🎙Interview: Nichole Argo & Scott Hutcheson
Meet the hosts of Reimagining Us podcast.
Nichole Argo, PhD is the Executive Director of the TogetherUp Institute, a think-and-do tank committed to growing a national movement of communities dedicated to connecting and collaborating across differences. Nichole also founded and co-directed the Needham Resilience Network, a municipal leadership model designed to bridge local silos, tool diverse leaders in skills to communicate across differences, and provide a process for co-creating inclusive solutions to local problems.
A social psychologist by training, Nichole’s recent writing includes: The Belonging Barometer: The State of Belonging in the US, The Science of Polarization and Insights for Bridgebuilding, and several essays on how to communicate across differences that involve sacred values. Nichole sits on the Permanent Monitoring Panel for Conflict and Polarization at the World Federation of Scientists. She has published in leading political science and psychology journals and holds degrees from Stanford, MIT, and the New School for Social Research.
Scott Hutcheson is the Executive Director of E Pluribus Unum, where he was part of the organization's founding team with former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu. Scott previously served as Deputy Chief Administrative Officer and Director of Cultural Economy for the City of New Orleans. Prior to that he served as the State of Louisiana’s Assistant Secretary of Cultural Development and Founding Executive Director of the Louisiana Cultural Economy Foundation. Scott resides in New Orleans.
Learn more about the Reimagining Us podcast by visiting the show website.
Reimagining Us is an 8-part series that began airing right after the 2024 election. Had you all initially planned for this schedule?
Our original plans were to launch the podcast in October because we felt that the podcast topic and approach might be helpful for Americans both in the lead up to the election as well as after it. We strongly believed that our message would resonate for listeners no matter who won the election, that many Americans would feel unsettled and be seeking constructive frames. So we recorded the first episodes without knowing who had won. Then, we ended up postponing the launch due to logistics (e.g., calendaring conflicts when it came to booking studios and guests), and had to go back and edit those early episodes to speak more granularly to the results.
Affective polarization and misperception are two terms introduced in the first episode of the podcast. Everyone should listen to that episode, of course, but can you provide a summary of those two terms and how they explain the division we experience in the U.S. today?
The polarization of our recent past was largely ideological and healthy, even when disagreement was vehement. It revolved around differences in ideas and positions, and those differences often led to more innovative thinking, effective compromises, and/or better legislation.
Affective polarization is different in that it’s not the other party’s ideas that one doesn’t like, it’s the other party’s members. Polarization becomes rooted in social identity rather than ideological positions.
Affective polarization seems to have started with the rise of cable news programs and radio talk shows, and is made worse by social media. Regardless, Americans today harbor strong dislike of members of the other party. This is a problem because when people dislike others just for being cross partisans, they cease to listen to or engage with them. Instead, they flatten positions/issues into binaries of “good/us” and “bad/them,” and no longer investigate the complexity of policy ideas and positions. They focus more on winning “us vs. them” battles than trying to solve problems for the larger “we,” our nation. All of this hurts democracy.
The perception gap refers to the fact that many Americans hold inaccurate beliefs about the other party’s preferences, which leads them to think they are further apart than they are. More in Common has done exceptional work on this, which can be found here. The perception gap is highest for the most partisan Americans, as well as those who are most educated. This is stunning because it means the people who are most involved in civic and political life hold the least accurate views of the other side’s beliefs – and because they are highly engaged and motivated, they are also most likely to be influencing others.
Taken together, affective polarization and the perception gap lead to a vicious cycle involving misperceptions of outgroup partisans, outrage towards outgroup partisans, “us vs. them” rhetoric and strategies by partisan extremes (instead of constructive problem solving for the common good), and exhaustion and disengagement for a majority of Americans. Jennifer McCoy calls this “pernicious polarization” because it incentivizes behavior that undermines democratic norms and institutions. But at the level of our own personal lives, it’s also pernicious – it can drive wedges between friends and family members, and can further the feeling of isolation and loneliness at a time when these things are already at pandemic levels.
The podcast is focused on highlighting the problems alongside sharing the solutions to toxic polarization. It’s so important that we be solutions-oriented so we can move forward as a country! I would argue that there is a greater urgency to move toward solutions given the recent executive orders that have passed.
How do you think those orders complicate the solutions Reimagining Us highlights and what do you all think is the most feasible solution to start stemming the tidal wave of hate and fear that has been unleashed?
There is no doubt that the flurry of recent executive orders raise the urgency for a focus on solutions. But other than the flood of emotions that these orders bring, they don’t really complicate the solutions that Reimagining Us puts forth for individuals and communities across the nation. We say this firstly because, when we interrogate the perception gap, we find that Republicans and Democrats overlap a great deal in their views about what Trump should do. According to a new report from More in Common, “74% of Americans, including 73% of Republicans, believe that he should “always follow the Constitution, even if it means he sometimes can’t get things done.”
