Polarization in this country how much the left hates the right, how much the right hates the left, and i decided to do something about it. We are all increasing increasingly interacting with people that agree with us. The book is built around my journey. Understand to someone, you have to see things from his point of view. I spent a year traveling the country, talking to folks i would not ordinarily talk to, consuming media from what i thought was the other side, and the book is about that journey. Host you changed your Party Registration when you did that. Why . Guest if youre going to commit to seeing things from another point of view, you are going to commit. For me, then that changing my media mix, changing who i talked to, and it also meant being a republican for a year, and that meant walking down to the Voter Registration office in washington, d. C. , leading my 94 democratic ward, and registering for a year as a republican. Was one of the statements deep down i love suspected i would not like many republicans if i mixed with them on a regular basis. Is that true . Guest let me put that in context. It sounds awful. There are 70 million republicans in the country maybe i would not like him. Today storypost where they asked democrats to pick a word or two that describe republicans, and republicans the same to describe democrats, and they put it up in a word cloud, and they are all negative on both sides. For democrats describing republicans it was greedy, bigoted, a selection of life bad words. I reacted negatively to these words, but month that like most people, i thought those were the right words to characterize them. At the end of the year, you get out, you spend a lot of time with a lot of different people. It will change your view of how you view the other side. I mean, a lot of our views of the other side is really from the fact that we are divided physically and demographically divided more than we have ever been. Getting to know your the other side will change a point of view and it changed my point of view after a year. Host lets talk about the issues of energy and the environment what you do to get the perspective you were looking for when it came to those issues . Guest so, a lot of the book is built around diving into a bunch of issues i was sure i was right on i was not in a, but i was sure i was right nonetheless. Guns, energy. I spent a lot of time with conservative experts, try to understand their perspective, but i also spent time in places like pikeville, kentucky, Eastern Kentucky coal country, trying to understand the issue of climate change, the issue of lets describe it as they ,ould obamas war on coal and try to see things from their point of view. When you are sitting in pikesville, kentucky, and you see the economic guts of the region ripped apart, it really does give you a different perspective on lots of different issues, including the environment, climate change, and government regulation. Host let me get the phone numbers so viewers can join as well. Host plenty of time with ken stern this morning. He will be with us until 9 00 a. M. I want to hear from you to get your reactions as well. Ken stern, who did you meet in pikeville, kentucky . It is really interesting when you go out and try to see the world. How do you do that . I ended up getting the name of a guy named roger ford, who was a local entrepreneur, newspaper columnist, and he decided to be my tour guide. A lovely guy. A wonderful guide. Introducing me to people around town former coal miners, current coal miners, people that lived in pikeville their entire lives. Drove out to fort branch ford branch, named after his family, and i spent time with his father, a retired pastor just a lot of different people who come from who i would not ordinarily get to know living in washington, d. C. , where i have grown up, and spent most of my life. Host you talk about growing up in washington, d c bubble,the liberal as it was, and how you are brought into it. Guest were all increasingly living in a bubble. It is called the big sort. We are choosing to live in neighborhoods that are homogenous politically. We increasingly have media that supports our own point of view. It is the confirmation bias. For me, a lifelong democrat, as i mentioned, i live in a 94 democratic war 100 democratic household, spent time in democratic politics, ran and pr for a number of you npr for a number of years. In my view it is a typical life in that i am surrounded by people that are likeminded. Host we want to start on the line for republicans this money. Joe is calling on that line. Joe, good morning. Where are you calling in from . Joe, are you with us this morning . Trevor in well go to seattle, washington, line for democrats. Go ahead. Caller hi, there. I wanted to ask i have a lot of conservative family members and such, and i comingle quite a bit, and it is hard getting past a point where we cant agree on facts, numbers, the resultson of words, from Government Entities and trusted sources. So, that is where i always have a problem to break through. I wanted to ask how he you know, what is the best way to get people out of that bubble, you know, if they are just going to deny the reasons for you, or deny the reasons you are giving to justify your position . Host trevor, thanks for the call. Ken stern, go ahead. Guest trevor, it is a really interesting question, and to a certain extent, i would say your expenses a little bit unusual in the fact that more and more we actually dont have Close Friends or relatives that are on the other side. The Washington Post it sounds like i spent all my time with the Washington Post they did a poll and they asked trump members if they had any Close Friends and personal family members voting for clinton and vice versa for clinton supporters, and this is virginia, a purple state that went for the dubai couple of points, and by and large 65 of people did not know anyone from the other side. That is the challenge, we are increasingly in a world where were only talking to people that agree with ourselves. It is really interesting. I spent my trip was not about trying to convince people who was right, who was wrong. It was about listening, trying to