The U.S. is one of the most politically divided nations in the world. Most people know this intuitively, and statistics back it up. According to a poll by the University of Virginia, 80% of Joe Biden voters and 84% of Donald Trump voters “somewhat or strongly agree” that the leaders of the opposing party are a “clear and present danger to American democracy.” For voters on the Biden side of the divide, that probably is an amazing fact—after all, only one party's supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol. But this is the nature of division. A Newsweek poll showed that 52% of Republican voters believe that the Capitol rioters were protecting American democracy, while a recent Reuters poll showed that a similar percentage believe the riot was orchestrated and led by the left.
Right now, there are scores of nonprofits working in the area of cooperation and bipartisanship, and the information in the above paragraph proves that their jobs are among the most difficult facing any organization in the third sector. Michael Podhorzer, chair of the Analyst Institute, believes that the United States is two nations—not as a metaphor, but as a “geographic and historical reality.” The somewhat cooperative middle era of the twentieth century was a political anomaly that began to die during the height of the Civil Rights movement, and accelerated with the arrival of Ronald Reagan. In Podhorzer's view, the country's growing division represents reversion to the norm.
Podhorzer believes the Republican Party is gaming the political system to achieve a level of dominance that is not reflective of its actual public support, but here again, the view from the other side of the divide is startlingly different. 67% of Republican voters somewhat or strongly believe that Democratic leaders are gaming the political system by deliberately using immigration to orchestrate the replacement of conservative white voters. Known as “replacement theory,” or “great replacement theory,” this formerly fringe belief has spread among conservative ranks. It's possible to chart similar divisions on issue after issue, both political and social, but the point is that the gap between Americans is large and growing. That being the case, who are the brave nonprofits stepping into the breach, and what are they doing to create mutual tolerance, cooperation, and dialogue?
Organizations working in that space
The list of nonprofits trying to bring Americans together is long, with their efforts ranging from in-person discussion groups to nonpartisan news platforms. The Burke-Paine Society, named for 18th century political opposites Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine, typifies the type of work being done on the discussion front. It intermittently convenes cross-partisan groups around the country to share views, with its most recent event taking place in Dallas in May. Along the same lines, the nonprofit group Cortico, created in cooperation with MIT Media Lab, brings diverse people together in small groups to converse about their lived experiences. Both the Burke-Paine Society and Cortico are concerned about the loss of social and political trust, and are taking steps they hope will restore them.
Closer to the heart of political power, the Association of Former Members of Congress, or FMC, is a bipartisan nonprofit group partly staffed by former U.S. senators and representatives. Much of what the FMC does is host the Congressional Study Groups, which are international dialogues designed to facilitate bilateral and multilateral understanding between the U.S. and its allies. However, its mission as it relates to the home front is to increase the U.S. public's understanding of representative democracy, political service, Congress as an institution, and policymaking at the federal level. It attempts to do all this in a politically neutral way, and with no funding from Congress, instead relying upon grants, membership dues, an annual fundraising dinner, and individual and corporate donations.
Working in a more visual milieu, the nonprofit Civic Life Project uses filmmaking to advance its nonpartisan mission, which is to increase civic engagement among the young. The idea is that if young voters feel they have a voice, they will engage with the electoral system rather than become alienated by it. The Civic Life Project stages a yearly Youth Film Challenge, a global competition whose winners see their short, civics-oriented films or videos screened for larger audiences. Aside from the recognition and an awards ceremony, a cash prize provides extra enticement to participate. The Civic Life Project website states that the upcoming midterm elections could redefine, “how we vote, how we count votes, and how we certify votes,” and contends that turning out young voters could be the key to safeguarding democracy.
Also using visual means to achieve its ends is the nonprofit environmental forum EarthX, which holds a yearly conference paired with an environmentally focused film festival, EarthX Film. EarthX's goal is to nudge people toward a sustainable future by connecting educators, businesses, leaders, nonprofits, and citizens, while airing the views of people from all walks of life. Similar organizations include The Citizen's Climate Lobby, DEPLOY/US, and Political Climate, all of which bill themselves as nonpartisan or bipartisan. Naturally, as matters currently stand in Washington, D.C., the issue of climate change is partisan no matter how a nonprofit labels its mission, but these groups do specifically work on bridge building and encouraging people to at least listen to experts on the issue.
The nonprofit organization republicEn is also environmentally focused. Formed by Bob Inglis after his public acceptance of the facts of global heating contributed to him losing his Republican congressional seat in 2010, it seeks to convert climate skeptics on the right and push them toward market-based solutions to the crisis. It's debatable whether such solutions could work, particularly because republicEn believes in economic answers to the exclusion of all else, including regulation, incentivization, and international treaties; however, its website correctly notes that there is ample agreement among Democrats about market-based approaches to the problem. That makes the organization a prime example of partisanship reduction.
The Millennial Action Project has a different view of how to lessen the partisan divide. Its mission is to register more young people to vote. Because millennials and Generation Z are the largest voting bloc in the U.S., and are less likely to be aligned with either political party, MAP believes they can be the key to reduced polarization. The best scenario, according to the group's website, could be candidates who compete more on the merits of their policy solutions, and less on tribal allegiance. “The best policy solutions don't have to be red or blue or even purple. The winning candidate is the one who proposes solutions that most resonate with the largest and most powerful bloc of voters: the youngest generation.”
As with climate nonprofits, just because the Civic Life Project and the Millennial Action Project bill themselves as nonpartisan doesn't mean they're simply accepted as such. Last year the American Council on Education released a statement that condemned efforts across the U.S. to “raise barriers to student voting, including prohibiting students from using their campus addresses to register or qualify for absentee ballots.” In Texas a college ID is not accepted for voter registration, while a Texas handgun license is. The Campus Vote Project calls North Carolina's acceptance of student IDs for voter registration “completely illusory.” It's clear that expanding the franchise among young people isn't considered nonpartisan, even if nonprofits themselves aren't explicitly political.
All the organizations discussed here, and others unmentioned, have laudable goals, and all, in one way or another, see division as a communication issue. But some experts see the problem as something far deeper. Political division, according to some, has moved into the realm of moralized identities in which the belief systems function as a form of religion. And like religiously divided societies, Americans are self-organizing into enclaves. A Pew survey showed that for 50% of Republicans and 35% of Democrats it is important to live in a place where people share their views. Cynthia S. Wang of Kellogg's Dispute Resolution and Research Center describes American division as reaching a zero sum level “where compromise feels like apostasy.”
Then there's the opposite view, claiming division isn't as bad as it seems. Yale University researcher Gregory Huber conducted experiments in which Democrats and Republicans gave dramatically divergent answers when nothing was at stake, but when offered rewards for accuracy, gave answers much closer together. “At core it suggests that people walk around with something like two sets of books in their heads,” Huber said. “They have a set of books that when they're cheering on their team, they express those attitudes and opinions, but if they were actually going to make consequential decisions about their lives, about their investments, about high stakes things, they would behave differently.”
Nevertheless, the division and rancor in American society is real. When facts are known but not expressed, is that any different from not knowing facts at all? There's little chance to meet in the middle when one or both sides express what is empirically false, and decry being exposed to the truth as a form of oppression or conspiracy. Where is the midpoint between those who know the world is round versus those who say it's flat? The nonprofits working on cohesion have that conundrum to wrestle with, and it could be among the most important questions of the twenty-first century, because there's a point beyond which division becomes chaos. Fully 20% of the U.S. public now say it's okay to resort to violence to achieve political ends. A society that actually believes this cannot long survive.
Action steps you can take today
- See a list of nonprofits and other organizations working to bring Americans together.