In a Johns Hopkins University poll from last fall, nearly half of the U.S. electorate indicated they felt members of the opposing party aren't just wrong for politics - they're "downright evil."
In South Dakota and across the country, groups are working to help tone down the nation's heated political rhetoric. And experts are debating whether the divisive landscape will see a correction.
In a forum hosted by the R Street Institute, panelists noted this isn't the only time in U.S. history when populism and an anti-establishment mood were major forces in politics.
Emily Chamlee-Wright, president and CEO of the Institute for Humane Studies, said as bad as things might feel right now, it doesn't mean America is in grave danger of falling apart.
"We have this resilience baked in," said Chamlee-Wright, "but that doesn't mean that we can sit back and just wait for it, either."
Chamlee-Wright said as people lose faith in U.S. institutions, skeptics should take a step back and see their value.
And if enough people can feel a shared sense of those benefits, it should become easier to practice civil discourse in everyday life.
In the state's largest city, a new organization - Stronger Sioux Falls - just launched. Officials say they want to create spaces for meaningful dialogue about important issues facing the city.
Chamlee-Wright said her organization adheres to a set of guiding principles it feels keep society glued together. They include toleration, under the freedom of speech umbrella.
"If we do that well, the outcome is that our conversations are better," said Chamlee-Wright. "But that's not just fluffy stuff - it means that we're much better equipped to see the humanity of every other person."
She said by sticking to these practices in informal settings, America's formal structures will be in much better shape in the long run.
She added that should allow voters and policymakers to take on complex challenges, and solve them in ways that go beyond the bare minimum effort.
Charting a New Path for Healthy Political Discourse in SD was originally published by the Public News Service and is republished with permission.
Mike Moen is a radio news reporter with nearly two decades of experience in the field.
Mary Beth Bruggeman served as CEO of The Mission Continues from 2019 to 2024
Mary Beth Bruggeman says her first lessons in service didn’t come from the United States, but thousands of miles away. Born to Peace Corps parents and raised on an American compound in Saudi Arabia, her earliest years were spent immersed in a whirlwind of cultures, customs, and languages.
Despite bouncing around the globe at a young age, she says she always felt like an American.
“I loved being overseas,” she recalls. “It showed me how differently people live and was a great reminder of how special and unique the United States is.”
When she was 10, her family returned to North America and settled in the United States, and those formative memories came to the forefront during the Gulf War. Even then, she felt a conviction within her that she should give back to the country she now called home.
A trip to an Army-Air Force football game sealed the deal. Watching the midshipmen stream onto the field in crisp formation, Bruggeman sensed the same tight-knit camaraderie she had gravitated toward throughout her young life. “I said ‘I want to be a part of that,’ and I knew from an early age that I wanted to go into service,” she says.
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By the summer of 1995, she was enrolled in the U.S. Naval Academy and found herself following a path few women had traveled before her: joining the Marine Corps as a combat engineer.
Graduating in 1999, Bruggeman entered peacetime service where training and preparation for action consumed her days. Everything changed overnight on 9/11. “We packed our seabags that day, not knowing when we would deploy,” she remembers. Eighteen months later, she was part of the first wave of U.S. Marines into Iraq.
In 2007, after serving for eight years, she decided to exit military service, and it left her with more than an open schedule; she felt lost.
“The minute the uniform came off, my sense of purpose vanished,” she admits. On paper, her shift to civilian life looks smooth and even idyllic: starting a family with her husband, whom she met in the Marine Corps, working a normal job, and even graduating from Georgetown – but something was still missing.
Bruggeman volunteered, which helped to fill part of that void, but it wasn’t until 2015 that she found her true calling with The Mission Continues, a nonprofit that deploys veterans to facilitate vital service projects in struggling neighborhoods.
“It was like finding the organization and the team I didn’t even know I was looking for,” Bruggeman says. She was introduced to veterans who shared her drive to serve even after their tours had ended. Setting to work distributing food, building parks, and navigating the uncertainties of the COVID pandemic, she bonded with others who had the same grit and determination in civilian life as they had in combat zones.
Bruggeman found opportunities to grow through the organization, from regional executive director to vice president of programs eventually five years as CEO. During her time with TMC, she championed women veterans, helped other veterans find their purpose by helping neighbors, and emphasized the importance of community-first initiatives. Most importantly, she was part of a movement that valued real human connection over political polarization.
“Service projects became this pressure cooker where differences didn’t disappear. We just learned to work through them,” she explained. “You leave thinking, ‘That guy probably votes nothing like me, but we just built a playground together.’”
Her experience helped to cement something she long assumed: Veterans have a special power to heal a fractured America. They’re willing to do hard things and answer tough questions for people who are ideologically worlds apart.
“We’ve already shared a fighting hole with someone from a totally different world,” she jokes. “We know it works.”
That perspective led Bruggeman to found Angels 10 Advisors in 2024, a group that guides and supports philanthropists who desire to heal civic divides rather than widen them.
It’s quiet, long-game work. “We aren’t going to see the results of that in a week,” she admits. “We probably won’t see them in two years. But if we’re not doing it, we’re just going to keep getting further and further apart, and that’s scary.”
She has little patience for the “one-way bridge” mentality that is so pervasive in the country right now. “People say, ‘I’m going to build a bridge and then give you an opportunity to come to my side, because this is the correct side,’” she explains. “It’s never going to work that way. Those bridges are collapsing all over the country right now. They’re burning.”
