Americans Reconnect: Talking Across the Political Divide stands out amidst a firehouse of media stories that not only seem to accept polarization as an inalterable truth but, at times, even stoke it.

By contrast, this program focuses on solutions to polarization. The production team spent more than a year researching and reporting on how people can maintain relationships despite stark political differences, offering hope for a divided electorate that Americans can still come together.

A partnership with the national nonprofit organization Braver Angels is central to the reporting. The group uses family and marriage therapy techniques to help people bridge political divisions. The insights of Braver Angels co-founder Bill Doherty deeply inform the radio special and are woven throughout.

But what really makes the radio program exceptional are the intimate and sometimes anguished conversations between people who are on opposite sides of some of the most divisive issues in political discourse.

For example, one story traces the relationship between two cousins with opposing views on abortion. Despite the red line dividing them on this issue, the women have managed to bond over a shared vision for supporting parents and children in a post-Roe era.

Another segment explores the work of the Police and Black Men Project of Minneapolis. Years before George Floyd’s murder at the hands of Minneapolis police officers, this group started meeting regularly to discuss the issue of distrust between Black men and cops. We hear from a reporter who travelled with the group to Montgomery, Alabama, which was once the state’s capital of the domestic slave trade, to hear about how this cohort of Black men and police officers are trying to mend relationships and build trust.