In this episode we talk with Manu Meel, whose organization, BridgeUSA, works on getting young people to think and talk across political differences. In the first half, Manu talks about what inspires and shapes this work. During the latter half, Manu responds to questions from high school and college students in Oregon, some of whom are part of BridgeUSA chapters at their schools. As you'll hear, Manu and BridgeUSA are making a bet on democracy—a bet relies on Manu's sense that most people, most of the time, do want to talk with and listen to each other.
Show Notes
About our guest
Manu Meel is passionate about empowering young people to bridge divides. He believes that the biggest threat to American democracy is affective polarization. As CEO of BridgeUSA, Manu is currently building the largest and fastest growing student movement to bridge our differences and change how we talk politics. He also hosts the weekly podcast, The Hopeful Majority. Manu contributes to several news outlets, works on pro-democracy efforts nationally, and advises political leaders on reducing polarization. In the past, Manu worked as an associate at the venture capital firm Amplo and at the Department of State as a political analyst in counterterrorism. His work has been featured in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other media platforms. In 2022, Manu was recognized as a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree for leading BridgeUSA.
Further detours
- BridgeUSA is a multi-partisan student movement that champions viewpoint diversity, responsible discourse, and a solution-oriented political culture.
- Manu Meel hosts The Hopeful Majority, a podcast about overcoming toxic politics to write the next chapter in our American story.
- In Season 2 of The Detour we talked with Mónica Guzmán and Ryan Nakade about how they connect across political divides. Listen to Talking Across Distances.
Transcript
Manu Meel: So this innovation of we are going to talk to each other as the means of reconciling our differences is not supposed to work.
Adam Davis: A few months ago, as the November 2024 elections approached, my coworkers and I at Oregon Humanities were aware that there would be lots of strong feelings and strong thoughts right after the elections. And we also knew that we couldn't predict how the elections would turn out. Knowing how much we wouldn't know, we were still confident, maybe even more confident.
Adam Davis: That it made sense to host a public-democracy-related conversation immediately after the election. And we thought that instead of duplicating the many rapid fire analyses of election results, we might instead think about democracy over the long term. And about how people, especially young people, long term participants in our democracy could connect across political differences with these hopes in mind. We invited Manu Meel to join us for a Consider This conversation at the Alberta Rose theater in Portland, just a few days after the November elections. Manu is himself a young person, however you define that, whose organization Bridge USA works on getting young people to think and talk across political differences.
Adam Davis: During the first half of this episode of The Detour, Manu talks about what inspires and shapes this work. During the latter half of the episode, Manu responds to questions from high school and college students in Oregon, some of whom are part of BridgeUSA chapters at their schools. As you'll hear, Manu and BridgeUSA are making a bet on democracy, and that bet relies heavily on Manu's sense that most people, most of the time, whether or not they see themselves as political, do want to talk with and listen to each other, which is also a way to take care of each other. And to build a civic community together. Here's Manu talking about groups he belonged to when he was in high school. Groups he felt like he was a part of, as we start exploring the large and democratically necessary endeavor to bridge differences between us, and them, whoever we are.
Manu Meel: Hello.
Adam Davis: Hey, uh, good evening, everybody. Thanks for coming out on a Sunday evening.
Adam Davis: Uh, before we do anything else, could we say a big Portland welcome to Manu Meel.
Adam Davis: Uh, there were some things that happened earlier this week. That made us think it would be great to talk with Manu because of his work and who he is and so just really grateful you're here. I actually wanted to start not by asking about the work, but about you in high school I want to ask you like Who are your people or were there groups you felt like you most belonged to like who were your folks in high school?
Manu Meel: Whenever someone starts a live stage question with, I want to go back to high school. Like, where is this going? It's only up from here. So, my mom still has no idea what I do. When I, uh, was in high school, I was actually interested in being a pre med student. Um, I, uh, used to do some high school debate. I never really was the kid that Uh, had the most friends, um, I was very much into, uh, essentially just getting by, getting through.
Manu Meel: Um, I had some great friends that helped me, you know, do some science fair work. This idea of politics and democracy was never really in the ether. And in 2016, fall of 2016, which was the first time that President Trump had been elected, I actually went to school at UC Berkeley. And, uh, February 2nd, 2017 was the day that changed the trajectory of, of my life.
Manu Meel: Um, I was never one of those kids that was born just ready to start an organization or build a campaign or go out there and do this leadership thing. Um, I was actually quite introverted and In February 2nd, 2017, Adam, um, the speaker was invited to campus, named Milo Yiannopoulos. Um, and I didn't know anything about Milo, I didn't know anything about the debate that would ensue.
Manu Meel: Um, but what I did know was that as I was walking back from my dining room, uh, At Cal, I walked past a cafe, and inside the cafe, a window broke and was an inn, and there was a TV screen that said, CNN, UC Berkeley students protest free speech. And what was crazy about that moment was not that headline, because again, I didn't know anything.
Manu Meel: It was that the television crew that was filming that moment was standing right next to me. That was sort of the breaking of the fourth wall. That was when I went from feeling like, you know, a spectator to a participant. I'll stop there because I think there's a whole conversation we had about what happened next, but all that to be said, that the high school students that are especially in this room Um, you should know that a lot of the adults here are looking to you, no pressure.
Manu Meel: And, and the reason for that is not because I think you are thinking about leading right now. Um, it's more because I think that when you're young, you're equipped with a certain level of naivete. But that's a very lethal type of naivete. Lethal. Lethal because You have yet to be weathered by the storms of the world.
