845: A Small Thing That Gives Me a Tiny Shred of Hope
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Don't search, match with, indeed, use indeed, for scheduling, screening and messaging so you can connect with candidates faster, get a seventy five dollar sponsored job credit to get your jobs s more visibility at indeed dot com slash american terms and conditions apply, need, the higher you need indeed. A quick warning, there are curse words that are on beeped in today's episode of the show. If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website, this american life, that org.

So this is new to anybody. Our country is profoundly cata, cosmetically divided, disagreeing about so many basic things. The cover vaccine was the last election, stolen was january six.

And interaction, where is they called her on to a cross and show a grandma elfie party. It's two different visions of reality that seemed doomed to never reconcile. And maybe this isn't an appropriate comparison, but somehow this comes to mind for me. You don't know that thing, your personal life where you get into a serious fight with somebody who you really care about and they see IT one way and you see another way, and you are not in either eye. The best outcome, the thing you hope for is that by talking IT through and really listening to each other and trying to sort this out in the end, you either see at the same way you'll have the same story, or this is almost as good, you want to agree on what happened.

But if we.

you'll get where the other person's coming from and they'll get where you're coming from. Another who thinks others crazy. Where has you intend?

I just wish we could do that with our politics. I understand all the reasons why that's not happening. I understand how some people think will weigh beyond that possible.

counterproductive. Just a bad idea. But just to say, I wish, I think lots .

of us wish that without that.

and you divided so evenly, nobody can predict the outcome of a presidential election. Without that, how are we going to keep functioning .

as a country?

But who is trying to bridge that gap between red amErica and blue amErica and bringing us to a common story? I honestly can't name a half dozen people if I try. It's a whenever I hear of anybody attempting to do anything like that and doing what seems like a decent job of IT, I picked up, and I heard about somebody like that recently from somebody used to work here at a show.

Brian read the history on this new podcast that he started a with another former, this american life producer, Robin semon. Robin produces the show, brian, he said, and they did a story about somebody doing this. And bryant knows how I have kind of A B, M.

I bond about this particular thing. And so he said, me copy. And I am very excited to present a version of their story for you right now, because he gave me a glimpse, like a very tentative first step kind of glimpse.

And I know that's a mix metaphor, but whatever a first step glimpse of the possibility that people in this country could listen to each other a little bit and look at the facts of something together and understand each other just maybe a little Better. We have some other stories in today's program. There are about couples managing their feelings string.

This heightened political moment on the verge of all of us getting one president or another, one future or another. We're going to get all that after the break from W. B. Is is chicago le to american life, amErica glass.

stay with us.

Support for this american life comes from, indeed, people are driven by the search for Better. But when he comes to hiring, the best way to search for a candidate isn't to search at all.

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American life at one, a tiny thing that gives me hope. Okay, so like I said, the break, this a story about somebody trying to bridge the gap in the way that red amErica and amErica see the world. And like I said, IT comes in this new podcast, the brain read hosting, called question everything.

The podcast about a journalism and the person trying to bridge the gap between the two americans. And the story is journalist in the street that they do in the podcast. They get to that guy in a little bit, but the story starts with a couple digi.

We found themselves unhappily living on opposite sides of the red blue divide when the first met decades ago, years of republican SHE was, he says, a breeding heart liberal. But IT wasn't a big deal. Then that changed. He's brian, with one of producers of question. Everything exactly .

is so zack, you're the one is gna know the conomo y this couple that was fighting over the news, right?

yes. So their names are Richard and Emily newton. He obviously goes by deck there in their seventies.

They just celebrated their twenty fourth wedding anniversary. The second marriage, both of them, they fell in love him together in the choir at church. She's an now tae.

he's a base that sweet. Where do they live?

They live in orange county, california, OK. And over the last several years, they found that they have been growing more and more miserable over something that seems so basic, which is what news they would each want to read in the morning.

We get up and get a cup of coffee, and we sit down and we start going through our emails, and we sit next each other. When we were doing that, i'd say, Emily, I have an article here. Would you be interested in me sending that to you? And SHE would say, who's IT from? And if I said, breeder t news are bright bar.

Is that what you mean? Bright bar that's IT a bright bar or epic times. He knew those were really right leaning and wasn't really interested.

I was the same way with her SHE pound something on atlantic. New york times are washington post. This doesn't .

trust anything, no matter what IT is. That comes from the new york kinds of washington post atlantic, the atlantic S S, C, C. Doesn't matter what they're saying. Teachers automatically dismissed.

Well, they developed their own artic. okay?

I realize we are not reading from the same hmo here.

So they told me that they started arguing a lot more when trump came on the political scene. Dec supported trump, Emily furiously did not. And then IT was after the election day in two and twenty, when they had one of their biggest disagreements .

from the beginning. I never believed that the election was fraudulently stolen. I have more faith in people and in our democracy. Dick was more open to doubt.

They were saying that there was a lot of things that we're going on that shouldn't have been going on. There was packing, uh, drop boxes with ballots. One person would walk up to the ballot box and drop in all kinds of ballots into IT. So this particular theory.

dick talking about, it's from a movie, one of the many sources that he was turning to at the time. It's called two thousand yells.

