When We Disagree

Angel Grant , co-founder of Death Over Dinner and Drugs Over Dinner , opens up about a rare moment when she broke her own conflict guidelines. A longtime meditation teacher and trauma practitioner influenced by Gabor Maté , Angel describes what it means to be “emotionally drunk," reacting from undigested pain rather than present reality. She explores how old reservoirs of fear, anger, and hum...

Philosopher and interfaith scholar at the University of Denver, Sarah Pessin , has written quite a bit about common ground , shared humanity, and what she calls " hard hope ." And, she keeps returning to a poignant yet awkward moment she had on a bus as she thinks about the possibilities of connection in a polarized world. The bus driver that day gave an unexpected sermon to his captive...

Trey Gowdy , former prosecutor and congressman and current author and host of Sunday Night in America on Fox News , reflects on why the ouster of his friend former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy in 2023 still bothers him and what it reveals about modern politics. McCarthy was the first Speaker to be removed by a "motion to vacate" in US history. Gowdy argues that a small faction of...

Graham Bullock , political scientist and director of the Deliberative Citizenship Initiative at Davidson College , joins When We Disagree to explain how meaningful dialogue can break free from today’s “polarization vortex.” He shares how structured, intergenerational conversations about complicated topics can turn simple political binaries into rich, multi-perspective debates. Graham introduces “d...

Fairmont State University President Mike Davis joins When We Disagree to tell a story about being wrong and how it changed him. After discouraging a young colleague from pursuing her dream of becoming a pilot, he realized he was giving advice she never asked for and learned the power of listening instead. The experience reshaped how he mentors students and leads a college campus, shifting his focu...

Jason Caplan , founder of the Bridge Institute , recalls an interfaith discussion that left him frustrated by religious gridlock. He was convinced that arguing scripture wasn’t bringing anyone closer. His response was radical simplicity: stop debating beliefs and start making music together. Caplan explains how music creates a frictionless form of dialogue that bypasses defensiveness, builds trust...

What does civility demand when justice is costly and deeply personal? Alexandra Hudson , author of The Soul of Civility and founder of Civic Renaissance , shares a raw story about how being scammed sparked both a lengthy legal battle and a profound disagreement with her husband over whether to fight or walk away. Through that conflict, Hudson wrestles with whether civility means politeness or prin...

What happens when a classroom discussion about immigration sparks not one argument, but several...plus a disagreement inside the professor herself? In this episode, Dickinson College professor Noreen Lape recounts a tense moment in her “How to Be Disagreeable” course that forced her to confront emotion, miscommunication, and the limits of control in dialogue-heavy classrooms. The conversation expl...

Communication scholar and local elected official, Rebecca Townsend , revisits a strange and revealing moment in the 1990s when a small Massachusetts town debated Nigeria’s military policy. That's right - a small New England town debated what Nigeria should do with its military. What began as a human-rights-driven divestment effort in the town spiraled into thorny question: who gets to speak f...

Lori Britt , communication scholar and director of the Institute for Constructive Advocacy & Dialogue at James Madison University , shares how a deeply controversial community forum on marriage equality became a model for what productive disagreement can actually look like. From clashing colleagues and nervous speakers to media pressure and generational divides, she walks us through the hidden...

What happens when “iron sharpens iron” turns into something more damaging? Timothy Shaffer ,  the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Chair of Civil Discourse and director of the SNF Ithaca Initiative at the University of Delaware, recounts a tense, unexpectedly explosive thesis defense that left a student in tears and a faculty committee in conflict. The conversation explores where productive intellectua...

Elizabeth Matto , director of Rutgers’ Eagleton Institute of Politics , traces a peaceful family disagreement over voting rights into a deeper debate about whether voting is a right or a privilege. Drawing on research, teaching, and lived experience, she argues that even when voting is legally a right, structural barriers often turn it into a privilege for those with time, resources, and civic kno...