Manu Meel: And as a result, you have the ability to dream. Whether you're a Republican, Democrat, Conservative, Liberal, those labels don't mean much. And so that's what I'm excited about, and that's what I'm interested in exploring as we continue the conversation.
Adam Davis: Thank you. In a way, I'm gonna pull you back there one more time, and even before the Milo moment in college, I guess I'm curious about, uh, I want to ask the group question one more time.
Adam Davis: Whether there were groups of people either in your high school or in college before you got into this work where you felt like, I kind of connect with these people and I recognize that this is where a connection happens easily as distinct from some other groups. Like, can you think of a group or two that you could name that you felt like, ah, this is where I'm me.
Manu Meel: The nerdy debate kids. Um, it, you know, the, the groups that I was a part of in high school, and I actually think it's informative as we think about the groups that we're a part of today, they're really groups where I was just looking to feel like I belonged. There were groups that I was thinking about where I felt like people around me understood or had some sort of sense of shared purpose.
Manu Meel: And that's a very intellectual way to think about how a 16 year old navigates friend groups in high schools. But really, I think that was the core of it. Um, I was surrounding myself with, with debate kids, with, with students that were interested in the science fair, with students that, uh, necessarily didn't sit at the large lunch table, um, and, uh, and watched Mean Girls and was like, man, I wish I was that guy in that movie.
Manu Meel: Um It was students that, uh, were trying to still figure themselves out. Um, they were on a path to try to understand. And I think, at that time, when you think about the lived experience of somebody of that age, so, that was, you know, 16, so this is 2000. Uh, 14. You know, I was born around 9 11, uh, went to middle school around the Great Recession, uh, graduated high school in, in 2016, then graduated college in 2020, you know, July, the, the January Capitol riots and the pandemic.
Manu Meel: Not a great sample size of, you know, boundless optimism. So again, I, I layer that because I think a lot of these people were not really thinking about politics. They're just trying to figure things out.
Adam Davis: And you, especially describing those events that you've lived through, uh, I guess that everybody here just about, many people have lived through, uh, at what point did you feel yourself starting to get political?
Adam Davis: And what did that mean, uh, to recognize that maybe you were interested in, if not being political, at least caring about democracy?
Manu Meel: Um, the way that I would say I got involved was, it wasn't that I got political, it was that I felt like I finally had Something that I could offer to the community around me.
Manu Meel: Um, after those protests, um, and this is Berkeley, so, the, the crazy thing was not the protests. That's par for the course. Um, what was crazy about that moment was that these were the largest protests since the 60s when Dr. King came to campus. Um, they not only cost the university millions of dollars in damages, but students from across the political spectrum were hurting.
Manu Meel: Journalists had been punched in the face. There was alt right folks coming. There was far left folks coming. There was people from all across the spectrum there. trying to make hay with that moment. And so the next day, like when we were just going on the campus square, um, it wasn't about being political.
Manu Meel: It was just how can we as fellow students contribute to the environment around us because our fellow friends are hurting. That was it.
Adam Davis: How can we contribute to the around us because our friends are hurting and what struck you then as the way to make that contribution?
Manu Meel: So I was born in New Jersey, in New Brunswick.
Manu Meel: Uh, for the first five years of my life, on and off, I actually lived in India with my grandparents. I basically didn't live in a, in a, in a place for more than two years until high school, which was for the first place where I stayed for four years. Um, so I give you that experience because throughout my entire life, it was all about adapting to different environments, not really having stable friendships.
Manu Meel: Um, it was much more of an environment where You're trying to understand, not who you are, but you're trying to just create space for others. That's all you're doing. Because by creating space for others, you feel like you can adapt to the environment. Now fast forward, I'm in college. I'm someone that's always trying to figure out how to adapt.
Manu Meel: I'm, I, I care less about, I would say, what I know. I care much more about, and this is a flaw in some cases now that I'm Getting older doing this work. I care much more about, um, helping other people sort of figure their stuff out as a way to create friendship. It's actually a selfish end, I would say. Um, uh, and I was someone that grew up in a different society.
Manu Meel: So now, suddenly, I am confronted with an environment where I have a very clear understanding of America and American politics. Uh, one in which people are trying to work together to try to solve their problems. Um, uh, President Obama was sort of the first president that I really understood in terms of my consciousness as a, as a kid.
Manu Meel: And the notion, Adam, that you have something happen on campus where Two groups of students feel so viscerally opposed to each other that they're willing to put everything on the line for their ideas. And then on top of that, you have outside groups coming in to make the most of that moment. All I could think about was, um, this is different than what I've understood America to be, and so I went straight to my impulse of, how do I create space to help these people belong?
Manu Meel: It was actually a very naive proposition.
Adam Davis: You say that from today's perspective that it's naive?
Manu Meel: Um, I would actually say that from today's perspective it was very perceptive.
Adam Davis: Yeah. So, will you say more about that? That seems an important distinction between naive and perceptive to recognize.
Manu Meel: At that time it was very naive because the idea that, um, you're trying to get people that are fundamentally opposed, and this was happening across the country, there are people sitting in this audience, I mean, you've been doing this work for 20 years, 2016 I think was a real moment where people started to choose how they were going to contribute and give back to this democracy. I want to try to get students that fundamentally, uh, were at odds last night to just have a conversation. That was it. Uh, the chancellor of UC Berkeley at that time, Carol Christ, who's a fantastic. She's done a lot in higher education, in academia. Um, at that time, her and a lot of administrations around the country were criticizing her work because they're saying, you know, I don't think this is what matters right now. You know, this free speech stuff, it's all just flashbangs, um, in our politics. Think about other ways to get involved. Two months ago, as she's now leaving the university, In her last paragraph in her letter, stepping down, she said, I've got one last wish for the people of the UC Berkeley community, and this isn't quote for quote, but this is paraphrased of essentially what she said, which is I want us to recognize that civic discourse and talking to people that are different than us. is a fundamental aspect of our democracy. Without it, we don't have anything. And I've seen every institution, one after another, understand and reconcile with that.
