Look to Lincoln: Political polarization is our greatest challenge, but we can fix it

Two weeks before Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire on former President Trump in Butler, Pa., wounding him and killing an American shielding his family from the volley of gunshots that pierced the peace that afternoon, more than 700 Americans — equally divided between liberals and conservatives, plus many independents — gathered on the campus of Carthage College to address the greatest threat facing our country today: destructive political polarization.  

I was among this group in Kenosha, Wis., along with my dad. All of us had traveled from across the country to Kenosha for the Braver Angels National Convention because we knew how toxic and threatening our politics had become.

Braver Angels is the nation’s largest cross-partisan, volunteer-led movement working to bridge the partisan divide. On July 13, we all were reminded again how important its mission is for our country.

While we still have much to learn about what motivated Crooks that day, no American should be surprised that political polarization can devolve into violence. We should be encouraged that leaders from both political parties expressed common resolve to address a root problem after July 13. Polling shows that a majority of Americans also believe highly polarized political rhetoric created the environment from which July 13 was born.

Yet, we cannot allow this moment to end there. July 13 cannot fade into our rearview mirror like every other news story. President Trump dodged a bullet in Butler, but so did our country.  

To fix America, we need to use this moment to reflect on where we are, where we are going and where we have been.

The 2024 Braver Angels National Convention opened in Kenosha with an appeal from co-founder and President David Blankenhorn to continue talking and listening to each other across our differences. Blankenhorn suggested we draw inspiration from the concluding passage of President Lincoln’s first inaugural address, delivered just weeks before the Civil War began.

“I am loath to close,” Lincoln said. “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory … will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

Blankenhorn focused on why Lincoln was “loath to close,” sharing his interpretation that Lincoln knew this was the last moment of American political dialogue before the Civil War. Lincoln understood the absolute imperative for Americans to keep the conversation going — not despite our political differences but because of them. The alternative was politics through violence. Lincoln lamented that he was too late to stop our political polarization from jumping the tracks to violence.

Today, unlike in 1861, we are not yet too late to stop history from repeating. But July 13 should serve as a sober reminder of the urgency to course correct.

Whether it was providence, luck or the ghost of Lincoln that saved President Trump from the bullets in Butler, Americans cannot overlook the opportunity of this moment. Crooks’s narrow miss gave America time to restart our conversations, to find each other and search again for our common ground.

Political polarization is ultimately about more than disagreement. It’s about its manifestation into distrust and dislike for the other side. In 1960, just 1 in 20 Americans said they would be upset if their child married someone from the other party; by 2019, that number had increased by almost 600 percent, to roughly 1 in 3 Americans.

Americans increasingly do not know or interact with those holding differing views. This trend erodes trust in our institutions, coarsens our public debate and reduces our capacity for goodwill. American self-governance depends on precisely the virtues that polarization destroys, and this is why polarization so fundamentally threatens our nation today.

To fix America, we must heal out destructive politics. This is the challenge of our time — bigger than any of us and requiring effort from us all.

Yes, our political leaders must set a better example with their rhetoric. Yes, our media organizations must promote a healthier tone. 

But the truth is also that each of us, as individual Americans, can do far more than we often think to tackle this problem in the areas of our life that we each control. 

After Kenosha, my dad and I took a road trip to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to visit his parents’ and grandparents’ graves. Every person we met along the way told us stories of how politics had destroyed relationships in their own families, workplaces and communities. My dad and I have also experienced this.

Ultimately, no political leader or institution has as much power as you and I to bring estranged friends, relatives or neighbors back to our table. And none of us are taking this problem on alone.

Braver Angels has more than 11,000 members nationwide. These kindred American spirits will cheer you on with every effort you make to heal our shared divisions. Included within the network are powerful tools, trainings, workshops, debates and local meetups that make addressing this challenge more manageable, meaningful and fun. There are hundreds of other outstanding civic organizations committed to this work alongside Braver Angels, too.

To fix America, we need each other, and our country needs us all.

Harwood is a member, volunteer and ambassador for Braver Angels. He was also a delegate to the 2024 Braver Angels National Convention.

This op-ed is part of The Hill’s “How to Fix America” series exploring solutions to some of the country’s most pressing problems.