly deporting undocumented 00:07:46.500 --> 00:07:49.199 immigrants. Almost 80 percent. I mean, that's 00:07:49.199 --> 00:07:51.019 a core belief for that demographic. After four 00:07:51.019 --> 00:07:53.399 days in that room, that number dropped to 40 00:07:53.399 --> 00:07:56.319 percent. It was cut in half. Essentially. That's 00:07:56.319 --> 00:07:58.819 a staggering change on such a fundamental issue. 00:07:59.019 --> 00:08:02.120 What about DACA, the Dreamers? Same thing, but 00:08:02.120 --> 00:08:04.319 in the other direction. Republican support for 00:08:04.319 --> 00:08:08.300 protecting Dreamers jumped from 36 % to 61%. 00:08:08.300 --> 00:08:10.879 So it went from a minority view to a clear majority. 00:08:11.240 --> 00:08:13.939 Why? What do you think changed their minds? Well, 00:08:13.980 --> 00:08:17.779 it's likely a mix of the human element, actually 00:08:17.779 --> 00:08:20.240 meeting people affected by these policies, and 00:08:20.240 --> 00:08:23.029 the fact element. When you sit down and actually 00:08:23.029 --> 00:08:25.730 discuss the logistics and the cost of deporting 00:08:25.730 --> 00:08:28.110 11 million people. The simple slogan starts to 00:08:28.110 --> 00:08:30.389 fall apart. Exactly. The simplistic idea gets 00:08:30.389 --> 00:08:32.529 a lot softer. But it wasn't just a one -way street. 00:08:32.730 --> 00:08:34.830 Democrats moved too, right? Oh, significantly. 00:08:35.210 --> 00:08:38.230 Take the $15 federal minimum wage. Okay. Before 00:08:38.230 --> 00:08:41.129 the event, 82 .5 % of Democrats in the group 00:08:41.129 --> 00:08:45.100 supported it. After, that dropped to 59%. Still 00:08:45.100 --> 00:08:47.120 a majority, but a much smaller one. That's a 00:08:47.120 --> 00:08:49.720 huge drop in confidence. It is. And look at baby 00:08:49.720 --> 00:08:52.019 bonds, this idea of government bonds for newborns. 00:08:52.179 --> 00:08:55.139 Support just collapsed from 61 percent down to 00:08:55.139 --> 00:08:57.919 21 percent. Wow. That's basically the room deciding, 00:08:58.059 --> 00:09:01.100 OK, no, we can't afford this. Or that they prefer 00:09:01.100 --> 00:09:03.399 other solutions. And we saw it with Medicare 00:09:03.399 --> 00:09:05.519 for all. The number of Democrats who believed 00:09:05.519 --> 00:09:07.379 it would raise the national debt to impossible 00:09:07.379 --> 00:09:11.049 levels nearly doubled. From 20 % to almost 39%. 00:09:11.049 --> 00:09:13.409 That's fascinating. It suggests that when people 00:09:13.409 --> 00:09:15.090 are actually presented with the trade -offs, 00:09:15.090 --> 00:09:17.350 not just the benefits. But the costs. They become 00:09:17.350 --> 00:09:21.850 more fiscally, I don't know, realistic. Regardless 00:09:21.850 --> 00:09:24.169 of their party. Fiscally realistic is a good 00:09:24.169 --> 00:09:26.730 way to put it. They become more pragmatic. When 00:09:26.730 --> 00:09:29.129 you get past the bumper sticker slogans and look 00:09:29.129 --> 00:09:31.529 at the actual spreadsheet, the extreme positions. 00:09:31.710 --> 00:09:34.750 Whether it's deport everyone or free money for 00:09:34.750 --> 00:09:37.009 everyone. They become much harder to defend. 00:09:37.210 --> 00:09:38.970 The one that really surprised me was foreign 00:09:38.970 --> 00:09:41.429 policy. I mean, usually people's eyes glaze over 00:09:41.429 --> 00:09:43.570 when you talk about trade deals like the Trans 00:09:43.570 --> 00:09:46.710 -Pacific Partnership. But look at the data. Support 00:09:46.710 --> 00:09:49.789 for the TPP went from 23 percent to 62 percent. 00:09:49.929 --> 00:09:52.970 It basically tripled. Because trade deals are 00:09:52.970 --> 00:09:55.669 complex. They're very easy to attack in a 30 00:09:55.669 --> 00:09:57.990 second ad. They're stealing our jobs. Right. 