According to a new report from More in Common, “74% of Americans, including 73% of Republicans, believe that he should “always follow the Constitution, even if it means he sometimes can’t get things done.” Across party, Americans' perceptions of Elon Musk’s entry into politics receive more concern and ambivalence than appreciation.
Further, majorities across parties support goals such as honoring international alliances, staying out of wars, and protecting other countries from invasion. And lastly, as we talk about a lot in Reimagining Us, both Republicans and Democrats most desire the country to be “united,” they just don’t think it’s a priority for the opposing party.
What is the solution? Americans need first to realize that the other party is not light years away from them on how they view what’s happening in Washington. They need to spend less time listening to media pundits and extremist partisan leaders and spend more time connecting across differences with the people in their lives and their communities— seeking to understand perspectives that differ from them by listening to the values, emotions and stories at play more than the stance or policy view attached to it. In our view, these connections need to be made intentionally, and supported by local institutions or networks. By coming to know one another again as individuals with feelings and stories – all humans are complex! – we begin to understand the experiences that we have not lived, to hold the larger “we” in mind as we think about solutions, and to gain confidence in our ability to collaborate for change that can truly benefit all. As Monica Guzman says, “When people are underrepresented in your life, they are overrepresented in your mind.” Unfortunately, this is true, but the representation is inaccurate and often dehumanizing. To stem the tide of fear and hate that has been unleashed, we need to engage each other. Go towards, not away from. We need to become bridges, not bombs.
Let’s talk a bit more about local level belonging. On the podcast you all shared that one-third of respondents to the Belonging Barometer Survey felt local level belonging, meaning a majority of people in this country don’t feel like they belong in their local community.
Can you talk a bit about the episode that dives into this issue and what you both have personally done to increase belonging in your lives?
Sure. First, while local level belonging does appear low on average, it’s important to note that the data for the Belonging Barometer were collected during the Covid-19 pandemic when people were simply not engaging much in person. The Barometer was run in Colorado last year and they found slightly higher levels of local level belonging, which is heartening. Still, as Seth Kaplan, author of Fragile Neighborhoods: Repairing American Society, One Zip Code at a Time, reminded us on the show, local and hyper-local connectivity is at an all-time low and is associated with a host of social, health-related and economic ills.
When I created the Belonging Barometer, the challenge was to create a conceptual framework that could incorporate findings from multiple disciplines.
The result was a multifaceted concept centered on three pillars: social connection (feeling emotionally connected to and included in a setting), psychological safety (feeling valued as one’s whole self, even if you disagree or make a mistake), and agency (or “co-creation,” which means being able to influence the setting you are in). That’s a high bar, even for families!
But that framework also provides a helpful diagnostic for me, in my relationships and in the way I think about my workplace, my community, etc. I can be high in connection but feel low in agency, which would tell me that either I or the setting needs to do something to help me use my voice effectively. Or, I might feel high in connection and agency but low in psychological safety, which would tell me that I or my setting needs to do something to make me less afraid to disagree with others. This framework has also changed how I think about the different groups living in my community. Some groups may score far lower than others on one or all of these categories…and the framework alone gives me a sense of how we can go about addressing the problem. So in my life today, I walk around thinking about how belonging—according to this framework—is or isn’t showing up, for me and for all the groups in the room, in each of the rooms I walk into.
Our belonging episode was a highlight in that it featured john a. powell, the Director of the Othering and Belonging Institute at Berkeley and just a seminal thinker on this subject. We spent more time talking about bridging than belonging, because bridging is really the mechanism for creating belonging. But john is a special person and that conversation was definitely a bright spot—a bright spot amongst bright spots— in the making of this series!
Another statistic discussed was that two-thirds of Americans are exhausted by politics. Is there a way, or is it even possible, to de-politicize a lot of the issues that have been politicized in our current climate?
This question brings to mind something that Layla Zaidane, the CEO of Future Caucus, said in Episode 7: That when we think of politics, we feel stress and distaste. It feels like an ugly word, something you want to move away from. But in her work with young Republicans and Democrats entering politics at the state and national level—getting to know each other as individuals who care about their communities and want to solve problems—the word ‘politics’ feels beautiful, innovative, caring, and collaborative. Of course, that is happening by design. These leaders are gaining skills that enable those conversations, and they are supported by an institution that incentivizes connection and collaboration. It’s a real proof of concept, even within the political world that so many of us distrust today! Layla’s days are literally filled watching these young leaders listen for values, identify common ground, and build solutions for the bigger “we.”