understand. When you spend a lot of time listening, it was easy for me to find points of agreement. I think of the hundreds of people i met along the way, it was almost always possible to find points of common ground. It did not mean we agreed on everything, but there was always places where we would come together. Trevor said something really interesting, which is the lack of trusted sources, i think that was his phrase. That is a real problem in this country we are increasingly skeptical of the facts from the other side, the news from the other side, and that is increasingly dividing us. When i talk to my friends who are still in the Mainstream Media i am still part of that Community Half the country thinks the media engages in fact news fake news. Only about 30 trust the Mainstream Media anymore. That is about the same trust numbers that donald trump has. In a world in which we cannot find common sources, it is going to be increasingly hard to find common ground. That is a real challenge we all have. That is what really worries me about the environment we live in now. The caller talking about not being able to agree on basic facts. Was there a fact you went into this where you are certain you are right on, you ended up changing your opinion on . There were lots of things. Part of the truth is we all have opinions, but most of us do not live in the political world all the time, the policy world all the time. Under 10 of americans ever go to a political rally or contribute to a campaign, and it is very difficult to be expert on lots of sus subject. Subjects. The one that led for me was gun control, gun rights. Im from washington, d. C. , in a world or people with uniform have guns, people without uniforms should not have guns. That was my view go in. I spent a lot of time with conservative columnist john locke, went to gun shows in texas, and delve into the complexity of the issue, different perspectives, and a really did come away with a different point of view on gun control and gun rights, not that i necessarily disagree with every thing i thought of before, but the difficulty of changing situation, and recognizing the fact that we have actually reduced gun homicides in this country by about 50 over the last 20 years, and it is relatively to do with gun rules. We spend on our time arguing about the wrong issues. We all hooked into these, sort of, whirlwind trench lines you are for it or against it. That is not the way the real world works. Host did you enjoy pig hunting . Well, i discovered i am a terrible shot. When i said some people have guns in some shouldnt, i am one who shouldnt. But i had an incredible time talking to folks. I spent the morning with a threegeneration family of georgians that drove all night long to go paid hunting in texas, and my tutor was isaac, and eightyearold boy who had grown up in with guns, and gave me lessons with a Diverse Group of uniform salesman. And hispanic former soldier, a serbianmily man, a gettingt we were diverse perspectives from people i would not ordinarily no. It meant a lot to me. It meant i had an extraordinary experience. Host did you hit anything . Guest well, it is a really good question. It is a matter of some debate a year and a half later. They gave me credit for a kill i am skeptical about. Whether i did anything more than give a good fright to that pigs they were nice enough to give me a kill for that day. Host steve. Democrat. Go ahead. Caller my comment is actually, two comments. Number one, i began working as an adult in my profession i had just turned 21 or 22 when Ronald Reagan was elected, and i felt like anyone who did not vote republican was profiled. Democrat, and i consider myself a progressive, but i have never asked for a i have handout probably worked about 60 hours a week for most of my life, like most people my age. I dont want to turn the world to socialism. I dont want to take god out of our schools, and i feel like we were profiled. People that voted democrat for to reason were profiled you work into what the Reagan Administration started, and what the talk radio shows like Rush Limbaugh started and continued into the 1990s, what they call the liberal underclass. Rush limbaugh, and coulter, and all of those ann coulter and all of those. I feel like the generation after me i hate to use this term but the millenniums coming up, i feel this political partisanship will go away. Maybe there is more partisanship that might come, but all the things that made us politically partisan and may does not trust the other side, made us not trust the other side, and just for parity, i have a brother that is a staunch conservative, he is not a racist, and he would give you the shirt off his back no matter who you are. I feel the next generation will outlive all of this. Host got you. Thanks for the call. Ken stern. I hope steve is right, but all the data suggests the trends are going in the wrong way. It is interesting the way he puts it we are profiling the side. I think that is a pretty apt phrase where we are assuming a lot about the other side. Republicans do it to democrats in terms of, you know, they hate hard work, or they are snowflakes, or a bunch of other phrases, and democrats are doing it with the other side that are a bunch of deplorables, they hate minorities those trends, all the data what is called a heat index, how much we dislike the other side, are all going up, even though we do not disagree on all the issues. One of the things that drove me around this book was the data that shows on the issues we are not more divided than we were 25 years ago, but we dislike the other side and that is because we are increasingly isolated from the other side, and when you dont know them when you dont have a conservative brother like steve does, it is easier and easier to demagogue them, and this notion of deplorables for me and it goes both ways. There is a liberal bubble, there is a conservative bubble. For me, it was about getting outside the liberal bubble and challenging my preconceptions about conservatives. One thing i did you cannot understand conservatives in this country without understanding evangelicals who potentially republican for candidates. I spent time in churches and