00:09:58.110 --> 00:10:00.309 But when you actually sit down and explain the 00:10:00.309 --> 00:10:02.730 strategy behind it, you know, countering China, 00:10:02.809 --> 00:10:05.450 building alliances, people get it. They're not 00:10:05.450 --> 00:10:07.450 incapable of understanding. They're just usually 00:10:07.450 --> 00:10:09.710 not given the full picture. So all in all, out 00:10:09.710 --> 00:10:12.710 of 26 really polarizing proposals they discussed, 00:10:12.990 --> 00:10:15.929 the parties move closer together on 22 of them. 00:10:15.990 --> 00:10:18.529 22 out of 26. Yeah. The center didn't just hold. 00:10:18.669 --> 00:10:21.840 It actually expanded. But I think there's something 00:10:21.840 --> 00:10:24.220 else here that might be even more important than 00:10:24.220 --> 00:10:26.799 the policy shifts. The source material talks 00:10:26.799 --> 00:10:29.860 about effective polarization. Yeah, which is 00:10:29.860 --> 00:10:31.659 the fancy term for it. Or how much we hate each 00:10:31.659 --> 00:10:35.899 other's guts, right? Yeah. Polarization is, I 00:10:35.899 --> 00:10:38.539 disagree with your tax plan. Effective polarization 00:10:38.539 --> 00:10:41.779 is, I think you're a bad person because of your 00:10:41.779 --> 00:10:44.980 tax plan. It's emotional. And this is where the 00:10:44.980 --> 00:10:47.840 one room part is so key. You can read a briefing 00:10:47.840 --> 00:10:50.279 book by yourself, but you can't fix that kind 00:10:50.279 --> 00:10:52.159 of polarization without looking someone in the 00:10:52.159 --> 00:10:54.379 eye. And that is exactly what happened. They 00:10:54.379 --> 00:10:57.340 saw this symmetrical thawing of relations. Democrats' 00:10:57.480 --> 00:11:00.519 positive feelings toward Republicans rose 13 00:11:00.519 --> 00:11:03.059 points. And for Republicans toward Democrats. 00:11:03.320 --> 00:11:06.419 It rose 14 points. Almost identical. But was 00:11:06.419 --> 00:11:09.240 it real respect or was it just, you know, being 00:11:09.240 --> 00:11:10.960 polite because you're stuck in a room with them? 00:11:11.139 --> 00:11:13.480 They have a metric for that. Before the event, 00:11:13.659 --> 00:11:15.659 they asked people if their political opponents 00:11:15.659 --> 00:11:19.360 had good reasons for their views. Only 34 % said 00:11:19.360 --> 00:11:21.779 yes. So two -thirds of the room thought the other 00:11:21.779 --> 00:11:24.259 side was basically irrational or just plain stupid. 00:11:24.500 --> 00:11:29.460 And after. That number jumped to 54%. A clear 00:11:29.460 --> 00:11:32.279 majority left the room thinking, OK, you're not 00:11:32.279 --> 00:11:35.000 crazy. I see how you got there, even if I don't 00:11:35.000 --> 00:11:36.980 agree with you. That feels like the real miracle 00:11:36.980 --> 00:11:39.759 here, the restoration of empathy. It also restored 00:11:39.759 --> 00:11:41.779 faith in the system itself. The number of people 00:11:41.779 --> 00:11:43.759 who felt American democracy was working well 00:11:43.759 --> 00:11:46.440 literally doubled. There's a stat here I love. 00:11:46.519 --> 00:11:49.879 98 .2 % of the participants said the experience 00:11:49.879 --> 00:11:52.659 was valuable. I know. You couldn't get 98 % of 00:11:52.659 --> 00:11:54.740 Americans to agree that puppies are cute. Right. 00:11:54.820 --> 00:11:57.919 It shows this real hunger people have for this 00:11:57.919 --> 00:12:00.019 kind of conversation. We assume people want to 00:12:00.019 --> 00:12:01.919 fight because that's what gets clicks online. 00:12:02.320 --> 00:12:04.519 But this suggests people are actually desperate 00:12:04.519 --> 00:12:07.779 for civil, meaningful dialogue. They just don't 00:12:07.779 --> 00:12:09.840 know where to find it. Barack Obama had a quote 00:12:09.840 --> 00:12:11.679 about this that I think sums it up perfectly. 