Manu Meel: If there's one thing that you should know about me after leaving this room, it's that I have one belief, and that is that we do not have a democracy if we cannot talk to each other. That's it. That's all I believe.
Adam Davis: Actually, I got a text yesterday out of the blue from a friend here in town. No, uh, no lead up to the text.
Adam Davis: The whole text was clearly we need a better strategy than bridging. Um, clearly we need a better strategy than bridging. That was the whole text. Uh, but I thought, uh, It depends what, what, first of all, what the strategy might be. Like, what is bridging a strategy for? What would, what is, why that commitment to bridging and what do you think it's for?
Manu Meel: What does success look like for your friend? What does success look like? What are we trying to build towards? Um, we live at this time, I think, where We see different ways of engaging democracy as fundamentally mutually exclusive. So you got this thing called protest. Um, if you're protesting, having a conversation with somebody else that disagrees with you, you're selling out.
If you're having civic dialogues, protest is never a good thing. That's too uncivil. The greatest social change makers of the 20th century from Mahatma Gandhi and salt marches in India, 1945, to Dr. Martin Luther King in the 60s and civil rights, to Nelson Mandela in 1995, South Africa. What they all understood was that this thing called democracy is a puzzle. It's a puzzle where there's different rooms. opportunities and use cases for different tools. Imagine I asked you, um, what is the best piece of cutlery? Is it the fork, the knife, or the spoon? And you said, probably depends on what I'm eating. No kidding. I'll tell you what my, my goal is. Um, my goal is that it starts with an assumption.
And here's my assumption. I believe that the United States is not the greatest, not the worst, but the most ambitious experiment in the history of humanity. Here's what I mean by that. And I specifically start out with not greatest, not worst, most ambitious. Stay with me here for a quick second. Um, by 2045, the United States is going to be the most diverse democracy in the history of societies.
Um, next year, the United States is going to be 250 years old. Uh, 250 years, to me, sounds like a very long time. Um, in the span of empires and civilizations, the Roman Empire lasts for 1800 years, the Chinese civilization and its emperors last for 1500 years, Athenian democracy lasts for 400 years. The United States is not at the end of its experiment, it's in maybe chapter 2 or 3.
Manu Meel: Depends on how long are the books are that you read. 250. And now on top of that, when you look at the history of humanity, in the context of thousands of years, It's one of violence. It's one of tribalism. It's one of meeting people that are different than you, not with words, but with the spear. So this innovation of, we are going to talk to each other, as the means of reconciling our differences is not supposed to work. If you were a betting person, and you fast forward 200 years, and you looked at and studied this thing called America, you would bet against it every time. And that is my vision. That's what drives me. I believe that success for me is that you pull off not only the most ambitious experiment in the history of humanity, but what Thomas Paine called, humanity's last best hope.
For me, it's about building the ecosystem, the infrastructure, So that, when you meet someone that you disagree with, you buck thousands of years of humanity to do something awesome. And that's, I care about you, I hear you, and I want to understand why.
Adam Davis: Thank you. Uh, yeah. Thank you for that.
Adam Davis: Maybe we can follow that. Just a little further into the specific choices you're making with BridgeUSA and by specific choices I mean for example working with students beginning with college students, and it seems like now branching out to high school students, but when we look at the polarization right now, which has become a word that we all recognize and shake our heads about There's red blue polarization, but there's also kind of polarization around attention to politics or not, and going to college or not.
Adam Davis: So I just want to ask you about why I work with college students, at least as the majority of the work right now as I understand it. Given that the divides we're seeing seem in part to map on to going to college or not going to college.
Manu Meel: That's a really, really good question. So I'll actually answer the last part of it first, which is the educational divide you're pointing out.
So, um, BridgeUSA for context, after that Berkeley thing, we created this thing called BridgeBerkeley. Um, a lot of people thought it was a civic architecture frat. Um, in fact, our first design was the Golden Gate Bridge. And, and so the first event that we held with all those protesting groups, I know we didn't talk about what, what ended, but 75 people showed up which for me at that time was a big deal and then 10 minutes in 40 of them left because they were like we came from the computer science department.
Um, so, you know, again, it's only up from here. Uh, which is why all your questions, all your challenges, I'm very curious about so please, please, please start thinking about, um, the ways in which we could learn together. So, uh, we started College chapters, which were meant to get students from different viewpoints, have conversations, but more importantly, it was actually to push for a new type of thinking, a new mindset.
It was to build spaces where people of very different ideas and backgrounds not only felt like they belonged, but actually felt like they could have disagreements productively. This work is not about compromise. This work is not about artificial harmony. This work is about managing conflict. That's a different frame, right?
It's about managing conflict. To your point about the educational divide, Well, it turns out that two things are happening now that weren't happening in 2017. One is that, uh, high school students and middle school students are exposed to the fire hose of information at a faster rate than has ever happened before.
And so as a result, they're showing up to college already primed. But point number two is that only 48 percent of Gen Z actually goes to college. And of that 48%, Only 69 percent will actually graduate with a real degree that's completed for four years. So as a result, what that means is, if you're only working on college campuses, you're only targeting a very small piece of the problem.
And then very quickly to your first part, Adam, which is, well, how do you actually have these conversations and execute them in these spaces. Um, there's just two things required and then I'll, I'll turn it back to you to see where you want to take this next, But the two very broad things that are required, it, is first is we see our work, is actually just training people to have these conversations and skills, um, that's par for the course.
