Some academics, clergy and activists have stressed to KPBS in the last year that America’s democratic salvation lies in its citizens: their ability to talk to one another across party lines, unite to solve local problems and demand better government.
KPBS’s Amita Sharma spoke to three San Diego voters — Democrat Juiliana Collins, Republican Victor Lopez and Independent Meri Jo Petrivelli — about what those conversations and actions might look like. The conversation below has been edited for length and clarity.
Each one of you are friends with people and/or are related to people who hold different political views than you. How have those relationships fared over the last several years amid our fractured politics?
Collins: Before this current era, it was easier to find common ground with people and navigate around those challenges. But now we're seeing such extremes on all sides that finding that common ground is much more difficult. And there are certain people who I just cannot relate to anymore, and I have had to cut ties with them.
Lopez: Nothing changed for me in terms of how I treated people and how I viewed them. Who you voted for does not affect who I think you are as a person. But the other side was not the same, in terms of the energy directed towards me. People quickly chose sides. My close circle was always with me. The people I cared about, who were relevant to me, were always there and knew who I was and knew where my values were. Who you vote for is just never a blanket statement about who you are. You have beliefs that range across the spectrum. It's never just one issue, really.
Petrivelli: The pool of people who think or believe differently than me was not that large, and it has gotten a little bit smaller. If you are a member of a vulnerable community or a targeted community, it is hard for me to see how you would be able to make nice with somebody who wants you to be erased or disappeared. I'm not a member of any of those communities, but I have family who are in those communities. It is difficult for me to be supportive of my family members or the people in my life while also being supportive of people who have very clearly and very obviously taken positions that are harmful to them. And so I've had to really be careful. There's one particular person who I've been friends with for many years, and we steer away from those topics. We can talk about sports. We can talk about books, movies, and binging shows.
What language, what tone have you found to be the most effective in navigating thorny political conversations with close ones?
Collins: I have some family members that when I came out were just uneducated about the LGBTQ community. They based a lot of their perceptions of that community on assumptions. And so as we educated them and answered questions and showed them resources that could allow them to make informed decisions about their behavior, then we started to bridge the gap between us so that they could understand my position, and they could understand the people in my community. But at the same time, it was not just logic, it was emotional. So they were able to find values within the LGBTQ community, even as straight cis people, that held true for them too.
Lopez: At the end of the day, I never blame anybody for how they feel because that's their world, and that's how they see it. The first thing I do is listen, and then the second is I address how they feel and why they feel that way. But then I also have to figure out, are they just looking for a fight? And when they're looking for a fight, that's when there's really not much I can do. There's no opinion that I'm going to change. A lot of times, it can be very emotional. I'm always open for conversation. But once I feel that someone's actually not there to have the conversation, I've learned over the years that those talks tend to not be very productive.
Petrivelli: There are times when I'll engage just because. If someone is really questioning a particular opinion that I might have or something that maybe happened, their news sources, if we are looking to exchange what we each know to be true or we each believe to be true, those conversations are the ones that leave us both feeling like we got somewhere.
UCSD academic John Porten, who specializes in conflict resolution, believes that there is a political-industrial complex intent on dividing Americans. He says the antidote to that is for people from across the political divide to come together and work to resolve issues at the local level that are not zero-sum. Issues like homelessness, hunger, dirty beaches. I know that some of this work is already happening. But do you see potential in today's environment for even deeper work to happen around these issues?
Collins: Absolutely. Everything that I have read and listened to recently is about change starting at the individual level and the local level. And that by building communities, building a relationship with a group of people that are not just like-minded, but have common goals, can allow for the larger systemic change. It feels like it can't because it feels like we are just drops in a pool of a bigger pool of an ocean. But it's easier to focus on things like dirty beaches, things like homelessness, things that are immediately around you because that's what you see. Whereas the larger federal government feels like this amorphous thing that you can't quite get your head around. The more you think about it, the more you feel isolated and alone, and that your choices and actions are hopeless. But they aren’t because we're all a part of each other's lives, and we're all a part of each other's decision-making.