Have you heard of IT? I've heard of IT. Yes, i've had people talk to me about IT as i've been reporting basically.

yes. So this movie, two thousand, yours IT looks like a documentary, but it's really a proper in the film is about a stone in election theory. It's not true.

But for a while on the right, this movie seem like IT was everywhere. Everyone seemed to be talking about IT. Trump actually did the screening of IT at our logo.

IT was in something like four hundred movie theatres. I mean, lots and lots of people believed IT it's made by the tisza. He's a right wing political commentator.

What's digest the .

gist is that it's about this theory that a bunch of democratic groups were paying people who they call mules to illegally collect ballots and stuff them into ballot .

boxes in key swing states. Dentists, ed, more than eleven hundred.

So there are these talking head interviews and their intercut with this Greenies surveilLance footage that shows, like, this person like putting ballots into a box and they like, see, there's all the evidence you need.

but that's not real. SurveilLance footage.

or IT, is real surveilLance footage, but it's showing people just dropping off ballots legally.

And they are scary music.

And there's scary music.

scary voice. We are not a democracy. We are a criminal cartel masking as a democracy.

And when dick watched IT, like a lot of people, he thought IT seemed really plausible.

That just added to the other stories that I was hearing, things that we're happening and and uh arizona and georgia, i'm thinking, yeah others stuff going on here. This shouldn't be going on.

So dick is watching this movie. He's reading his sources. And there are so many sources that sites so many stories about election frag, which is part of what made IT so believable.

And also he's watching the president, president trump, say over and over again that the election was fragile. Ate that had been installed from him?

Yes, exactly. And then Emily is consuming all of her sources, and they say the exact opposite. And that all added to this feeling that IT wasn't safe for them to talk about politics. Did that feel different from other arguments or disappearance you'd had about non political things over real marriage?

I did IT because there was no given take. We can argue about, you know, what we're going to spend our money on. And we can argue about our kids, you know, we can argue about the neighborhood, but we usually come to some sort of resolution. This whole thing about trump, there is no resolution.

How do that feel .

frustrating? Because I know my husband, I know what a smart, sensitive, thought full person he is. He's very generous. I know all that about him, and to help him suddenly be aligned to this person, who I found absolutely disable was very troubled ing.

He wouldn't .

k to me SHE basically just, I don't want to talk about that. I would try, but I just IT wasn't gonna happen. And if they did, we didn't up yelling at each other.

I got so angry with her one day that I finally, I just had to walk out of the house and walk down the street to cool a off. And then I started thinking, wow, i'm letting politics get involved in our marriage because I was really angry at the time and and I just couldn't stand that. I never thought that the politics was important enough to jeopardize what SHE and I .

had together. You feel like that could do that? I could.

Yes, I really did. I think, what did I get myself into here? Maybe I I did something I shouldn't have done.

What's the mistake you're talking .

about having someone that was so far left that I couldn't live with?

Yeah, this was a pretty low point in their marriage. And they told me that they really wanted to find a way out of IT.

We were both looking for some sort of, and I want to say, neutral, but impartial new source.

I was hungry for something that I could count on pv layers away and really show what's in the heart of IT.

They started reading different online new sources that branded themselves as being unbiased, plant free, that kind of thing. interesting.

And then they finally landed, done something .

that was a newsletter. Dig seem to like IT. Okay, so demonic.

We both agreed. Oh, three. Tangle, tangle.

Yes.

that's the news letter.

It's so tell me about IT it's .

this daily news letter comes to your email like a sub stack type thing to run by a guy named the isac saw he started IT he writes IT. They have about one hundred and thirty five thousand subscribers. IT comes to in box every week, day.

And each issue is all about one topic from the news. What they try to do is summarize two or three of the best articles and arguments from right leaning sources about that topic, and then make you the same thing with left leaning sources. And the whole premise of the news letter is that there are people out there, like decon Emily, that are reading completely separate sources. And why not put all of those in one place?

So that's what the news letter is like. It's just like, here's this topic here, a few stories in the left.

stories from the right. You actually read what those arguments are.

Think probably the first thing that astounded me was the transparency they are. When they make a mistake, they corrected as soon as they realize IT and they put a right up front.

How is that different than corrections in a newspaper?

A little bit, it's the way that they do IT. So corrections in a newspaper, you know, traditionally they are. At the end of the article, there will be like a little footnote.

Actually, we got this wrong. It's been changed above. We were got the error, you know and like little print atta ics at the bottom tangles approach to corrections.

It's a bit different. Can you show me? Yes, this is from August twenty first. And the very, very top the very first thing that you see is correction period in big letters in our coverage of the medicare drug pricing negotiations yesterday, we said that four of the medicare part d drugs for which to the government had negotiated that our Prices, or overprescribed in the united states that was false.

We must read the abstraction of a study and rushed our review process when we included IT. A sincere thank you to the tenor. So readers who caught the error and then an attack low, that this is our one hundred and fourteen of correction in tangles, two hundred and sixty three week history in our first corrections since August thirteenth. S we track corrections and place them at the top of the news letter and an effort to maximize transparency with readers.

So this is different than a newspaper. I see. yes. What also did not only notice about tangle.

yes, so they noticed that IT wasn't so sensational. IT was more measured or even handed language. So for instance, tangle noticed that readers on the right would sometimes unsubscribe from the newsletter after reading a phrase like undocumented immigrant. But they also didn't think IT was right to call someone illegal or an illegal alien. So they did this big eternal review, and they settled on the term unauthorized migrant.