There's nothing unique about that. There's amazing great groups and organizations. There's folks from Braver Angels here. There's folks from other organizations here that do that work really well, Um, it's about equipping. The skills, but this is what makes I think our work fundamentally unique and important at this time as part two, which is I see our work not as actually training a bunch of people to be able to have conversations.
It's about creating the social permission structure for people to greet conflict, not necessarily with ideological rigidity, but with the open mind. I think that most people in society want to have conversations. I think most people in society are willing to have open minded disagreements. I think most people want to be able to talk to people that are different than them, but are just quiet.
I think we're scared. And so our job at Bridge, the second part of it, is how do you build a really awesome, kick ass, exciting community of people that are fundamentally different, and actually get them excited and motivated to put social pressure on the leaders in their community to say, When the next protest happens, we're actually going to have a conversation the next day.
Because that conversation is going to help us understand how we actually reconcile and move forward.
Adam Davis: So one thing that worries me up here is that I agree with so much of what you're saying?
Manu Meel: How bridgy of you.
Adam Davis: It makes me very uneasy. Uh, and so what I'm trying to do while you're talking is think about, uh, the people that are watching Sunday Night Football.
Adam Davis: Or, uh, people who might be comfortable disagreeing about what happened on Love Island. But have no interest in talking about, uh, the civic world, the political world, or what we might think of as the public world. So, can I just ask you for a minute about that? About how much you think our shared civic life should be a focus of attention? For many of us, let's say, how much should we, is there a right amount of attention to the shared civic world that we ought to pay?
Manu Meel: It's a fascinating question because I actually think it gets to the core of. of the real challenge in our democracy, which I think is, is not necessarily even division. It's apathy.
I think that the, the real risk to my generation, uh, uh, folks that are in charge right now, um, you know, one of our, our, our most ardent and, and deepest supporters, someone that's really helped us think about this work, Andrew Yang, one of the things he talks about in our podcast is, uh, authoritarianism. Uh, or democracies don't necessarily go at a bang, they slump into authoritarianism, right?
And, and I, let me be explicit to the folks watching on, online right now, I don't mean authoritarianism from the far right or the far left standpoint. I mean it from an objective standpoint of if people abandon the civic space, there's a void, and that void always is historically filled by somebody that wants to exploit that void.
So I think you've outlined a very, very important challenge. Now I'm gonna challenge whether or not that challenge is actually significant as we think it is. I think the reason why most people disengage from our politics is because they assume that to engage in our politics, you have to be what you would ask me originally, which is be political.
I'm not political. I still am trying to figure out where I stand on different issues. That's not me being a shifting, moving target. I don't know how we've gotten to this point in society where you're 10 years old and suddenly you're the most ardent Democrat or ardent Republican in the history of humanity.
I mean, if there was one thing that y you know, you having lived life know, which I'm only discovering, is there is rarely anything where one side is 100 percent right and one side is 100 percent wrong. It is a It is a, it is a question of circumstance, it's a question of history, it's a question of time.
Adam Davis: So what do you most hope a 17 year old at Riverdale High School or a 20 year old at Portland Community College or a 21 year old at Pacific, what do you hope they build? What, like, what are they trying to build?
Manu Meel: I would actually love for, to hear that from one of them. Um, uh, but I'll say two things. Here's what our, our high school students in general are, are doing and building.
I think the first thing is that they're creating an outlet for fear. Um, the biggest emotion. Um, that I feel from students, college, high school, um, frankly, not even, forget college and high school, just in general in our society, is fear. People are walking on eggshells. They can't say what's on their mind.
And as a result, they retreat to their echo chambers, which makes them more susceptible to radicalization. Young men are going to the manosphere, right? Whatever that means, right? Um, young women are forming associations that allow them To build relationships and bonds that allow them to externalize their pain.
You know, folks of different identity groups, communities, are doing that. And so what you're doing at your high school is you're creating an environment and a space where people that fundamentally want something, which is a desire to connect, actually can do that in their daily lives. But here's the second thing.
I think over the last 15 years, the closed fist has captured America's imagination. And what I mean by that is to create change, to create progress, to build, to fight back, to create something that has a lot of resonance, to make something go viral. It's got to be outrageous. It's got to exist in conflict with something.
The open hand is nonsense kumbaya, and the closed fist is the way things get done. Bridge is actually now the counterculture. In 2017, protest was the counterculture. Now everybody protests. There's nothing special about it. I'm sorry. I think it's important. I think it's useful But the but right now if I ask two people on the street, are you willing to either join a protest?
Are you willing to have a conversation somebody you disagree with? They'll probably just say I'll do the protest not because it's an indictment on protest, please but because That's what we've rewarded. So I think what we're trying to do in this work is you as a high school student, as a college student, you are doing something that is fundamentally courageous at a time when everyone around you is here to tell you show up with a closed fist.
You're willing to try something different and here's the secret everybody wants it Everybody wants it. So give you two quick lines in 2017 if you told me on November 9th of 2024. I think that's the date today
Adam Davis: or the 10th. It's close
Manu Meel: You told me that I'd be sitting with folks in Portland, Oregon Next to someone that's done amazing work named Adam Davis talking to you about bridge building.
I would say you're upside had crazy. Um bridge USA over the last three years We've gone from 12 chapters to 90 college chapters. We've gone from a high school program that started a year and a half ago, led by my great friend Emily Green and some other great young people, to now 35 chapters across the country.
