Suzanne's Mom's Blog

Photo: Melanie Stetson Freeman/Christian Science Monitor.
Participants in an Oct. 12 “Dinner and a Fight” event in Fairlawn, Ohio, sort themselves according to their feelings of agreement or disagreement with the statement: “The results of the U.S. voting system do reflect the will of the people.”

Christian Science Monitor has done a great job of digging out stories about Americans working to overcome our unhealthy polarization. Today’s story makes me think of my friend Nancy L and how she was part of a similar effort before Covid. How I admired her for braving some rather acrimonious interactions!

Simon Montlake reports at the Christian Science Monitor about one Ohio man’s “quest to get more voters to agree to disagree.” It starts with breaking bread together.

“About 50 people, many of them meeting for the first time, have gathered in this Greek Orthodox church hall in a suburb of Akron, Ohio. Over a buffet of chicken, pasta, and tossed salad, they politely get to know one another, five to a table, including this reporter, asking icebreaker questions provided on a sheet of paper. The atmosphere is cordial if a little hesitant. After all, they didn’t come just for the meal. 

“They cast sidelong glances to the front of the room to five spotlighted director’s chairs. Each chair sits behind a printed sign, from left to right: ‘agree strongly,’ ‘agree somewhat,’ ‘neutral,’ ‘disagree somewhat,’ and ‘disagree strongly.’ …

“As the meal ends, Arlin Smith, one of the event organizers, fades the music playing from his laptop and picks up a microphone. ‘Let’s get ready to rumble!’ he growls, emulating boxing announcer Michael Buffer. 

“Before the ‘rumble,’ Mr. Smith offers some guidance: Listen to the speaker, try to understand where he or she is coming from, use positive language, and be responsible for your own feelings. ‘We all have emotions. So when you feel those feelings kind of rattled up, try to get comfortable. Lean into the situation and take control of your own self,’ Mr. Smith tells the diners.

“Then he hands the mic to Ted Wetzel, the creator of this grassroots effort to help Americans of all political stripes disagree constructively and, perhaps, rebuild civic bonds in an era of intense polarization and social atomization. He titles this gathering ‘Dinner and a Fight,’ but ‘Fight’ is crossed out and replaced by ‘Dialogue.’

“Mr. Wetzel … looks both elated and antsy. ‘This is the eleventh Dinner and a Fight, so give yourselves a round of applause,’ he says. 

“As the clapping ends, he explains that he’s about to reveal tonight’s ‘divisive topic.’ (Previous topics have included face masks, guns, and gender identity.) Once the topic is announced, anyone can take a director’s chair: First come, first served. …

“For proponents of dialogue, reaching across that chasm is complicated by a suspicion on the right that liberals are setting the agenda. ‘Typically, [these dialogue forums] are very blue,’ says Peter Coleman, a psychologist who studies polarization at Columbia University. ‘One side is more eager to do it than the other side, and that is part of the problem.’

“But by advertising a fight and using folksy language and metaphors, Mr. Wetzel seems to have cracked the code. His speak-your-mind dialogue dinners attract conservatives and liberals, as well as independents. Older pro-Trump voters break bread with Bernie Sanders-supporting millennials. Racial and religious minorities join the conversations. Many come back for more.

“ ‘It’s hard to get people who really see the same world differently into the same room, and he succeeds at that,’ says Bill Lyons, a political scientist at the University of Akron and an informal adviser to Mr. Wetzel. …

“The long-term goal, he says, is a rediscovery of bonds that are stronger than the political tribalism that divides us. … For now, each dinner is something of a gamble: Who will show up? Will opponents find common ground? Might disputation turn into confrontation? It takes a large dollop of faith to believe that getting a roomful of strangers talking can hold back the partisan tide. Mr. Wetzel’s brother likens his work to ‘boiling the ocean.’ But Mr. Wetzel isn’t about to quit. He’s just getting started. 

“It all began, appropriately, with a meal, and a fight. It was 2017, and Mr. Wetzel and his wife were meeting two other couples for dinner. The two men were his former colleagues, back when he was a young engineer before he went into sales and management, then bought a specialist painting company in Akron.  

“He had been looking forward to seeing old friends. But the dinner talk got heated over the topic of President Trump’s ban on Muslim immigrants and the perceived threat of sharia (Islamic law) to U.S. freedoms. The testy conversation continued over dessert and into the parking lot. ‘It didn’t end well,’ says Mr. Wetzel. He knew that his rancorous reunion was being repeated all over the country, as friends and families clashed over politics. 

“But he wanted to study the underlying problem, to figure out what really ailed American society and democracy. So he took a three-month sabbatical, which turned into a year and a half. Eventually he sold his paint company so he could work full time on this project. …

“At his brick ranch-style house in a Cleveland suburb, Mr. Wetzel filled a wall with sticky notes as he kept researching polarization and talking to others who shared his concerns. He self-published a book, Is America Broken? 11 Secrets for Getting Back on Our Feet.

“But he didn’t have a formula yet for how to bring people together to disagree constructively. He tried holding a seminar at a church, but it fell flat. ‘Not one person said, let’s do it again,’ he says. 

“In 2019, Mr. Wetzel attended a national conference on civility in Alexandria, Virginia, where he learned about a dialogue method developed in 2004 at Arizona State University (ASU).

The five-chair method offered an alternative to standard debates between hyperpartisans who reinforce a binary choice.

“Instead of a simple binary, the method gives moderates a greater voice since three of the five chairs are taken by those who somewhat agree/disagree – or are undecided. The occupants of the chairs start the discussion and can question one another; then the audience joins in. 

“Serendipitously, Rob Razzante, an ASU Ph.D. graduate trained in the five-chair method, grew up nearby. … Mr. Wetzel had tried the five-chair method in Professor Lyons’s classes and found it effective at guiding a respectful dialogue. Now, he told Mr. Razzante that summer evening, he wanted to bring it to the wider community and to insert it into a communal meal. And he wanted to call it a fight. Why? Because people ‘want to get into it,’ he says.

“Mr. Razzante liked the dinner format, but wasn’t sure about the name. He wasn’t alone: Other ASU dialogue facilitators also blanched at this branding. ‘The Arizona people were constantly trying to get him to call it a dialogue,’ says Professor Lyons. 

“Mr. Wetzel resisted. It was a fight – and a dialogue. He says the name is both humorous and honest about the fact that disagreement in public can be awkward. 

“Doug Oplinger, a former editor of the Akron Beacon Journal who has worked on other civil dialogue efforts in Ohio, also tried to dissuade Mr. Wetzel from advertising a fight. ‘Oh my word, Ted. You can’t do that,’ he recalls telling him.  But his determination to use that phrase was of a piece with his approach to the challenge, says Mr. Oplinger. …

“The first Dinner and a Fight took place here in September 2021, amid a national surge in COVID-19 infections. Most of the 30 attendees had been personally invited by Mr. Wetzel or his associates. Mr. Razzante agreed to moderate. After dinner ended, the topic was announced, along with a dialogue prompt, which participants could support or oppose, or be neutral. 

“It read, ‘Wearing a mask is the American thing to do.’ The room fell silent. ‘You could cut the tension with a knife,’ recalls Mr. Wetzel. … ‘It was awesome.’ ” 

Imagine this retired small-business owner just taking it on himself to do something about our toxic polarization! Beautiful! More at the Monitor, here. No firewall.