Joan Blades and Jacob Hess || MoveOn's Co-Founder and a Utah Conservative Walk Into a Living Room
Talkin‘ Politics & Religion Without Killin‘ Each OtherShow Notes
Joan Blades helped launch MoveOn. Jacob Hess grew up a conservative kid in Utah. Their friendship is the argument. Joan Blades, co-founder of MoveOn and Living Room Conversations, and Jacob Hess of the Deseret News join Corey to talk about what happens when political opposites actually sit down together. They cover MoveOn's 1998 start as a one-sentence petition, why these conversations feel scary before they feel fun, and how local pride could rebuild trust in our elections.
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Key takeaways Hess traces his turn to a graduate school computer lab, where a classmate held him after he learned his brother was being sent home to die. After that, the culture war rhetoric about "dangerous" people stopped making sense. Hess argues dialogue shouldn't ban persuasion, because people with conviction end up feeling they must leave it at the door. Blades says curiosity and listening build the relationship that makes honest grappling possible. Hess frames this work as public health, since chronic anger is chronic stress. Blades adds that if we're in a loneliness epidemic, human relationships are the obvious remedy. Blades is organizing locally around a principle from Braver Angels' cross-partisan work: voting should be easy, cheating should be hard. Local pride in how elections work, she says, is the path to national trust.
About Joan Blades Joan Blades is a co-founder of Living Room Conversations, MoveOn, and MomsRising. A mediator and attorney by training, she co-authored The Custom-Fit Workplace and The Motherhood Manifesto. About Jacob Hess Jacob Hess writes for the Deseret News and co-authored You're Not as Crazy as I Thought (But You're Still Wrong) with Phil Neisser. A former board member of the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation, he teaches mindfulness and researches long-term healing from depression. His upcoming book is Recovering Hope.
Links Living Room Conversations: livingroomconversations.org Trustworthy Elections Initiative: ncdd.org/trustworthy-elections.html Braver Angels Trustworthy Elections report: braverangels.org/trustworthy-elections Jacob Hess, Deseret News: www.deseret.com/authors/jacob-hess Jacob Hess on Substack: publishpeace.net
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