We now have a network of 11, 000 students, growing on an average of almost 1, 000 to 2,000 every two to three weeks attending our events and participating. Um, I think we're on track to being the largest and fastest growing student movement in the country, because I think that most people at this time are not looking for a break from politics.
They're looking for a new way.
Adam Davis: The closed fist is a vivid image, and it's also an image that many people uh, take seriously and, uh, probably some people fear more than others, so I think What I want to ask is a question about the relationship between bridging and understanding and the hope to build trust on one hand and legitimate fear and the threat of force, uh, and intimidation on the other.
And so, uh, like I think sometimes when I tell people what Oregon Humanities does, they think, what a sap, you know, and while you're trying to do this thing of getting 12 people to listen to each other. Uh, the threat is getting stronger.
Manu Meel: So, in 2017, that argument would have had a lot of potence, that these people actually want you to do this.
Now, these people hope you don't do this. They hope. Here's why they hope you don't do this. It's because we live at a time where I think, frankly, we're being played by people that traffic on outrage because they know that we're willing to turn against each other. The, raise your hand if you've heard of the military industrial complex.
The outrage industrial complex is a very similar line of thinking. Which is that at this time, uh, to make money, to garner influence, to go viral, to get an applause out of you, you traffic an outrage. You say the stuff that you know is going to hit the audience. And that world is easy. That world is easy for those in power.
Because, imagine I told you, Okay, you're going to run for office tomorrow in the United States, and it's not actually 330 million people, it's actually three people. There's a Republican, there's a Democrat, and there's a confused person. And so I asked you, how are you going to figure this one out? He said, well, pretend I'm a Democrat.
I'm gonna make this Republican person seem so freaking scary that either this confused person doesn't show up or they vote for me. That's it, right? That's a logical response. Um, that's why I would tell the high school students and college students in the audience by building a chapter, you are fundamentally throwing a wrench into the machine at this point.
Uh, they do not want you to know that there is a lot more in common in terms of not what we believe in, but our values. then they would have you think. And I'm using the word they very explicitly. Um, because saying the word they in my line of work is is like trespassing, because there is no such thing as they.
But I believe, and I've become maybe a little bit more skeptical on this point, but one of my mentors once said, who's now passed away, that Manu, oftentimes, to bridge an existing divide, you have to create a new divide. And I do not buy into the idealistic notion that humans can one day just achieve a world without outrage.
That's a part of the human condition. You know, our job is not to erase the human condition, it's to understand it. So given that framework, I think at this time the majority of people, the real divide in this country, is between the people that are open minded and closed minded. I think the real divide is between people that want to listen to each other and people that want to shut people out.
I think the real divide is between people that are engaged in a collective search for truth and the people that are there for their own pockets. That's the real divide. And my job is to help collectively allow those young people to understand that that's not only the new divide, but you advocating for that divide is one that will attract more people in the long run. Because those people don't want you to have that conversation.
Adam Davis: So as you've been talking about this, uh, and trying to move us to see more clearly and have more ways to, I think, build habits and practices that you detect and want to see more of.
Manu Meel: Yep.
Adam Davis: Uh, in part through a podcast called The Hopeful Majority, it put me in mind of a James Baldwin essay called In Search of a Majority, which actually just had the pleasure of talking about with with Oregon Humanities, uh, Humanity in Perspective class, which was on the theme, What is Democracy? And we read Baldwin's essay, In Search of a Majority, and when he's, and he's trying to say, I think, uh, a majority is not, it's not about numbers.
It's not about power. He says it's about influence.
But then he says something like, and I don't fully understand influence, and it's part of why I want to ask you this question. He says something like, uh, what is honored in a country. is what is cultivated there. So I hear what you're trying to cultivate, and I am deeply sympathetic to what you're trying to cultivate, and I want to ask about how you think that stands next to what You've also talked some about that is what is honored here fear outrage that sort of thing and I'm overstating and oversimplifying But how do you see these two running up against each other?
Manu Meel: Yeah, it's a it's it's again I think a really perceptive question because it gets at a key contradiction, which is What is the right framework and tool? to cultivate at this moment, given the time frame we're in, uh, I believe that the moment that the United States is in is a moment of fundamental and rapid change change in every aspect of our lives.
It's change in technology. It's change in the way we communicate. It's change in the way we consume information. And not just that we haven't even arrived. A. I. S. So massive, massive change. And I think a lot of folks at this moment think back to The time of the Civil War. And I think, you know, the United States is incredibly divided.
It's going down that path again. Um, and there was particular reasons why the United States ended in that conflict. It was because of our original sin. Right now, my diagnosis of the problem is that due to the rapid change happening in our society, Where people's fundamental identities are being questioned, where people are feeling left behind, uh, where people feel like the bottom under their feet is shifting.
And don't even think about politics, I mean, uh, think about the change from the fax machine to the phone. Like, that could produce massive anxiety. Um, because of that, I think what's needed more at this time is the container to be able to manage people's anxieties, not to excuse, not to excuse, but because I think that to be able to manage change, you need to be able to reach people where they are and to be able to tell them that it's okay to feel the pain that you're feeling, but it's okay to feel the pain that you're feeling So that you understand that I'm here for you.
And that way what happens is that person is much less susceptible to the forces out there that want to use their pain and manipulate it. And so in some ways, I see this work actually as offense. It's not defense. Um, I was very explicit in saying that the social change leaders of the 20th century understood democracy as a puzzle.