We really like that approach, trying to fill gure out all the trigger world or the words that were were very highly voluntary emotionally, which helps both of us then consider the issue with less emotion about IT. I'm not gonna with no emotion, but we would still argue, but with less emotion about IT. And then we loved. I IT take .

what's Isaac take?

So iac take. Iac refers to Isaac saw he's the founder writer of the news letter. And at the end of every issue, he spent a long time writing his opinion, and these can be long. And he says exactly how he feels about the issue after having researched IT, and just describes his own feeling about IT.

Do the example of this? Yeah.

here I send one to you. We cannot get IT right?

This was earlier this month, hurricane in and the disaster relief efforts.

Yes, the first part is just the topic. Then they summarize with the right of saying. They summarize with the left of saying, but then at the end, you see might take. And so i'm obviously not going to read this whole thing that is, yeah, this is long. Well, twenty two hundred words.

I looked, it's like a whole S A. But what's the taken her kane?

An, yes. So before we get to his take, I think you need to understand what he's responding to here. We've been a lot of attacks on the bided administration from the right saying that they are doing nothing to help people who been infected by this hurricane like actually nothing well that they failed to rise the occasion.

So I think he really puts a stake in the ground and says, there's a big problem with this nation tive. It's all nonsense. It's all a lie and then he writes, I hate reading pieces like this.

It's not my job to defend the federal government from lies. And it's hard to write a piece like this without reading IT like i'm openly shilling for Harris or biden. I am not i'm not care to do their P R, protect their reputation. However, I do care about our information ecosystem. I care about reliable, accurate information being shared widely.

I also care about the north Carolinians in danger right now, not just because the americans and its a state I love, but also because my mom, my hat, my brother and his family, my sister in law and my knife ce, they all live in north CarOlina. So the horrors were all witnessing on the news hit close to home. Here is the truth, though, biden and Harris have actually pulled every lever federal executives can in a situation like this. None of the critics that I posted above can say exactly what they want them to do, that they aren't already doing. And if you're planning and writing and to tell me that I am shelling for Harris or being a left wing hack by calling out lies online, you Better be prepared to tell me exactly what i've gotten wrong here.

And he goes on for several more aircrafts. Oh, well, interesting. I can feel his resentment at having to defend the democratic administration yeah he's like.

I don't want to do this just to defend them, but in this case, they're doing everything they can and that's with the fact show. And so i'm going to say that, right? And this part of the news letter was something that dick and Emily really came to appreciate.

He was very clear about what his biases were that made him extremely trustworthy. More often than not, when we get to the end and we we read my take, we look at each other and say, yeah, that's how I feel.

They started realizing that they actually agreed with each other and a lot of things, and they were able to talk about IT. And eventually something pretty remarkable happened. So remember, her deck was totally convinced the election of the stolen.

He watched two thousand meals. He read all of those conspiracy es about IT. So as dictaean, we're starting to have this shared understanding of the news again. Tangle did the thing for dick that no other source seem to be able to do, that Emily wasn't able to do. And that was proved to him that the twenty twenty election had not been stole.

The only thing that changed my mind completely was the fact that I started reading tangle and it's only because I trust asic and a steam so much.

It's incredibly fulfilling, to be honest.

This is ezio. He's a go a right tangle. Yes.

it's like it's actually like so rewarding because the election fraud stuff in particular was one of the most difficult times in my life as a reporter the month after that election was like dark, stressful, really, really hard work. And hearing that somebody had that reaction, that their mind was actually changed, even one person, it's like, yeah, makes me wanna cry.

So my getting this right IT, seems like Isaac and this newsletter tangle, they seem you've done something that I feel like so many journalists, myself included, have been banging our heads against the wall, trying to figure out what to do, which is how do you get people to believe the evidence that the twenty twenty election was not stolen from ddd. trump? Something like a third of americans believe IT IT was.

It's really threatening our ability to function. How do you present those facts and get people to believe them? I mean, we did a whole episode of our show about barton gAllen, one of the, you know, greatest investigate reports of our time, i'd say, who quit journalism because of this problem. yeah. And you're saying tangle did IT.

In this case, tangle did IT. Yeah for deck.

tangle did IT. So how did tangle do this? How did Isaac the I, who runs to do this?

Yeah, so iz did a ton of work around this whole election denialism issue. IT wasn't just one news letter. Every time a new claim about how the election may have been stolen surfaced, he would spend all this time running IT down, explaining in detail why IT was false. He did that in the days and weeks immediately following the election. He continued doing at a new claim surfin the year's sense.

But a lot of news sources have done this, looked at these different claims about how the election stone and showed why they aren't true. And look to the court cases where no evidence surfaced and all this stuff.

right? They did. But Isaac was doing a lot of research, like for example, in the weeks following the election, right after he did this four hundred tweet long thread that was going in detail, and each claim he was really, really deep on this.

But I don't think IT was only the research that help convince stick. There's something else that I also did, and I was in his tone and how he approached ed this whole issue, especially on the claims that seemed more persuasive. He didn't just write them off.

