What do a sausage maker and an insurance giant have in common? A growing concern about the divisions fracturing American society — and a willingness to do something about it.
At Johnsonville, recent research with The Harris Poll found that 82% of Americans agree there’s too much outrage in the country and wish we could “turn down the temperature.” The company’s “Keep It Juicy” campaign, voiced by actor Vince Vaughn, encourages Americans to reclaim everyday joy and civility. Meanwhile, Allstate, one of the nation’s largest insurers, has launched a three-year initiative with the Aspen Institute to strengthen trust in communities. Their message is clear: “Strong communities, businesses, and relationships are built on trust.”
These efforts reflect a broader trend: companies are no longer sitting on the sidelines while the social fabric unravels. From brand campaigns to cross-sector partnerships, more business leaders are investing in solutions — in their workplaces as well as communities — to rebuild trust, civility, and social cohesion.
And there’s good reason to act. In a 2024 study, SHRM found that U.S. employers collectively lose more than $2 billion each day due to lost productivity and absenteeism caused by toxic workplace behavior. These numbers reflect a larger national crisis: Americans are exhausted by division, and it’s showing up at the office, in customer interactions, and on company balance sheets.
While individual company initiatives are an important start, broader public solutions are also needed. One business-friendly response is the federal Building Civic Bridges Act (BCBA), which would support local initiatives that help Americans connect across differences and heal our social and political divides.
This bipartisan bill, recently reintroduced in the 119th Congress, has been endorsed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Business Roundtable, Indiana Chamber of Commerce, and U.S. Hispanic Business Council. Business for America has rallied support from well-known brands like Cummins, ECOS, REI Co-op, Salesforce, and Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. The legislation would fund research-backed, community-based programs that strengthen civic connections and teach skills like active listening, respectful dialogue, and conflict resolution.
When it comes to ROI for business, the BCBA would generate a ripple effect far beyond civic nonprofits. It could help address three growing challenges:
First, frontline workers are increasingly subjected to the emotional fallout of polarization. According to the Harvard Business Review in 2022, 78% of frontline employees and managers say abusive behavior from customers has increased in recent years. SHRM reports that U.S. workers collectively experience 171 million acts of incivility every day — leading to burnout, low morale, and turnover. Reducing societal hostility helps protect employees and customer-facing operations alike.
Second, workplace culture itself is at risk. The political climate has seeped into our breakrooms and Slack channels. A 2024 SHRM survey found that 71% of U.S. workers report having polarizing, political, or controversial conversations at work and 87% of employers are concerned about managing divisive political beliefs. Left unaddressed, these rifts lead to toxicity, disengagement, and lost talent.
Third, division is not just bad for workplace dynamics — it’s a barrier to policy progress and economic growth. In a 2024 Gartner report, U.S. business leaders ranked political polarization as the second-highest emerging risk after generative AI. When Congress is gridlocked, the issues that matter to business — from workforce development to supply chains to climate resilience — stagnate. Bridging divides is not just a cultural issue; it’s a competitiveness issue.
Fortunately, Americans are ready for change. Nearly 80% say that, given the opportunity, they would help reduce divisions in the country. What they need are the tools and spaces to do so. The Building Civic Bridges Act would provide just that.
Whether through ad campaigns, community partnerships, or public policy, business leaders have a role to play in restoring civility and trust. As Johnsonville suggests, it’s time to turn down the temperature. As Allstate reminds us, where there’s optimism, there’s opportunity. And as Congress considers the BCBA, we urge more business leaders to raise their voice in support. Because the future of business — and American prosperity — depends on it.
Sarah Bonk is a civic entrepreneur and the founder/CEO of Business for America. She spent over 20 years leading strategy, design, and organizational change at Apple and American Electric Power. Today, she works with business leaders to help fix what’s broken in American politics.
Kara Revel Jarzynski is the Executive Director of Resolutionaries.
image of U.S. President Donald Trump is displayed on a digital billboard in Times Square in New York on April 8, 2026.
Trump is stuck between two realities. Neither serves the American people
Normally, I worry that events may overtake a column. But not so with the Iran war.
I don’t worry about running afoul of a headline or Truth Social post from the president because what is said about the situation is no longer very relevant to the reality.
On April 8, Nick Catoggio, my Dispatch colleague, dubbed an earlier stoppage with Iran “Schrödinger’s ceasefire.” This was a reference to the famous thought experiment by the physicist Erwin Schrödinger, who was trying to explain the weirdness of “superpositionality” in quantum physics. A cat in a box is both dead and alive at the same time until you open the box. Schrödinger meant to illustrate the absurdity of the idea that particles aren’t any one thing, but a “cloud of probabilities.”
The Trump administration is stuck in a word cloud of probabilities of his own making. The war is over. The war is on. The war isn’t a war. We have a deal, but we don’t have a deal, but we’re about to have a deal. We destroyed Iran’s military. No, we left it intact. We want regime change. No we don’t. We already accomplished it. We “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program a year ago. We had to go to war in February to prevent nuclear war. The Strait of Hormuz is open, closed, or something in-between. No deal without “unconditional surrender.” Let’s make a deal!
This everything-all-at-once vibe can be disorienting, particularly since most Americans didn’t have a war with Iran on their bingo cards until the shooting had already started. President Trump didn’t prepare the country or consult with Congress beforehand because he thought it would all be a smashing success in a matter of weeks.
The miscalculation that started it all: killing Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and much of Iran’s senior leadership, on the first day of the war. To “the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand,” Trump announced on Feb. 28. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
I support regime change in Iran and shed no tears for Khamenei or his goons. But when you start a war by killing the regime’s top leaders, it’s not unreasonable for the remaining ones to conclude that you really intend regime change.
Khamenei was a murderous fanatic, but he was a fairly cautious one. He liked to threaten closing the Strait of Hormuz or attacking our regional allies, but he was reluctant to actually do it, fearing it would invite a regime change war. The mullahs and IRGC goons believed, not unreasonably, that if they lost their grip on power, they’d be lynched by the Iranian people they’ve brutalized for decades.
By starting with a regime change war, Trump removed any reason for the regime not to go for broke. When you have nothing to lose — particularly when you are a millenarian religious fanatic — a Persian Alamo strategy makes a lot of sense.
So Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and attacked its neighbors.
But it turns out this wasn’t the Alamo. In the contest of wills, Trump blinked. The Iranian regime’s tolerance for punishment proved — so far — to be greater than Trump’s and that of our gulf allies. Militarily we could finish the job, but that would require ground troops and much greater economic turmoil. In a conflict Trump launched unilaterally without the prior support of Congress, NATO or the American people, Trump doesn’t have the political capital for that.
But that’s only half the problem. Trump wants the war over, but he doesn’t want to pay — militarily, economically, politically — what that would cost. So he wants to make a deal that ends it. But there is no deal available that wouldn’t come at an equally undesirable cost. Any deal that looks like what President Obama struck with the Iranians would be too embarrassing to bear. But the Iranians are convinced that they can get just such a deal, and they’re willing to drag things out as long as it takes.
The result: Trump’s in a box of his own making. He thinks he can talk his way out by simply asserting a reality that doesn’t exist. When the financial markets get nervous, he announces a breakthrough that is, at best, a possibility. When the Iranians agree to a deal that looks similar to one Obama might negotiate, Trump goes back to his threats.
It can’t go on forever. But I’m sure it’ll last until long after this column is forgotten.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.