And I think at this moment, the way that we have to understand the environment that we live in, the pain that people feel, the challenges that they face. We have to realize that by being able to build an architecture where people can be able to actually see each other, share each other's vulnerabilities and say, Like, here is why I'm hurting. Can you please hear me? From the most marginalized identity groups to a farming town in Texas. And it's not for a political cliche. I mean this. The human capacity to feel pain is absolute. Um, just because somebody looks a certain way and feels a certain way doesn't mean that they don't feel pain. And in fact, telling them, not only do you not feel pain, but you shouldn't feel pain, robs people of the capacity to search for that beloved community.
And explicitly, through that answer, if you saw, I was very explicit in calling in Martin Luther King at the end. I used some language that folks that you might think on the right are using. to excuse people's behaviors and transgressions, and concluded with the fact that we just should not be being played at this moment.
All that to say that I think there's a bigger battle to be fought here, and that's a battle of giving people a sense of belonging at a time of rapid, fundamental change.
Adam Davis: You're listening to The Detour with Manu Meel.
You know, we haven't even stumbled across the word trust yet tonight, and I hear it beneath. Both the hope for it and the absence of it. And I want to ask you, how much is trust in your head? And what do you understand it to be as you do this work?
Manu Meel: Uh, I've actually been experimenting with this term, so I still don't know if it's the right phrase.
Um, so I'm curious what folks might think. Um, The other way to think about that question is often people ask us, How do you have a conversation with somebody that disagrees with you when they operate on a different set of facts? Right? How do you have that conversation? Because how can you have trust without facts?
Um, I've been thinking about this since the election. And I've been thinking about how many personal arguments have I won with my sister through facts? And I'm like, I think it's actually only made her more angry at me. You know, vice versa. I think she'd probably say the same thing. She's like, this guy is impervious to facts.
You know, look at how much air time it takes up speaking. Um, so, we've often viewed the term misinformation in the context of facts. You can't have a conversation without facts. Which is true. I'm not demeaning that. But I think there's a new type of misinformation in our country. And it's a misinformation of intention.
Manu Meel: We are misinformed about each other's intentions. We, in fact, ascribe the worst intention to the people we disagree with, and then make sure that everybody In that camp operates with that intention. So as a result when we show up in a conversation With somebody that might disagree with us on a different issue.
Manu Meel: We've ascribed to them a misinformed intention Now you might find through that conversation that actually what you described to them as their intention was right all along But that's the point of a conversation, right? So I think we live in a time of An environment where we've been misinformed about the way in which we think people approach the world.
Manu Meel: And when the worst caricatures of the other side define how you think about every bunny. In that camp that gives those people the right to do the same thing to you.
Adam Davis: Thanks last question I'm going to ask before encouraging questions is actually it's it's a little meta and it's just uh, You've been doing this work for it sounds like about Seven years.
Manu Meel: Yeah, seven and a half. Is that like Mars coming? It's coming, yeah.
Adam Davis: Uh, it's a fan.
Manu Meel: Oh, I thought we were going meta.
Adam Davis: Yeah, that meta.
Seven years of doing this work, uh, you speak about it on your feet, uh, incredibly clearly. Are you carrying a question around that keeps coming up for you? about your work or your relationship to it?
Manu Meel: Yeah, actually, actually pretty frequently. And that is, um, whether or not I'm personally built for it. Um, you know, I, most people, if you asked most people that know me, they'll, they'll be able to tell you what I should do with my life better than I could tell you.
Yeah, I just don't know if I'm built for it. You know, I'm ready to retire to the Amazon, man. I, I hope, uh, maybe, maybe I am wrong about the way we, we think about things. Um, but the reason why I keep doing this work is because I would say the first is that I've made my best friends doing this work. Um, my co founder and best friend, Ross Irwin, him and I have lived together now for six and a half years.
Um, doing, building this organization. I've met some amazing young people through this work, met some amazing leaders. Uh, it actually goes back to our football example again. I, I love this work because I became attached to it through my identity. Um, and then the second reason I think I've stuck to it. is because I've noticed the appetite and the hypotheses that we had in 2017, being proven more and more accurate, um, by the year. And I think that most people are just ready for a civic culture that enables them to be able to listen and hear each other. And I think, uh, that I personally feel really called to that work. Um, and so it's hard to walk away from it. It feels a little selfish to say, I don't know if I'm built for it.
I, I oftentimes struggle with, you know, issues as it relates to talking about it. Uh, on the other hand, it feels selfish.
Adam Davis: We have a microphone over here that, uh, is soon going to be lit up and I would invite you to come up here with. questions while we're in the rotation from this to questions. Could you just join me in saying a big thank you to Manu for the work on that?
Manu Meel: Thank you guys.
Adam Davis: And maybe I should give, maybe I should do this. Maybe I should give special encouragement to people who consider themselves to be young. That's everybody, huh? It may be everybody, but like, let's make space for, I know the microphone and the spotlight can be hard a little bit, but we'd love to hear questions.
Manu Meel: And could you please say your name and where you're from?
Kai Markle: Uh, my name is Kai Markle. I'm a sophomore at Pacific University.
Manu Meel: Nice to meet you, Kai.
Kai Markle: Nice to meet you as well. Um, I had a question about something you said earlier, which is that, uh, a lot of people, you're using the example of those watching Sunday night football.
Kai Markle: Uh, just want the best for their communities and don't consider themselves political. I hear similar rhetoric from people who are very clearly political, but use that in a way to not listen to other ideas. So, like, a great example of that would be, like, the abortion issue, right? Like, Those on the pro choice side would say, like, I'm not being political, I'm for the rights of women.
Kai Markle: And those on the pro life side would say, like, I'm not political, I'm for the rights of the unborn. So how would you, like, get around that and get people to talk?
Manu Meel: Yeah, that, that you might have a very political view, but you obviate the argument and you obviate the conversation. Is that your question?