00:12:11.860 --> 00:12:15.120 He said it was a reminder that behind every opinion 00:12:15.120 --> 00:12:18.379 lies a human being with real experiences. And 00:12:18.379 --> 00:12:20.580 that's the secret sauce, right? Yeah. It's really 00:12:20.580 --> 00:12:22.779 hard to demonize a caricature when you're sharing 00:12:22.779 --> 00:12:24.879 a bagel with the actual person during a coffee 00:12:24.879 --> 00:12:27.879 break. The caricature just falls apart. But OK, 00:12:28.039 --> 00:12:30.500 let me play devil's advocate for a second. This 00:12:30.500 --> 00:12:34.200 was a bubble, a resort in Texas. It's a vacation 00:12:34.200 --> 00:12:37.240 from reality. What happens when they go home? 00:12:37.899 --> 00:12:40.139 Back to their cable news, their Facebook feeds. 00:12:40.580 --> 00:12:43.179 Does the miracle just evaporate? That is the 00:12:43.179 --> 00:12:45.379 multimillion -dollar question. Yeah. And the 00:12:45.379 --> 00:12:46.960 researchers wanted to know the answer, too. They 00:12:46.960 --> 00:12:48.779 didn't want to just measure a vacation high. 00:12:48.980 --> 00:12:51.159 So they did a follow -up. They did. One year 00:12:51.159 --> 00:12:54.559 later, right before the 2020 election, they managed 00:12:54.559 --> 00:12:58.279 to get 463 of the original delegates back for 00:12:58.279 --> 00:13:00.919 another survey. And what did they find? Did the 00:13:00.919 --> 00:13:03.480 changes stick? They found the changes were shockingly 00:13:03.480 --> 00:13:05.870 durable. People didn't just snap back to their 00:13:05.870 --> 00:13:07.889 old positions. In fact, these delegates were 00:13:07.889 --> 00:13:10.309 more politically engaged than the control group. 00:13:10.470 --> 00:13:12.570 They were paying closer attention to the campaign. 00:13:12.809 --> 00:13:14.730 And it actually changed how they voted, didn't 00:13:14.730 --> 00:13:17.429 it? It did. And this is a sensitive point, but 00:13:17.429 --> 00:13:19.970 the data is very clear. The delegates from the 00:13:19.970 --> 00:13:22.870 event were 15 percentage points more likely to 00:13:22.870 --> 00:13:25.149 support Joe Biden than the people in the control 00:13:25.149 --> 00:13:28.049 group. Now, we have to be really careful here. 00:13:28.149 --> 00:13:30.289 This doesn't mean the experiment turns people 00:13:30.289 --> 00:13:33.419 into Democrats. No, absolutely not. Remember, 00:13:33.559 --> 00:13:36.399 this group included staunch conservatives. The 00:13:36.399 --> 00:13:39.059 researchers suggest that the process of deliberation, 00:13:39.159 --> 00:13:42.399 of looking at facts, of valuing consensus, it 00:13:42.399 --> 00:13:44.960 pushed people toward the candidate who was, at 00:13:44.960 --> 00:13:47.840 that time, positioning himself as the centrist 00:13:47.840 --> 00:13:50.679 unifying option. And for the independents and 00:13:50.679 --> 00:13:52.940 moderates in the group, the effect was even bigger, 00:13:53.039 --> 00:13:57.139 a 25 -point advantage. Right. It suggests that 00:13:57.139 --> 00:14:00.259 informed, deliberative thinking tends to favor 00:14:00.259 --> 00:14:03.440 moderation. It favors the candidate trying to 00:14:03.440 --> 00:14:05.940 bridge the divide, not the one trying to amplify 00:14:05.940 --> 00:14:08.500 it. They also had a different view on the government's 00:14:08.500 --> 00:14:11.559 COVID response. They were more critical, much 00:14:11.559 --> 00:14:13.820 more critical than the control group, which implies 00:14:13.820 --> 00:14:15.700 they weren't just, you know, happier with everything. 