Life brings change. Some changes come quietly. Others arrive as a calling, a recognition that something essential requires your full attention.
Eight months ago, I left a 30-year career to lead Braver Angels because I had to do more to address what I see happening to our civic culture. Toxic polarization is fracturing relationships, distorting leadership and eroding our capacity for self-government. For me, the decision was rooted in something deeply personal: I do not want my grandchildren growing up believing that the only way to stand for something is to tear someone else down.
If not us, who? If not now, when?
Most states have entered the primary election season, a time that often rewards intensity over wisdom. Primaries matter. They shape who appears on November’s ballot and what kind of leadership emerges. Yet this stage of the process also amplifies factional loyalty and discourages participation from those who feel exhausted by the noise. When only the most animated voices show up, candidates are incentivized to appeal to the edges rather than to the whole.
But the deeper problem is not merely political mechanics. It is cultural. We have been conditioned to believe that those who disagree with us must value entirely different things. In reality, most Americans share many of the same core values. What differs is how we weigh those values in particular circumstances, shaped by our lived experience. That difference in weighing leads to different concerns and preferred solutions.
Instead of exploring those differences with curiosity, we often are pulled into an outrage cycle, a system engineered to provoke us. In such a world, choosing not to react is an act of self-mastery. It takes zero civic muscle to fire off a response to a headline, a comment or a statement in a family text thread. It takes discipline to pause and ask, “What is really happening here?”
This is not about abandoning conviction. It is about governing our response so we can collaborate. Agency is not the freedom to do whatever we feel in the moment. It is the power to govern our response. And self-government only works when the self is governed.
The U.S. Constitution restrains power. It does not restrain contempt. That work belongs to us. So what does this look like in practice during an election year?
First, strengthen relationships before you debate ideas. Let people in your life know they matter to you beyond their political positions. Trust is the soil in which productive disagreement grows into collaborative action.
Second, check your intent before you engage. If your primary motivation is to win, score points or expose flaws, step back. Those motivations feed the outrage cycle. Enter a conversation when you are prepared to seek understanding, even while holding firm to your beliefs.
Third, when you encounter a view that frustrates or alarms you, ask a better question: “Tell me more about your life experience that shapes how you see this issue.” People experience their opinions more than they choose them. When you understand someone’s story, you begin to see the values beneath it.
Fourth, reflect back what you heard before presenting your own perspective. It signals dignity.
Then share your own experience, not as a weapon, but as a contribution. Look for where your values overlap, even if your policy prescriptions differ. That is the space where durable solutions are built. Together.
Courageous citizenship, the discipline we train at Braver Angels, is the choice to act instead of react across political differences. It means coming to the table, not to the middle. It means solving for shared American interests without surrendering principle. It is not a personality trait; it is a practice.
None of this is easy. It is not rewarded by the current environment. Outrage spreads faster than restraint. But the renewal of our constitutional republic will not come from winning arguments. It will come from cultivating citizens resilient enough for self-government.
As the elections unfold, resist the temptation to withdraw or to escalate. Participate. Vote. Engage. But do so with discipline. Model principled disagreement in your homes, your faith communities, your workplaces and your relationships.
History will not ask whether we shouted the loudest. It will ask whether we preserved the conditions necessary for a free people to govern themselves.
The next chapter of our country’s story is not written by social media algorithms or political pundits. It will be written by Americans who choose courage over contempt.
Let’s write something worthy of those who will inherit it.
This story appears in the May 2026 issue of Deseret Magazine. Learn more about how to subscribe.