So my answer is YES, we can depoliticize issues and work productively if we want to. But we have to become aware of how the bigger machine is manipulating us—through information and framing and even social identity—and then work around it.
And at the end of the day, this is the mindset and skillset that we feature in Episode 6: Part 1 and 2. It’s about curiosity—listening to person (not position) and values (not views). It rejects flattened, binary thinking…everything has context, and we don’t really understand an issue until we can tell a generous version of the argument against ours. My answer to this question really comes out in Episode 6, our “Be the Change Toolkit,” through the voices of john a powell, John Sarrouf, Melissa Weintraub, Scott Shigeoka, and Monica Guzman.
Earlier in our conversation you shared a quote that was also said on the show: “The more underrepresented someone is in your life, the more overrepresented they are in your mind”. It alludes to the fear people have of those not in their “in-group.” With race in particular, I remember there was a podcast I listened to some years ago that said that most White Americans do not have friends outside of their racial group. Now, there were a lot of policies that helped make that the case–Jim Crow, redlining, for example–which have impacted our neighborhoods and schools today. What would be Reimagining Us’ advice for folks to move beyond the structural impediments to start interacting with those outside their in-group?
Thank you for asking! This may be the most important question of our day, in my view. Let me start by saying that we *need* to do this, for our health, happiness and productivity—both at the individual and community or organizational level. Why do I say this? Because the finding you highlight, that most White Americans lack friendships across differences, is also associated with belonging.
In the Belonging Barometer at the national level, as well as in two community based surveys I know of, social network heterogeneity is associated with higher levels of overall belonging. That means that one of the primary ways of increasing belonging—which itself is associated with general health, satisfaction in a community or organization, community engagement and workplace performance—is to connect people across differences effectively. With intentionality, in ways that will be rewarding and authentic.
Our podcast talks about how communities can go about doing this in Episodes 7 and 8. In Episode 7, Sam Pressler talks about various policy approaches for promoting resident connectivity as part of existing initiatives (e.g., housing planning) or as new initiatives (e.g., neighborhood grant programs, creating a “Department of Connection,” etc.). In Episode 8, myself and 6 members of the Needham Resilience Network (NRN) talk about the “whole of society” network that we built in our community. Because modern life is essentially siloed, even in terms of our geographical structure, the only way to bring people together across differences is to do so intentionally.
The NRN engages “hubs” from every major identity and stakeholder group in a community—including key public officials such as the Town Manager, Superintendent and Chief of Police—to build relationships, anchor in the concept of belonging, practice skills in communicating across differences, and co-create a solution to a local problem. Throughout the 1-2 year program, participants are sharing and receiving stories and feedback from their sub-communities…which means the network is engaging way more than the 30 people who sit around the table. In our case, it is engaging almost 7,000 residents who are directly connected to the hub leaders! That’s nearly one quarter of the town who are now exposed to deeper understanding of other groups, positive models of care and collaboration, etc. We are big believers in the need to institutionalize relationships across differences – because that is how you build reliable, long-term connections.
Before we wrap, I would love to talk more about your careers outside of the podcast.
Dr. Argo, what led you to found TogetherUp, a nonprofit that helps other organizations build cultures of belonging and localized democracy models? Also, what is the organization’s focus for 2025?
While leading the research effort on the Belonging Barometer, I learned about all the inspiring work taking place to build communities across differences in our country and elsewhere. And then I put that to practice locally when I founded the NRN. Seeing our local community transform was incredibly meaningful and rewarding — and as a proof of concept, it was simply a story that needed to be told, and it is a model that can change communities throughout America. And Americans of all partisan and demographic identities want and need that — it’s what they’re asking for in survey after survey, interview after interview! So the decision felt clear…I actually couldn’t imagine doing anything else for the next few years.
Our focus in 2025 will be to build and support a growing network of local communities dedicated to connecting and collaborating across differences, and to share a variety of resources that can be used by anybody seeking to engage in this work (e.g., an impact measure for community programs, a landscape scan of how philanthropy is supporting this work, a case study and playbook for building a local resilience network, etc.).
E Pluribus Unum Fund, the organization you lead Scott, is focused on advancing equity in the South. What are some of the challenges your region of the country faces on equity, and what is one initiative that your organization will be doubling down in this year?
The history of the South itself is a challenge. Those who are still are affected by the extant vestiges of slavery and Jim Crow, and those who think things have changed and everyone needs to “just move on.” Those are still challenges and opportunities. We will continue our work talking to a wide range of people across the South and then doubling down on creating messages and outlets (like Reimagining Us) that work to help people communicate across differences and looking to discover common ground on issues like fairness and justice.
If this show’s topic interests you, you might also want to check out the Sounds Like Impact interview with Melissa Giraud and Andrew Grant-Thomas of Embrace Race podcast.