He assess them seriously. He presented them seriously. And that didn't make dg feel stupid. Here's.

I think some of the self was really convincing. And proving that they were wrong was not as simple as something like, oh, this is just like conspiracy nonsense, like the ballot stuffing thing that was a blauser way to steal on election.

In twenty twenty two, he actually dedicated an entire news letter, a deep dive into two thousand, yours, that movie we were talking about.

So when that movie came out and everybody just like a laser, I was kind of like, i'm gonna watch IT and like, take some of these allegations seriously and see what's up IT turned out there all bullshit. But like, you only know that if you actually do some of the work, can I actually just read .

you what he wrote the top of that any utter yeah, please. So the title of the news letter is an honest look at two thousand, yours, the new stone en election theory. And this is how he opens IT.

I consider myself to be both a skeptic and an open minded person. I am deeply cynical about our government, believe intelligence agencies are covering up the truth about u. Fs, and don't feel any particular loyalty to any major political parties.

I generally distrust authority, government agencies in politicians, but I do believe it's wise to consult expert opinions and advice. I love a good conspiracy, a good cover up and a great story. A stolen presidential election would be in all timer, in every regard, a story so gigantic, a conspiracy of corruption and power so unthinkable, that the idea alone is tantalizing enough. I almost want to believe IT. And then he goes on to direct every point made in the film and show why it's inaccurate.

But that's how he starts. interesting. okay. So that's the presentation different to talking .

about yeah and i'll just say that that framing it's really different from how other outlets covered this film. Like for example, there's a new york times headline about the movie IT was, quote, a big lie in a new package. There was a washington post headline that was, quote, two thousand meals offers the least convincing election for a the theory yet.

And look, I mean, that's all true. IT is a lie. But as I realized, he's probably not going to convince someone who already believes the lie by leading with that. So instead he levels with people, explains where is coming from and all the research he did, and then explains what he found about the claims. And so this was what dick was reading after .

reading this article. What I realized was, and he ever admitted there was some things that were happening that shouldn't been happening in some of the polls, but IT wouldn't have changed the dynamics of who won and who lost at all. That was actually the first time I really realized that for sure. And that really opened my eyes to how corrupt that was. That really solved me on the fact that the election wasn't stolen.

What I was thinking, my head was like, I want to bring all these people in my life under one roof, and I want them to be over read new source that like the, you know, trump will trust, and like the left wing earning bro will trust.

What was the like origin story for tangle for isac? Like he was a reporter before this? Yeah, he was a reporter.

He worked for having to post a couple of other places. And he told me that he's always been the type of person that brought together people from different backgrounds in his personal life. Maybe they don't agree, and he's often mediating between those people. But really, the inspiration for tangle came out of his own news consumption.

The idea for tangle basically came from the trump era of, like trump proposes a border wall. And i'm like he's at proposing a two thousand mile border wall. This sounds totally insane. I can't imagine the best argument for this, but I really want to understand, is this something that would actually work? And in order to grasp what was actually happening, my day would be like, i'm going to go read the new york times editorial board, i'm going to read their immigration reporting about IT, then i'm going to go to fox news and screw through their opinion page and search for transport to wall, and then maybe i'll listen like a bench paro podcast and then i'll go listen a pod save amErica and then, you know, watch the daily show, do a bit about our watch john over over.

And then i'll spend like an hour on you know some talker calls and special about IT, and then i'll do like ten hours of all this consuming the news and i'll sit down and i'll be like, okay, I think I now have a really good understanding of everybody's perspective, positive and negative, about this policy proposal. Why can I just find that one place that should exist somewhere? Do you know .

who's reading the newsletter?

I kind of do based on a reader survey of tangle subscribers. So a little bit over half of the subscribers are men, around a few seven percent excuse, very White, just below ninety percent of readers its U. S.

based. But as says, that does reach something like fifty five other countries. And about a third of the readers say that they are on the left, a third on the right and the last third, or either center or independent.

Well, so pretty evenly politically split.

Yeah, pretty even split politically. And I did talk to some other readers of the news letter who said that I had an impact on them, similar to the like, who I met. This one guy act like a political event in new york.

And he told me it's basically the only news that he reads. I talk to a new reader of tankle, a journalist actually, and he said that there is some arguments from the right that he just written off, but reading tangle actually helped him see that they had a point. And I even spoke to another guy who, like dick, how does mind change about the twenty twenty election?

I I think that the Donald trump is, tell me the truth, that they had firm evidence that there was definitely manipulation of the baLance.

This is a guy name, rick.

We ricken dick. Rick and dick.

Okay, both. Richard, if you want to be technical about IT got IT go on. It's a really similar story that Emily request a big truck supporter vote form twice. Rick sun is on the left politically. They were arguing about the newsletter, and the sun started forwarding rick the news letter, including issues that we're about, the stolen .

election claims. They were just laughing and off. I have a trust and there loose gathers and presentation abilities can and shoulders about in the other news gathering source. I have a trust level.

There is a unequal .

and again, like ick and Emily, rick, his son, have mended their relationship. They can talk to each other about the news again. And now he doesn't think the election was stolen and that feeling of being lied to. It's actually convince ed him not to vote for trump this year really.

Yeah, the only reason I went in both for him because he made me look foolish front of my son.