i went to something called her banner, a gathering urbana, a youth,ng of evangelical about 15,000 of them. From washington, d. C. , a stranger in a strange land there. It was about fighting cancer care about refugees not want kids it was about finding who care about refugees, not want to keep them out. It was a different conception than what i got from my meeting my world him washington, d. C. Host you met a man named sam adams. Who is he . Guest he now works in washington, d. C. , but he was a man of history, the first openly city, in oregon. Distrustingery much the evangelical community because of their position on gay rights, and he had a lot of reasons to be mistrusting of them, but he forged a partnership. Sam forged a partnership with one of the leading evangelical churches in portland led by a man who wanted to show what the evangelical community was for, not what they are against, and they forged what they called city serve, and invested a lot of resources in helping portland, helping the schools, Public Service programs. When i talked to sam, one of the things i he said to me that has lived with me throughout the process was his preconception going into that partnership was they wouldnt have a lot of points of agreement, but what he said to me was on any 10 issues i was going to agree with the other side on eight issues. Were never going to agree on abortion, gay rights, but we agreed on so much. Why do we spent time focusing on the two when we have the eight to talk about. Host fort washington, maryland. Joe is a republican. Go ahead. Caller how are you doing question mark host doing . Host doing well. Caller good to hear your voice. I want to ask the gentleman im a republican. This is a direct question to you or me. We have, as republicans, done what we needed to do to win, but we need to look at what we and how we have a compassed what we accomplished. Have accomplished what we accomplished. Ourselves is it sustain our christianity, but support the man is in their that is in the . In their [indiscernible] host you are going in and out. What is the question, joe . Caller the question is how morally sound are we as republicans to allow what has happened. Host got your question, joe. Ken stern . Guest that is a complicated question or it allows for a complicated answer. When i say i love to learn the right, does it mean i learned to agree with everything the conservative world says, certainly not everything the republican world says. Now i think of myself as independent. The republican ted a great deal of success had a great deal of success elector lee the white house, the senate and the house, two thirds of state legislatures and governorships i think that is they are running up against the fact that donald trump a product of polarization. He did not cause polarization in the country. I think he is leading us down a path of greater and greater disharmony, and i do not think it is working particularly well for him, for the second party, and i think we will see the results of that in the next couple of years. Independent. Is an tennessee. Go ahead. Caller my question is you left the democrats and go to republicans because they have the right ideas or the right of the view. When you look at donald trump, hannity when they preach their views to someone like me i want america to work together. I work two jobs. I am single. I pay a lot of money. Togethererica to come and work so that people like me, instead of working two jobs, i can work one job. Theyk market celebrated, but i will be working two jobs or overtime. Jobs,e going to create but they are going to be [indiscernible] host i think we got your point, william. Ken stern, i will let you respond. Guest i agree with that. I think history actually shows we do better when we work together, and, you know, on the local level, though level, you actually see that a lot. You see a lot more democrats and republicans finding ways to work together. Not always. There are plenty of counterexamples. You find one people are facetoface, when they are forced to find common ground, they often do, and things tend to work better. I think we are being poorly served by both Political Parties who are, i think, practicing the politics of division, and i think the result of that is more and more anger, more dysfunction in washington, more and more anger in washington i was going to say a virtuous circle, on virtuousan circle. We have a lot of reasons to be angry at the leaders of our political party, who i do think our reflecting the views of most americans, and i think are causing a lot more division, and that is in the Political Parties, also in the media. I think we are going down the wrong path as william suggests. Host you mentioned the media you mentioned you were previously the ceo of National Public radio. Annmuch hannity, how much coulter, how much Rush Limbaugh did you end up watching during the course of the year . So media dietre soul media diet . Guest no, too much too much for my sanity, my media diet. I spent a lot of time with the bright parts, with steve bannon breitbart,ecame steve bannon, before he became famous. Lets take breitbart for example. It really is about driving discord. If you spent time looking at how dan and, alex steve bannon, chooservel and others stories and drive the negative, it is about encouraging negative toward the other side. It does not mean the Mainstream Media has been about it. I wore wrote an article for vanity fair on one day, a foundof life story, and i 21 articles on donald trump in the sports section, style, metro, and all of them were negative. I think when that happens i trump,a fan of donald but when the narrative is so onesided, people feel disenfranchised, patronized, and i hear a lot of that during my year on the road. Host shreveport. Republican. Caller hi, john. Nice to talk to you this month. En, how do we get to where we can learn about both sides . All i hear with a media is a bias, and i want to learn more about what i want foren, how doy children. I want to they are pushing john kasich now, and i do not necessarily know anything about him. Onould like a suggestion where people can get good information and wait things out because i think the media is