Nathan Bomey: Political Unity Isn’t the Goal

Hosted by Andrew Keen, Keen On features conversations with some of the world’s leading thinkers and writers about the economic, political, and technological issues being discussed in the news, right now.

In this episode, Andrew is joined by Nathan Bomey, the author of Bridge Builders: Bringing People Together in a Polarized Age, to tell the stories of the countercultural leaders who combat polarization by pursuing reconciliation, rejecting misinformation, and rethinking the principle of compromise.

From the episode:

Andrew Keen: Can’t we just acknowledge that America isn’t united anymore and never will be?

Nathan Bomey: Oh, I’m not nostalgic for some past era in which we all got along. I don’t think that era existed. And I would even say that we don’t need unity to push this country forward. Unity is actually not really the right term. It’s an admirable goal for us to somehow be unified. But bridge builders understand that unity is not the goal, that actually the goal is to reestablish civic trust between you and me, in the sense that we may disagree on whatever the issues are, and we may actually come at it from completely different angles, but what we need is to respect each other as humans and respect that each of us has an oftentimes viable and understandable perspectives even if we disagree. If we can reestablish that social trust, then we can begin to address a lot of the issues that plague us. But it’s not about unity, because what bridge builders understand is that conflict is a normal thing. You need conflict for a healthy democracy. That’s how we progress.

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Nathan Bomey is a reporter for USA Today based in the Washington, D.C., area and the author of two previous books, Detroit Resurrected: To Bankruptcy and Back and After the Fact: The Erosion of Truth and the Inevitable Rise of Donald Trump. He is a regular guest on TV and radio networks, including CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, and NPR. He has also received the National Headliner Award, the Michigan Notable Books award, and multiple honors from the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing. Follow him on Twitter: @NathanBomey