Know that you mention um the importance of striking the right tone when we're presenting evidence, especially evidence it's like contrary to what someone believes and that does he important but also you know just hearing the story of brick and his son alongside the story of dick and Emily, his wife. Like I do just wondered, there's a person have to be motivated to get along with someone they loved to repair relationship, essentially order to change their mind yeah.

it's a good question. Wanting to see something from someone else's perspective, perspective someone you love seems like that doesn't .

hurt you know some it's interesting thinking about IT. It's not exactly that tangle moved both of them towards to the center and they met in the middle. But IT moved dick more towards Emily basically .

yeah I mean, obviously would make for a Better story if they each move told the centre. I think that sort of the middle, what we want from a story like this exactly met in the middle. But it's really more like dick believes something that wasn't true. And then he was the one that moved toward facts.

How does employ say IT changed her? Like does he say IT changed her? So he told me .

that he didn't have as dramatic a change is deck IT wasn't like SHE believed something that wasn't true and had her mind changed. But SHE says he does read the news differently. now. For instance, he told me that hearing some of commuters are as policy proposals, and how before he would have taken some of them at face value is good ideas. Now SHE says she's thinking more critically about them.

How are they doing these days?

Do you have the last time I spoke to them, they really did seem to be in a Better place. I think on this surface, IT seemed like their problem was that they have been talking across this political divide. But their real problem was that they weren't agreed on facts. They weren't agreed on what was true. That's what made .

IT so Better is a huge relief. Dc, and I can now agree on more or just great based on the same information, at least I don't .

feel like I walk on on age shells if I want to mention something to our I mean, she's their own person. I'm not gonna tell her who to vote for and he would not listen to me anyway.

Now we're on the same handbook, more or less, although he may might be reading a different page than me at the time, but is generally the same hyborian.

But I mean agreeing on the same that facts being in the same book, that's something going to get you so far.

Who's dick voting for?

You know, as far as I am concerned, I don't like trump as a person the way he handles itself, the things he says IT bothers me a lot. But the one thing that I did like a bottom was his policies and so i'm definitely leaning towards .

trump skill okay, that's that's that's dicks.

That's my think .

that's the first time that he's reval zed to me that he's thinking about voting for truth. My heart just stop.

Emily and dick note in orange county, california.

So that by in reading zazi glue at the podcast and question everything, which is produced by cr w and placement theory, this was edited by JoNathan goldstein, Robert semon. Coming up other couples mottling in the way through this election is slightly more extreme tactics in a minute to go above the radio when our program continues.

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This american life from a rogat today's program, a small thing that gives me a tiny share of hope, I guess, who was act one? And the tankle news letter that inspired that, named for today's episode? Now in the second half of the show, the thread from that story they were ongoing to pick up and keep pulling is what is happening with couples doing this selection, which is interesting because, as you probably heard, there's a real gender gap between men and women this time out.

Men prefer trump by eight percentage points. Women prefer Harris by nine. With that, we turn to act two of our show. Like to told that do as partisan.

okay? So if you remember Emily and deck, who we heard, and act one, they talk openly between them about their potent differences. One of our producers have either to corn fell sweep with a woman who is taking a different tactic with her husband.

It's been hard to find a time attack with june. She's on a three week road trip with her husband, and they have almost no time apart. So we look for a little cracks in our schedule to sneak in a call. Do you a sense of how much time we have right now?

How about a half an hour is a shower?

okay? Half an our long shower.

He is A H, P. M. thanks. yeah. Ah, it's like a teenage .

girl in our okay IT do you mind if I record this call?

I don't mind but i'm a little bit you know concerned about um you know I don't want to get triple the trouble .

junes trying to avoid IT is an argument with her husband. They are both conservatives but after voting republican for her entire life, this election june will be secretly voting for coming Harris. Her husband does know Better plans.

So I really just that sort of why i'm a secret voter is because I vote however I want to I having the conversation about IT is where things, you know get to uncomfortable while .

we talk a june is pace around the backyard of their rental house where her husband here, it's not like she's scared of him. SHE is doesn't anna fight with him? But is why we're using a suit him? Jones, not a real name.

The Harris campaign is counting on the idea that there are lots of junes out there. They're marketing into these women, specifically sending republicans like liz Cheney all over the country to talk to them. And there's a whole grassroots effort of people sticking posted notes in public restrooms, reminding in these women their vote is private.

I wondered, what I was like for people in this situation is IT really possible to keep a secret like this from the person you share a house and a life with. How do you do that? What are the consequences on her call? June made a point to say IT wasn't always this way.

She's been with her husband called rick for twenty years now. Livers matter in online group for single parents. Student had three little kids from a previous pretty rough marriage. Rick had two kids, and their courses started over the phone.

Yes I mean like being in middle school, like you would spend all day with your best friend in the middle school and then immediately come home and get on the phone with her. Um we would just talk for hours and hours and hours IT just fault like the easiest, most natural connection. By the time june.

rick actually met in real life. A few months later, they were basically already a couple. A year later, they got married and rick Grace Jones kids as his own, calls them his kids.

June says rick was totally a political when they met, had never voted, wasn't even registered, which did not set rate with june SHE is always been very politically engaged, makes a real effort to vote in every election, not just the big ones. Since june was a lifelong republican, rick also registered as a republican, and in twenty sixteen they both voted for dana d. Trump together.

