Bridging the Divide: What It Really Takes to Overcome Our Differences

We know we're divided. What's surprising is just how much it's weighing on us. New data from a New York Times/Siena poll finds that 64% of Americans now believe the country is too politically divided to solve its problems, up from 42% just five years ago. And a 2022 Ignite 360 study found that worry about our inability to overcome differences ranked #4 out of 25 national concerns, right behind the cost of food, gas, and energy. Pocketbooks and polarization: the twin pillars of American anxiety.

But here's the quietly hopeful part: even now, only a small fraction of Americans — 10% of Democrats, 14% of Republicans — actually view the other side as enemies. Most people still see people on the other side. Not monsters. That gap between how divided we feel and how we actually see each other? That's the empathy opportunity.

The problem isn't that the bridge is gone. It's that it's overgrown. And rebuilding it won't happen through algorithms, outrage, or social media posts. It happens through conversation, messy, uncomfortable, human conversation, guided by the willingness to dismantle judgment, get genuinely curious, and imagine solutions together.

In this edition of Reading Between the Lines, Rob Volpe draws on fresh polling data and his own research to explore what's really driving our sense of division, why empathy isn't the same as agreement, and three specific steps from the 5 Steps to Empathy framework that can help us start clearing the weeds.

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