Braver Angels CEO Maury Giles announced this week a new organizational advisory council of “23 leaders who disagree on many things” but who agree to “stand together, publicly, behind the idea that Americans can hold fast to their convictions while staying genuinely curious about the convictions of people on the other side.”
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox is one of four politicians on the new Braver Angels Advisory Council. He is joined by former U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn, and U.S. Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., and Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y.
Paul Edwards, the director of BYU’s Wheatley Institute, was also announced as part of the council. He is joined by seven other prominent academics focused on the health of public discourse, including:
- Jonathan Haidt, Heterodox Academy co-founder, NYU Stern School of Business
- Donna Hicks, global conflict resolution specialist, Harvard Kennedy School
- Melody Barnes, Karsh Institute of Democracy, University of Virginia
- Cornel West, Union Theological Seminary
- Pete Peterson, dean of the School of Public Policy, Pepperdine University
- John A. Powell, director of the Othering and Belonging Institute, University of California, Berkeley
- Keith Allred, executive director, National Institute for Civil Discourse, University of Arizona
The new Braver Angels Advisory Council includes two public intellectuals who have been outspoken about American discourse, including at the Deseret News.
Yuval Levin, director of social, cultural and constitutional studies at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote an op-ed for the Deseret News in 2024, titled “Why the Constitution respects disagreement and reveres unity.” Levin elaborated in a Deseret News video, “The Constitution says if you want to move, you need to build a broader coalition. You can’t move with a very narrow majority.”
Jonathan Rauch, senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, is also on the council. Last year, the Deseret News published his essay, “America is divided. Can religion provide a better way?” In an accompanying video, Rauch said, “Partisanship is the new religion in America,” and argued that Christianity is “a load-bearing wall in our democracy” in the way it “gives people a sense of why they’re on the planet and what to do with this freedom.”
“The Constitution doesn’t take care of itself, it needs a substrate of republican virtues,” he said. “Politics can’t bear that kind of meaning.”
The Braver Angels Advisory Council also includes Deseret News contributor Mónica Guzmán — who hosts “A Braver Way” podcast in partnership with the Braver Angels publication — and Braver Angels co-founder David Blankenhorn, who is also a Deseret News contributor.
Authors Alvin Wang and Amanda Ripley (who leads Good Conflict) are joined by several other leaders of civil society organizations on the council, including:
- Vince Stango, National Constitution Center
- R. Scott Stephenson, Museum of the American Revolution
- Tim Shriver, Dignity Index and UNITE
- Jim Ferrell, Arbinger Institute
- Layla Zaidane, Future Caucus
These are the “initial members” of the board, Giles wrote in the announcement, with more leaders slated to be “added as this work spreads.”
These new advisers “would not agree on many questions you could put in front of them,” Giles said, which continues the nine-year-old organization’s focus on fostering ideological disagreement. As John Wood Jr. wrote in 2023, “At Braver Angels, we lean heavily on red/blue balance. The principle that conservatives and liberals must be represented in equal proportions at every level of our leadership, and also across our community as much as possible.”
Giles told the Deseret News that nearly all of these council members will be participating in the upcoming Braver Angels 2026 National Convention, June 26-29 in Philadelphia, either in person or via video message.
One hope for the council, Giles explained, is to reach more of “the vast, exhausted majority looking for a healthier option than fear and partisan contempt.”
Every person on the list believes “our social fabric depends on our willingness to engage across differences and build together,” his announcement continued. “They are lending their names, their voices, and their reach to that conviction.”
An invitation to others weary of contempt
Those who engage across differences with openness experience “something that surprises them every time,” Giles added. “The relief of disagreeing without contempt, and the discovery that the person across the table is not who the feed said they were.”
The Braver Angels CEO argued that this is “the practice of governing self that’s required for self-government.”
Giles ended the announcement with an invitation to anyone reading the message: “This week, have one conversation across partisan differences you’ve been avoiding. Identify one need in your community to act on with someone else. Bring curiosity instead of your case. See what happens.”
This is how the world changes, he concluded. “One person, one conversation, one act at a time.”