A june immediately regretted IT. SHE never liked trump, but I felt wrong to her not to vote, and SHE assumed he wouldn't win anyway. After the election, june started to lean away from her political party, but rick reach towards IT. He said, watching fox news .

every day and it's distorting something up inside of hand that makes afraid or just like inc. Or whatever. And like IT just comes bubbling out like he's not a big talker to anybody else and the in person that he talks to.

So I think if he talk to a lot of people, maybe I wouldn't be getting so much of IT down the barrel. But because I had, you know, i'm his name person, I think I I get at all because I think that makes him very axius. Like if you heard and believe every day that you're going lose your freedom, you're not with your job, you're going lose your way of life, all these terrible things, you're gonna happen. I think it's natural that you were being .

shot to see your friends.

No.

not even one.

I mean, he has. So one of the pastors at my church really like some, but now you really like you.

Rick used to ask june about her opinion on politics. SHE would read articles and he would ask her to summarize them. For him, that was a dynamic SHE research and came to an opinion, and he trusted her opinions. These days.

the longer that trump has been on the picture, the sort of more like him my husband becomes, you know just i'm not allowed to have my own opinion um you know i'd Better not boat a play or that way or you know i'm going to go with you and boat and you're just really getting very possible about IT. And I guess Donald trump just made that easier or more acceptable or more popular that like that and it's the only area where he's like that but it's speak of the big confrontation about IT then becomes everything.

Junius having this disagreement with her has been during a moment when election coverage is non stop. Ads are everywhere. Both campaigns are relentlessly calling and texting and email.

In all while, SHE stuck in a car with her husband. And this is all he wants to talk about. SHE said they planned the trip a year ago when things were calm, and now SHE can't believe SHE did this to herself self.

It's been very tense, but Jones got a couple strategies for dealing when politics comes up. Sometimes SHE tries something called gray rocking, which is basically IT just been as boring as possible and conversation sabri a has nothing to season or react to. Other times he tries for a classic manually the dodge.

I dodged a lot. No, i'm pretty good a dodging because i'm very busy, honey. I'm very busy making very busy.

You know what? Cleaning or I do some work or whatever. So I say, maybe, maybe once every ten days to two weeks, do I let my guard down?

And when her guard drops a fighting ces, they have a big fight every ten days to two weeks, because IT keeps springing politics up. He wants to talk to her about all this stuff, and i'd unsettles them when they're not on the same page. He wants her to engage. And so her refusal itself becomes the kind of .

fuel and have been very pushy. You know, like, why are you talking to me? Why are you for me?

Like healthy things and I just pick debate. You know, healthy. Like you're a liberal.

what do you say and .

I say I can I can service one than you can conserved what you like. I am a conservatives. You'll trust store my party.

Do you regret getting him politically engaged, given how things .

have turned out? Totally, really totally. yes.

I talk to a bunch of people like june women, who planned to vote for kala, but are going to all sorts of flames to avoid telling their family and friends about IT. There are lifelong conservatives, but then, for a lot of them, generate six crossed at line. They didn't even know they had until that happened.

Now they can't bring themselves to vote for trump again. I duck a one woman in lousianner who told me her parents knew SHE wasn't gonna for trump. They assume she's going to read in another republican, which she's happy to let them think, SHE said.

It's inconceivable to her parents that he could possibly vote for a democrat. Another woman in missouri told me that once calm laa entered the race, SHE tried to test the waters with her family, said he was thinking that maybe he would vote for camellia. Her family's reaction was so strong, they said he was going to hell, that he was a communist, that he had a backtrack name.

IT talked about IT. Again, since I mentioned all this to june, i've talked to a bunch of people who are in different versions of your situation and everyone tries to avoid talking about politics with their family because they obviously wanted maintain close relationships with their family and it's they avoid talking about IT in service of the relationship. But actually they just can't be as close to their family as they want to be if they can't really share this part of their life with them.

right? I think like we sort of watch movies and TV shows where like one sort of explosive thing happens that ends up, you know destroying a relationship or whatever IT is. But I think an actual those kinds of deterioration en little by little over time and a small, small things but chip away at know any family relationship or any kind of relationship. And so I think I probably just make a short term easy decision to avoid IT, and that probably does have longer term consequences.

I want to be clear. June and rick still have nice parts of their marriage. They still go on their daily walks.

They have those two little dogs that they both obsess over. Brick does this whole routine with the dogs during their nightly snacked time, which delights june. But with the wall to wall election noise, politics is increasingly crowding out those other, more peaceful parts of their lives.

Another sister who married to like minded man. And their relationship is just so different there, so much more back and force between the two of them and there's so much less just asked about what he can be, who he wants to be and and he is more secure and that SHE can voiced her opinion. And and and that just doesn't ever seem like she's looking over her shoulder.

But I definitely like, I need to look my shoulder this I just feel like I have to look over my because something necessarily bad will happen to me. But just like it's just too exhAusting to keep playing myself, I guess I just don't really want to keep your money. Now who does .

your husband think you're voting for?

I think he's so I think he's afraid i'm going to vote for cma. You know I think he has a clue that i'm never trumper, but um I wouldn't say like key notes for hundred.