Lopez: My youth and optimism have always driven me in my career, essentially, to believe that we can get there and can work together more than we would assume. It is important to address differences. It's impossible to think that humans will always agree on everything. People are different and everybody is an individual and unique. When people understand that they actually have way more in common than they think, that's when we actually start to see the ball move. And a lot of it is about having conversations. We need to have these conversations. And I give credit to the younger generations, and thanks to technology, and now with the growth of AI, people are calling BS on these status quo mindsets that have been happening for generations.
Petrivelli: I think the idea that it has to start individually is right, and I don't see how else it could be. I'm on the board of a small food pantry locally. We serve families that are going hungry. The why doesn't matter. These people need to eat. They are hungry. So what do we do? We come together, we solicit donations, we solicit financial donations, we find volunteers who can go to the food bank more frequently. All the things that you have to do to ensure that 500 families in the La Mesa-Spring Valley School District are less hungry than they would otherwise be. That's where this thing comes into play. Nobody wants children to go hungry. It doesn't matter who you are or who the children are. Nobody wants the beach to be dirty. So, yeah, I think, the only way that this can happen is at a local level.
I spoke with Justine Sullivan, who is the lead minister at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of San Diego. She said, to effectively come together and resolve local problems, we have to stop issuing purity tests to one another. But at the same time, we have to be able to talk in a safe environment. What does that mean to you? And is there anyone you won't talk to?
Collins: I look at everybody as a potential friend. That's my own little personal philosophy. Anybody I happen to meet, whether it's a clerk, whether I'm passing them on the street. There's the line for me though, which is, "Do you willfully want harm for someone else?" Whether it's targeted at me, whether it's targeted at somebody else. You want physical, mental, sexual, whatever harm. That's a line that I can't cross.
Petrivelli: On the purity test, I agree with. I think for every individual, that purity test is going to be different. I try really hard not to impose what I think is true for me on somebody else. Having said that, there are lines that I am not willing to cross. If someone is openly bigoted or racist, thanks, but no, thanks. If someone is openly advocating cruelty to people, unnecessarily, deporting people that aren't posing a risk, anybody that's risking clean air and clean water, I don't know if I want to engage with them because that is harmful behavior.
Lopez: I'm open to everybody and anybody. The only way that you really would get me to disengage is from anyone who hates this country, anyone who wants to see harm to people, criminals, people who are sex trafficking and committing horrible crimes and stuff like that. But aside from that, I've worked with people on the hard left. I've worked with people on the hard right. I've worked with guys in President Trump’s administration. I've worked with guys who were in the Biden administration, Obama administration. I'm still following them on Instagram. And so I'll never isolate myself from any of those other conversations because at the end of the day, people are making a decision based on what they know and what they think is the right way.
I spoke to a political activist a few days ago who said it's nice for people at the local level, the ground level, to try to bridge the divide. But the real threat to American democracy is coming from a broken political system in Washington, and that this work that we've been discussing is really just a blip on the screen. Do you agree?
Collins: I agree that the work we're discussing is a blip on the screen. However, that is the basis for anything, because what is any of our government, these groups, made up of? Individuals. And those individuals make their own informed choices, and they affect the community. And so we can affect them as well. I think it's easy to be disheartened because you don't see immediate change or effects from your own individual actions. But it's all moving towards, hopefully, an ultimate overall sense of justice, an overall sense of what is right, an overall sense of equality. Recycling more, taking shorter showers. It really doesn't make all that big of a difference if you have a large corporation that's dumping toxic waste into a river. But you have to live the change you want to see in the world.
Lopez: Yes, it is a blip on the screen, but these things start to stack up and they add up. Small blips on the screen are the only way you start to get movement. I agree that it is small, but there is actual significance there. Local politics has always been huge for me because that was the fastest and quickest way we'd see immediate change.
Petrivelli: I think that it is just a blip on the screen. But man, those 500 families who have more food than they would have or that beach that has less trash on it or the river that is less polluted, whatever that issue is — yes, that is local and small and a blip, but it matters to that community.