Trained to resolve conflict and build bridges, Janett Cordoves , the senior program director at the Institute for Citizens and Scholars , walked into her first job believing every disagreement can be fixed.  She was faced with a supervisor who was immune to every tool she learned. What started as micromanagement turned into credit-taking, control, and a painful realization that good faith alone co...

Derick Brown, the chief advancement and strategic partnerships officer of the YMCA of San Francisco , shares the life-changing argument that pushed him from telling teens to pursue college…to enrolling himself the very next morning. In this gripping story about credibility, leadership, and “walking the walk,” Derick traces how ten blunt words from his students transformed his career, purpose, and...

Alys Campaigne , the Southern Environmental Law Center's climate initiative leader, reflects on three decades of climate advcocacy, where the same arguments keep resurfacing even as the impacts grow impossible to ignore. She explains how real progress happens when we drop polarizing labels, make the issue local and personal, and help people see how climate solutions connect to their daily liv...

Dan McCarthy , who edits Modern Age , thinks that what many believe to be “good” democratic citizenship is completely unrealistic. He challenges the idea that voters need expert-level knowledge and instead argues that elections are really judgments about whether life is getting better or worse. Along the way, he exposes the tension between intellectual elites and ordinary voters and why humility m...

Leila Brammer , the curriculum director for the Forum for Free Inquiry and Expression at the University of Chicago , used to defend competitive two-sided debate as an educational tool. She now argues that such debates can limit deep, long-term critical thinking. She argues that debate’s binary structure encourages polarization rather than understanding complicated issues with many points of view....

During this holiday season, we are re-releasing some of our most popular episodes about conflict in relationships from the archive. A Thanksgiving blowup in 1989 shattered one family and shaped a lifetime of how sociologist Heath Hoffman understands conflict. In this raw and candid conversation, Hoffman traces how antagonism, avoidance, and inherited communication habits echo into adulthood. He op...

Joseph Uscinski pushes back hard on the widespread claim that conspiracy theories are exploding in America —and brings decades of data to prove it. Uscinski, a political scientist at the University of Miami, explains why journalists and the public confuse visibility with prevalence , why viral anecdotes mislead us, and how conspiratorial thinking has been a feature of American life long before the...

Nick Longo shares the origin story behind Providence College's “ dialogue walls ,” a creative public-art tool designed to spark conversations in polarized times. Longo, professor of Global Studies and co-director of the Dialogue, Inclusion, and Democracy Lab , recounts how speaker cancellations and national political controversies pushed him and his students to build proactive spaces where qu...

As we approach the holidays, When We Disagree is re-releasing episodes about tough conversations with friends and family. This week's episodes are both about arguing with friends about conspiracy theories. When college student Victor Dupont’s coworker claimed the moon was a government projection and gravity a hoax, he found himself face-to-face with a flat-Earth believer—and the limits of arg...

As we approach the holidays, When We Disagree is re-releasing episodes about tough conversations with friends and family. This week's episodes are both about arguing with friends about conspiracy theories. When communication professor Bill Keith found himself unable to reason with a close friend consumed by conspiracy theories, he faced a humbling question: what happens when dialogue fails? I...

When  Lia Howard , the director of the Political Empathy Lab at Penn, took seven undergrads across 2,500 miles of Pennsylvania during the 2024 election season, she wasn’t looking for votes—she was looking for understanding. In this episode, Leah shares what happens when students practice democratic listening in politically divided towns, where truth itself can come from different sources. From ten...

When does government transparency actually build trust—and when does it backfire? Todd Glover is the executive director of the Municipal Association of South Carolina . A former city manager, Glover joins When We Disagree to share what a $25,000 logo fight taught him about communication, public outrage, and the art of making numbers meaningful. From packed gymnasiums to calm councils, Glover refle...

In this episode of When We Disagree , political philosopher Daniel Layman dives into his book-length debate with anarchist Michael Huemer , tackling one of the most fundamental political questions imaginable: is government ever legitimate? Layman defends the messy, imperfect middle ground — what we call “the slog” — arguing that while governments can be unjust, they’re what make equal rights possi...