Tell me if this is like way of space because I don't mean every step but it's IT sounds .

kind of lonely being in terrible h my gosh, it's terrible. Don't make me cry. Yes, now who I thought he was, where he's becoming somebody but yes, it's like i'm not fully who I am with him and it's sad.

yeah. Do you have A I don't know, like a plan for if IT keeps going down this road? Or is do you have any red lines? Or you're just hoping once the elections over, then you can go back to .

talking about other things? I probably and I on the form just five minutes OK. Yeah, it's not not we get fun ways to talk about them. I just want to forget about them.

Was that your husband who came out? Okay, just sounds like you should go.

Price probably rapid up.

okay. Well, i'll let you go. I really appreciate you talking in.

Sure, sure. Thank you. Good to talk with, do you? Thank you. OK 拜， 拜拜。

A few days after a call, I got a text from june. He was home for my trip and had gone to vote early with her daughter. SHE sent me a cell y of the two of them beaming with their matching voting stickers.

They both voted for cma. June said he felt relieved to header sta vote because now no one could take IT away from her and more than that, he actually feels excited about the prospect of a Harris presidency SHE think'll do a good job. After they voted, june and her daughter celebrated how goodbye, and then june pills to go and went home.

If even a coin filld, there's one of the producers of our show.

Okay, so the biggest gap between men and women in this election is with the Younger voters. People under thirty nbc news poll found that fifty nine percent of Young women in that group support Harris prepared to forty two percent of men. Which got us wondering, how's the person that I supposed to find?

Love those numbers. If you are straight and under thirty and looking for somebody of the same party, they are not great. And that question brings to act three of our show. Actually, let me be Frank.

So when if you were a cornford was reaching at couples looking for people to interview for the story that you've just heard, one of the people who came across this was a guy named Frank phila como. He's trying to navigate his way through the rocky shows, this gender divide. So he talked to him, too, about what that's like last year.

I had a date that went exactly the way you hope every state goes. The conversation felt easy. They made each other laugh.

At the end of the day, they said, good night. No kiss. Frank doesn't kiss on for a states. I went home and .

then we were tested. He was texting me right after the date had such a great time, you know, when do we get to do this again and were changing ideas for what our next states going to be and um then the morning of the second date SHE messages me and he said, you know, I I did some thinking and I would not like to go out with you again and what do you .

think happening when he says.

well, I I didn't think I knew what happened oh, what happened what happened is that I have very unique italian last name ah if you google me, I come right. I think I wrote so you must have, you must have looked me up and he said yes and he sent me a screen shot and I would got IT no.

the thing Frank state had discovered about him, he's a republican, voted for trump twice. The screen shot was of an article he had written for a conservative magazine trying to date deep blue new york city as a registered of republican. Perhaps unsurprisingly, not so easy. He knows Better than to lead with this politics intentionally leaves that off his David profile. But even so, sometimes frink can even get past the texting phase, none to the actual date.

A lot of women have said, okay, you know, you seem great. I'd like to meet you and go on a date. But first, you know, who did you vote for, or what are you really? And that's what I .

what do you say?

I say that i'm an independent thinker.

And that way.

exactly you might as .

what to say, I ve never done.

And I have, they say, can't do IT, can't do IT.

By Frank estimate, forty to fifty women have cancelled their dates with him upon discovering his politics. Having been born and raised in bricklin, Frank has the sort of add problem on his hands because he basically fits in unless he's talking.

Everyone i've ever met has told me that they think i'm some berny progressive. I strike people as as being left to wing.

Yeah, we live in berlin and you have little glasses.

So I have little glasses and holes in my years.

you step gages. He also is a bunch of tatoes. He's a real mix of things. He's got some punk in em, but he's also nerdy.

Casualty says words like were climbed in pugilistic, though you can't see any of his edge today, came straight from his job at a routine non profit so he's in his full conservative drag suit tie, token fun socks. Frings been a conservative since he was little. He grew up in a right leaning household.

proud. They were a mccain palin button on his backpack at school, and he was eleven. The main thing that makes Frank of conservative these days, he says, is that national savanna is extremely important to him, meaning he thinks we should close the border, build a wall if we need to anything, to discourage undocumented immigrants from coming here otherwise.

Basically, he's one of those fiscally conservative, socialist, liberal guys. But his dates mostly care about that conservative part. He remembers this one first state that really kind of strong, because he was particularly excited about her. They were at a bar, the entering back and forth.

and then SHE said, so what do you do for work? And there's kind of no way around that. You know, I could say I could be super ambiguous and say I work for a nonprofit, but then that lends .

itself to OK h non. Frank told her he worked for a branch of the famously conservative outlet, the national review, where he occasionally writes his state that he meant the nation, which is kind of the opposite.

And I clarified now a little different.

How do you describe the difference?

I said we're more on the right, which is my ethnic c way, of saying we're conservative because we are. And I said that and immediately, her whole demand, or changed.

what? SHE leaned back in her chairs.

Yeah, yes, yeah. Body language changed. And he said, well, so you're a conservative.

There were only twenty minutes into the date and decided to call a night.