Instead, she urges support and funding for local projects that bring strangers into the same metaphorical foxhole. Ways that people can get involved in their own communities include renovating a school library, organizing efforts to rebuild after a natural disaster, or repurposing an unused lot into green space where people can gather.
Bruggeman has spent time in neighborhoods that are very different from her own, working to understand local challenges and responding by helping to revitalize pockets of some of our country's most under-resourced communities. She is constantly amazed by how well people from all walks of life work together when faced with a challenge they can all agree on. As an example from her own life, Bruggerman volunteers as a poll worker. She first served in 2020, motivated by a desire to help others feel safe coming to the polls during a turbulent and uncertain time. Since then, she has volunteered in nearly every election – local, state, and national – helping to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to cast their vote without fear or intimidation.
“Poll workers are encouraged to work across party lines – in fact, it’s required that registered Republicans and Democrats are equally represented. I first heard about poll work through the veteran community, and I think it helps voters to have veterans there – people trust us,” said Bruggeman. “I welcome the opportunity to help others participate in the democratic process. It feels like a natural extension of my service. But anyone can do this – military or not – regardless of your political affiliation.”
That commitment to action over rhetoric is a throughline in Bruggeman’s life, serving on the battlefields of Iraq with her fellow Marines and the streets of Baltimore and St. Louis with crews of volunteers, and now her newest mission of ensuring philanthropists are able to make the biggest impact possible, connecting people rather than pushing them apart.
Time and again, she has watched the hardest jobs bind people together faster than any panel discussion could. She might not wear a uniform anymore, but her mission continues. “That’s what veterans do,” Bruggeman says. “They look for the hardest thing you can throw at them, and they get the job done.”
Jake Harriman is theCEO and Co-Founder of MPU.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War. Memorial Day also marks the culmination of a year-long national commemoration to thank and honor Vietnam veterans and their families for the sacrifices they made on behalf of our nation.
Here is a tribute video produced by the Oklahoma-based law firm of McAfee & Taft.
- YouTubewww.youtube.com
People standing along each other, arm in arm.
Door after door, the response was the same: “Why would I vote? It’s not going to change anything.” Even in Grand Rapids, one of the key swing counties of the 2024 election, people felt despondent—powerless. But three months later, those neighbors had organized with hundreds of others in the city to win $20 million for their community—and that sense of powerlessness was changing.
We’ve swallowed a myth that the only change worth pursuing is national, forgetting it was historically robust networks of local clubs, organizations, and associations that made national change possible in the first place. This is what good organizing can do, and we need more of it.
The community members in Grand Rapids didn’t do it with a 30-second sales pitch to garner votes for election day. Instead, they simply asked: “What are the pressures facing your family?”
Everyone had a story—deaths due to a lack of traffic safety, a public water main failure that flooded dozens of homes, and rising housing prices. At the heart of each was a feeling that wealthy interests kept pouring the city’s resources into beautifying the downtown while ignoring the needs of everyday people.
Canvassers were trained not to offer solutions but to issue a challenge: “What do you want to do about that?” Neighbors who expressed an interest in taking action were invited to begin organizing with others who had similar concerns.
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The organization behind this was Together West Michigan (TWM), a coalition of faith communities, schools, and neighborhood groups and an affiliate of the Industrial Areas Foundation (the oldest and largest community organizing network in the U.S.). Their goal was to put the needs of everyday people at the center of the coming elections.
In this process, leaders discovered plans for a major development in the heart of downtown: a request for $565 million in taxpayer subsidies to build luxury condominiums, a hotel, and an office building. For residents, it was more of the same—gilding the lily while people fighting to keep their homes and streets safe were patted on the head and told it would all trickle down. One leader called the proposal “a slap in the face.”
Jumping into action, veteran TWM leaders worked with neighbors to meet with City Commissioners who would be voting on the deal. Residents made clear that, while they did not oppose development, they did oppose a deal that took half a billion dollars in taxpayer money in exchange for minuscule investments in affordable housing and a token promise to “improve the downtown”.
When the developers refused to budge, Together West Michigan turned up the heat. 140 of its leaders held a press conference in front of City Hall, calling for a “public benefit that matches the public’s investment,” before packing the Commission Chambers to deliver testimony.
A month later, after tough negotiations, their work paid off. In front of another packed audience, the City Commission approved an amended proposal that required developers to invest an additional $20 million in local women and minority-owned businesses in exchange for the public subsidy.
But that wasn’t the only victory. In an election year where voter turnout dropped drastically across Michigan, in the precincts where TWM organized, turnout decline was drastically slowed. People voted when they saw the impact on their own lives.
At a time when it feels harder than ever to rein in the abuses of those in power, stories like this give us a clear message of hope and a model for future action. They remind us that when communities organize strategically, people really can—and often do—win.
To be sure, the evidence of Grand Rapids is anecdotal. But it’s not unique. The civil rights movement, women’s suffrage, the 40-hour work week, the abolition of child labor, and other pivotal victories in American history drew on the same type of hyper-local organizing work grounded in kitchen-table issues.
Today, in living rooms, church basements, union halls, and schools across the country, thousands of Americans carry on this legacy. They meet to identify shared concerns, organize, and take action. Their work has led to billions of dollars in public investment and corporate accountability that has transformed communities.
It’s time we brush aside the failed conviction that our problems will be solved by electing better leaders and instead recommit to investing in citizens. It’s time to return to the foundation of local organizing that networks like the IAF have pioneered and get back to the day-to-day work of developing citizens well versed in the habits of a democratic culture.
Cameron Conner is a professional community organiser currently serving as a Professor of the Practice at the Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts University.