Kai Markle: Yeah, you put yourself in the position of, like, you're taking the political view out of it.
Kai Markle: Yes, even though it very much is and you're just saying like well I'm just fighting for like the rights of women or the rights of the unborn. I'm not political. Yeah.
Manu Meel: Yeah
Kai Markle: Yeah,
Manu Meel: or or you deflect it to your like favorite influence and you're like, that's what they said, Not what I said, but I believe in that.
Um, I think there's two two things here. And again, I'm gonna be try to be very quick so we can get through as many as possible. Step number one is that oftentimes when people say that they're not being political, but they're making a very political statement, I think it's oftentimes because they're operating from a, from a, uh, a feeling of defensiveness.
I think they want you to know what they believe, but they also don't want to be challenged because they're scared of being challenged. Um, almost all of us right now are scared of being challenged. Uh, and I think part two is that when we create these spaces for conversation, I mean, Thanksgiving's coming up. Um, you know, get ready for that. Uh You know, when it comes to those types of conversations, and you're creating the norm and someone says, uh, I'm not being political, but here's what I believe, I would take a moment and just tell that person, in that exact moment, for the purposes of this conversation, I will not judge you for this belief. I will not judge you for this, for these ten minutes. And, and you might ask, well how dare you say that? I'm here to tell you that those ten minutes are not going to change the trajectory of that issue. Now you might say, but if we have multiple of those ten minutes over time, it will. And I would argue that, I think that in fact, when you approach that judgment, that person only hardens.
And so, again, it depends on the goal of success, and my goal is to help people understand each other. That's it.
Victoria Patnode: Hi, I'm Victoria Patnode, a senior at Pacific University. Um, and earlier you talked about the rejection of civil discourse. Um, I perceive the rejection of civil discourse to be rooted in moral disagreement. For example, Kai, my peer earlier, brought up, like, women losing autonomy of their reproductive health care. Um, there is a self claimed far right political influencer, Nick Fuentes, who has recently gone viral and is gaining significant traction for his statement. Your body, my choice. I believe political polariz polarization stems from deep seated beliefs, cultural values, immediate influence that amplifies division.
How can we create a space for dialogue that bridges these significant moral divides?
Manu Meel: Um, Because I want to keep going, I'll just posit this is a rhetorical question, but afterwards we can talk about this. The question that immediately comes to my mind is, why do we think Nick Fuentes is gaining traction with that statement right now?
And, uh, uh, this is something that I've started to do with a lot of the work in this space, is I've started asking questions in reverse, because I think that it's important for us to actually interrogate some of our core assumptions. Um, my argument, my hypothesis, is that people like him are gaining traction, and there's folks like this, by the way, That, um, you might not signal in a certain way, but also exist on the other side. That folks, uh, perceive as fundamentally antithetical to their identity. And the reason why I think that they prosper is because I think that we've let, uh, outrage completely hijack our brains. Um, we don't reward nuanced content.
Alden: Hi, I'm Alden. I'm from Bend, Oregon. Um, and, earlier in the, or at the beginning of the presentation, I figured out we are similar in age. I graduated in 2017. You graduated in 2016. And we both grew up during the boom of social media.
Manu Meel: This high school?
Alden: Yeah. Yeah, sorry. Um, and, I'm curious to know if you ever witnessed that alt right pipeline that I witnessed, uh, personally in Central Oregon. And, um, it particularly targeted younger men. Um, and do you believe that social movement has grown in size, or rather, shrunk in size? And is there a way to shed light on that for future generations? Or, you know, my friend's little brother, he's currently in high school, experiencing that.
Manu Meel: I'll actually, uh, answer this question in what you might feel like is a little bit of a challenging way. And frankly, it's a harder way for me to answer this question. Because I think the easier answer is just interrogate the alt right pipeline. But I frankly think that there's just a pipeline to extremism across the spectrum for young people right now. Young people, I think, generally are just seeking purpose and moral clarity. I think especially when the Surgeon General declared last year that loneliness is the epidemic in the United States.
Not obesity, not heart disease, loneliness. Um, as a result, my job is to build an institution along with some great people that offers people another way to fulfill their moral purpose. And my argument is actually that The fuel of moral purpose is much more sustainable when that purpose's aim is not to push people down But it's to create an environment where people feel like they can share each other's vulnerabilities because I think that that is more powerful So I think that there's not just a pipeline to alt right.
I think there's a pipeline to extremism period.
Leah: Hi, I'm Leah. Nice to meet you I'm a senior at Lewis and Clark College. My first question is you have mentioned political a lot I'd say this whole dialogue, and I was just curious if you could define that.
Manu Meel: I would define political right now as being so locked in a specific ideology that I put fundamental north star of that ideology above my desire for a collective search of truth.
That to me is political.
Leah: So, would political be synonymous with closed mindedness in your perspective?
Manu Meel: In this day and age, from my viewpoint, yes.
Leah: Okay, interesting. Thank you. It's a fascinating rhetorical deconstruction of that term. Um, my second question would be, you mentioned, I just keep looking at that light, I'm just gonna look at the stage.
Manu Meel: Um, I know it's a little crazy up here. It's blinding.
Leah: Um, you mentioned how there is an issue with, um, misinformation regarding incentives. Regarding incidents? Um, Intentions. Intentions, yes. I meant intentions, apologies. And I was curious, of tactics and strategies you would recommend in order to navigate this, especially in the context of algorithms and rage being on social media.