00:14:15.759 --> 00:14:17.700 They were more discerning. They were evaluating 00:14:17.700 --> 00:14:20.240 performance based on facts, not just cheering 00:14:20.240 --> 00:14:22.299 for their team. The New York Times looked at 00:14:22.299 --> 00:14:24.000 this follow -up data and said something that 00:14:24.000 --> 00:14:27.539 just floored me. They said... Few events, including 00:14:27.539 --> 00:14:29.480 the president's impeachment and the pandemic, 00:14:29.679 --> 00:14:31.799 have moved public opinion anywhere near that 00:14:31.799 --> 00:14:34.879 much. It's a wild statement. We think of impeachment, 00:14:35.000 --> 00:14:38.399 a global pandemic. These are earth shattering 00:14:38.399 --> 00:14:41.860 events. But this suggests that quiet, structured, 00:14:42.059 --> 00:14:45.360 respectful conversation can actually change minds 00:14:45.360 --> 00:14:48.899 more than all that loud breaking news. So we 00:14:48.899 --> 00:14:51.799 get to the so what question. We can't scale this, 00:14:51.940 --> 00:14:55.440 right? We can't fly 330 million Americans to 00:14:55.440 --> 00:14:58.179 a resort in Texas. No, we can't scale the resort, 00:14:58.379 --> 00:15:01.179 but we can scale the principle. And I think the 00:15:01.179 --> 00:15:03.100 main takeaway for you, for anyone listening, 00:15:03.259 --> 00:15:05.799 is what Professor Fishkin argues. It's that our 00:15:05.799 --> 00:15:08.659 polarization isn't inevitable. But it feels inevitable. 00:15:08.799 --> 00:15:10.940 It feels like gravity. It feels that way because 00:15:10.940 --> 00:15:12.980 our current environment is designed to create 00:15:12.980 --> 00:15:15.129 it. The algorithms, the gerrymandered districts, 00:15:15.330 --> 00:15:17.909 the media incentives, they all reward conflict. 00:15:18.250 --> 00:15:19.990 But this experiment proves it's a product of 00:15:19.990 --> 00:15:22.350 the environment, not the people. Exactly. When 00:15:22.350 --> 00:15:24.610 you change the conditions, when you create good 00:15:24.610 --> 00:15:27.350 conditions, the people change. The will of the 00:15:27.350 --> 00:15:30.149 people isn't this fixed, static thing. It depends 00:15:30.149 --> 00:15:32.409 entirely on how you ask the question. It kind 00:15:32.409 --> 00:15:34.509 of challenges the whole idea of polling, doesn't 00:15:34.509 --> 00:15:36.970 it? A normal poll is, what do you think right 00:15:36.970 --> 00:15:39.230 now, off the top of your head? With no information, 00:15:39.450 --> 00:15:42.960 yeah. This experiment asks... What would you 00:15:42.960 --> 00:15:46.159 think if you actually had the time and the resources 00:15:46.159 --> 00:15:49.019 to really understand the issue? And the answer 00:15:49.019 --> 00:15:51.059 to that second question is a lot more unified, 00:15:51.279 --> 00:15:54.019 a lot more hopeful. A lot more reasonable. So 00:15:54.019 --> 00:15:55.679 here's the thought I want to leave you with. 00:15:55.980 --> 00:15:58.360 It's a bit of a frustration, maybe, but also 00:15:58.360 --> 00:16:02.120 a challenge. We now have scientific proof that 00:16:02.120 --> 00:16:04.960 Americans can agree on the hard stuff. We know 00:16:04.960 --> 00:16:08.700 the mechanism works. So if democracy is supposed 00:16:08.700 --> 00:16:11.639 to reflect the will of the people. Why are we 00:16:11.639 --> 00:16:14.159 all still using an operating system that's designed 00:16:14.159 --> 00:16:17.019 to keep us apart? That's the question. We have 00:16:17.019 --> 00:16:19.460 the technology to fix the glitch. We just have 00:16:19.460 --> 00:16:21.399 to decide if we want to use it. Thanks for joining 00:16:21.399 --> 00:16:23.919 us on this deep dive into America in one room. 00:16:24.240 --> 00:16:26.200 Hopefully it gives you a little bit of optimism 00:16:26.200 --> 00:16:28.139 the next time you look at the news. Thanks for 00:16:28.139 --> 00:16:29.539 listening. We'll catch you on the next one.