I actually planned on walking her out or walking her to the train station. And so I said, okay, let me get the bill and I go up to the bar to get the bill. And then I came back and he was gone .

frink that maybe you'd gone to the bathroom, but his date had scooter to the bar and arrived with a helmet. Frank notice the helmet was also gone.

thinking, I don't think he took her helmet to the bathroom, but I said, let me give you a few minutes, you know? And I gave you a few minutes ons, and I said, he is not. He left.

IT does hurt and when I say this to people, I don't mean to make IT a to a pity thing you know it's not like this is being conservative as some immutable able characteristic right um I don't want people to feel feel bad for me but that that does hurt because to me I like who am I i'm so after twenty seven years, i'm twenty seven. After twenty seven years of existence, if my identity boils down to being a conservative and a registered republican and that's a sad twenty seven years that i've lived, that's really sad.

Frank are registered republican, but to him, that's the least interesting thing about him. Here are some things that Frank would like people to know about him. He plays jack guitar, has a very old cat, 7 years old， who is still in remarkably good health.

He is also obsessed with the query. Um he is four of them in his studio apartment. The stuff that Frank thinks should matter is the way you comport yourself in the world.

Are you play to weight staff? Do you hold the door for people? Do you check in on your friends when they're sick? Most of our relationship, he says, is not about politics.

And so he wants a woman he dates to see those other parts of him not be blinded by his party affiliation. So we tried various tactics over the years to get around IT downplay e, addressing a head on and making a case for himself. Once since when women cup goole and finding is radian, he even gave a fake last name.

But that made me feel terrible about myself. Way to go through life.

I asked, drink. Why not just state conservative woman? Hence, the conservative dating pool in new york city is simply too small. There's a filter on the dating APP hinge that you can pay for that does let you filter for political preference. He did try that once.

and I realized I was, I was meaningless, you know, um i'm attracted to people for other reasons. In fact, I would put politics probably at the end. what? Yeah.

that's crazy.

Why is that crazy?

Because the thing I should be at the end is like my favorite color is Green.

That's more important? No, it's not.

Absolutely is more important. Why I well.

I tempted to push IT back on you and say, why is politics important? Is not important? I don't think so at all, actually.

yeah. But do you think that politics is less important to you? Because because some of the policies that you may be voting for directly impact you in a less personal way than they impact the women that that you want to date.

Oh, maybe I think that's part of IT, and I have a lot of empathy for people who are impacted more directly. Um but I think that you know, i've look at my data day life and you i'll walk through a door and someone um or i'll hold the door for someone and the walk through and they won't say thank you and I go, what was that what was that about? You know, it's stuff like that little interpersonal interactions that means something to me.

you know or but to you, but not of the people that you're dating. And i'm sure the women you're dating would be much it's much more important to them to be able .

to get an abortion than but I am one out of three hundred and forty million people. I'm not affecting policy or something.

I can see why his dates don't see IT that way. I have some news to end this story with, which is that after dozens of dates, Frank has actually seen someone. It's new, but this seems to be going well.

She's a lefty and he knows all about his views. Politics actually came up on their first date. It's been a few months now, and they've had a lot of conversations about politics. Frank told me his girl d's voting for commoner Harris and the idea that Frank might vote for trump that really, really bothers her. Recently, with the election coming up, they had one particularly hard conversation about IT.

SHE said, you know we care for each other and we obviously enjoy being around each other and we have for the past four or five months, however long it's been and um you know I don't think uh, he said that he doesn't think as a deal record for her, but it's something that concerns her you know and I don't take that lately so it's made me do a lot of thinking.

You said.

I said that I, you know, I want you to know that I I hear you. I was emotional. I think we were both a little very clap.

His girlfriend kept saying, trumps, you've got a vote for the whole person, not just the policies you like. These conversations with his girlfriend and other people have actually moved in. And so Frank is thinking of voting third party of this election, which may have more meaning in his relationship than he does for a country thanks to the fucking in electoral college. Think most of us Frank doesn't live in a swing state.

I believe that a coin felt we were shot about Frank and a story in the guardian.

He just on the side, what you just with to your time, you can just we and see if you don't think you will never be heard. And just about that, be good for you for.

快点 发发发。

Well, program was produced by dim at a room people will put together today, show include and die bonds. So we chase micheli and a Cathy france wand, turney, jillie wilker and dian wu, or managing editor up in our senior editors, David amb. Our executive editor is a manual ry.

This american life is to go to public radio stations by P. R. X, the public radio exchange. Just a heads up to our life partners.

There is a new bonus episode this week that's out that you will find in your feed, everybody else, if you want to sign up and get this bonus content and other stuff, go to this american life at org slash life partners. Thanks this week to life partners Kelly dunn, out cano, R N K, hl, fit, Simons, lain sin, rob, neurology, paul and gene Thomas. Thank you guys. thanks. There is always to a program cofounder, misty mAnita, always comparing himself to mister potato head.

I have little glasses and holes in my ears.

I member her glass back next week. But the more stories of this american life.

you quite a for that one got a food, 每个 two be out for will join the 天 we we play。

Next, we're in the podcast to this american life. So many people this year personally feel like this election is up to them. They begin vining family members who have vote for the monitoring election sites. The canvassing, the fighting all suits. This week, we have some push to complete their missions, and we are from some of the people who president trump is valid retribution against about how they feel about the result that's next in the podcast or your local public radio station.

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