Manu Meel: Yes. If you take the theory that every incentive structure right now in different spaces of politics, social media, even entrepreneurial ism, the incentive structures aligned towards being outrageous. I think that what needs to happen is we need to be able to deconstruct those incentive structures. So as it relates to algorithms, one of the things that we're actively working on thinking about is how can you build an algorithmic infrastructure where people gain following and gain social credibility by being able to articulate how nuanced they are actually publicly.
So here's, here's a very simple thing that we floated out. Um, Mark Zuckerberg invented this thing called the blue checkmark. On social media, which is one of the most powerful inventions because what he realized was that we as humans love attaching credibility to social badges. Alright, so anybody that's got a blue checkmark is amazing.
And one of the ideas we've thrown around is what if you created the green checkmark? And that green checkmark was only allotted to people that engaged in the platform in a certain way. And importantly, it's not certain in terms of information. It's in terms of how they're actually making their arguments.
Are they citing articles? Um, that's one of the ideas we've thrown about. And then finally I would say that as it relates to your local environment, your local space, I think that you gotta, you know, um, think about ways in which you can find those communities of ideologically diverse people and build chapters and relationships with them.
And I hope that we can work with you.
Leah: How do you think that this would translate into this, like, just restructuring democracy as we know it today?
Manu Meel: Oh, it will translate because It'll translate. Um, and the reason for that is because, uh, democracy, I think, ultimately, at this time, is a political system that bets on the notion that we as people are able to navigate and manage our disagreements through the ballot box, through our words, through our conversations, through our ability to see each other.
And I think that if you strip away the complexity of the moment, I think most people believe that. So I'm betting on the human condition.
Leah: Thank you.
Theodore: So my name is Theodore, and I'm up here from Oregon State. My campus in particular has kind of For back of a lack of a better word, fallen victim to these rage-baiter types. Um, even last year we've had people from turning point USA. Sure, sure. Um, and even on the, the left side of the spectrum, uh, you know, a month long, uh, occupation by pro-Palestine protestors, and that's kind of left the most of the, like our student body kind of traumatized.
Manu Meel: Yep.
Theodore: And even more apathetic and more disgusted by politics. How do you still reach people who have gone through that?
Manu Meel: Yeah, yeah, I think you reach them, uh, through fundamentally apolitical means. I think it means socials. I think it means, uh, watch parties. I think it means, uh, integrating bridging into football games. I think it means, um, doing events like we've talked about at the BridgeUSA Summit.
You know, things like political speed dating. Um, you know, uh, integrating The pursuit of truth, conversation, dialogue, into things that make people feel like they're not going out of their way to engage. Um, dorm room engagement parties, you know, as it relates to, let's have a conversation in our dorm room, you know, a lot of our chapters, uh, and I don't know if yours is one of them, did a whole host of, believe it or not, ideologically diverse election night watch parties.
I mean, talk about the courage of these kids. Like, talk about the courage of these kids. They are in one of the most polarized times in American society where everybody tells us this is absolutely impossible. They created watch parties so that they can sit down with their friends knowing that one of them is going to be f ed the other one by the end of the night. We should reward that. Don't put them down. They're listening to you when they read the paper and they see or when they hear their influence or they're on CNN and they hear somebody say You're betraying your cause that's a betrayal of democracy and that's a betrayal of our future Don't do that lift them up and you'll get them going
Sy: Um, I'm Sy. I'm a junior at Riverdale High School, and I'm wondering kind of, ,my high school the political demographic makeup is really similar to that of the city of Portland. Um, oh, sorry closer. Sorry It's really dominant in one direction, and I'm wondering how do we productively have those conversations without making it feel like that Um, majority ideological group is kind of ganging up on a smaller minority there.
Manu Meel: Yeah. So there's two parts to that. One is, if you're in a group of friends that are all on one side of the political spectrum, I guarantee there's a lot of disagreements on that one side of the political spectrum. Um, bridging doesn't have to just be left right. Uh, there's a lot of disagreements on the left.
Let's have those conversations. In fact, the Democratic Party is having them right now. So I think you can, you can, you can find a lot of that right now. Um, the second element, and this hypothesis was proven true, and I use the word proven very intentionally, this election cycle. I said in 2020, there's a lot more conservatives that are young people than you think.
Why? Because humanity is filled with diversity, and if we're truly a free society, people are going to be grown up in different circumstances, different environments, and they're going to come up with different beliefs. So, I would actually challenge, I think there's a lot more conservatives in your high school.
Sy: There, there are some.
Manu Meel: No, no, no. I think that those are the loud ones. That, that'll say like, or they'll tell you. But like, I think there's actually a lot of quiet people.
Sy: Can I follow up really fast? I'm sorry, I know we're short on time. Is there a way to create an environment in which those quiet people kind of feel more comfortable to speak out for what they're feeling, you know, and feel like they have more support from the other side of the political spectrum?
Manu Meel: You can do that, because of the very fact that you asked that question. Because it means that you actually care, right? All people are looking for at this moment is not some charlatan that's going to bait them into a conversation where they get attacked. They're just looking for a space where they can share their ideas, and then here's the thing.
You haven't asked this question, but here's what somebody that's criticizing this argument would say. It's that, well, you're creating space for them to say what's on their minds that legitimizes their argument. Well, let's look at the last ten years. How has that argument worked out? Cause they feel very legitimate right now.
Adam Davis: Manu Meel is the CEO of BridgeUSA and host of the Hopeful Majority Podcast. He lives in San Francisco. You can find links to Manu's work in our show notes at oregonhumanities.org. The Detour is produced by the irrepressible Keiren Bond. Kyle Gilmer is our editor. Ben Waterhouse, Karina Briski, and Alexandra Silvester are assistant producers.
Adam Davis: This is Adam Davis. See you next time.