Civic CPR: Reviving Our Humanity From Heart-stopping Division

I have a really unfair advantage. I can deal with almost anyone.

Shame on me for never telling you how I did it. That’s about to change.

It’s hard to watch so many people hesitate to engage in deep discussions with each other. Some folks go into a kind of panic response, eyes widening, voice tensing, teeth clenching, fists clenching… it’s as if I’d said “Put up your dukes.” Because… what if someone gets hurt? Meanwhile, here I am with 25 years’ experience helping people turn political conflict into productive connection, knowing that our divisions could be much less miserable if more people knew what I know.

And that’s my fault. I’ve never thought to share my knowledge until now. Crazy.

My old show 1A built a strong fanbase, but I suspect it also made civic engagement feel like a spectator sport: one that everyday people were content to never play. I was so good at it that many people often told me they were dazzled by my skills, as if they could never do what I did. That might be true, but what could they do if they tried? What was their potential?

I know a great deal about asking questions, active listening, managing hostile encounters, moderating debates and encouraging audience participation. Now I want to make up for that missed opportunity, finding ways to scale my skills by sharing a few all-purpose techniques.

Let’s call it Civic CPR.

This is about crisis management, not moral endorsement.

Connection is a scalable skill

When someone’s life is in danger, we need doctors, nurses, firefighters and paramedics ready to go. However, we also need as many people to learn CPR as possible, filling the gap between the outbreak of a crisis and the arrival of professionals. Sharing these basic skills doesn’t weaken the case for training great doctors. Indeed, it keeps us all safer: lifesaving aid moves faster and, if nothing else, it spares caregivers from burying so many people who didn’t have to die.

Public radio is a fantastic medium for meaningful conversation, and podcasts continue to try and be the best of what talk radio once was. The problem is, the skills I learned on public radio are getting diluted. People are imitating a version of a take on an interpretation of what hosts do, and — can we be real for a second? — it’s not usually that good. The “top” shows are often either (A) hard-driving pundits who don’t really need guests, or (B) celebrities chatting with celebrities.

How many of those shows actually help you connect with the people you need to?

This is the core unmet need of our democracy: a lack of training in how to connect, especially connecting through conflict. No one teaches us how to converse, or how to manage conflict in a conversation, and so we either avoid confrontation altogether or revel in hearing someone denounce the other side (often without the other side in the room). If everyone had a touch of skill at deep conversation, today’s media business model would implode, because the standards would rise beyond what many conglomerates are willing to do.

Oh, how I long to disrupt this market.

Why should I learn to engage people I don’t like?

Note that I’ve compared this to CPR. When conflict breaks out, I know you’d rather have a fire extinguisher! Sorry, but conflict doesn’t work that way: when someone feels like you’re trying to douse their “fire”, they tend to throw fuel on it, hoping you’ll run from the heat. Having others throw water on your perspective is a horrible feeling, and that feeling will eclipse anything else you might say or do to calm things down. It doesn’t get results.

CPR, on the other hand, requires you to assess the situation before taking action. You don’t need to start rescue breaths or compressions unless the person actually isn’t breathing. They might need the Heimlich maneuver: maybe they’re choking. You have to get close, observe, focus, and act. That is what effective communication actually takes. Dealing with each other from a distance like a fire we dare not touch isn’t working. And it never will.

When I talk about helping people connect, or when I talk to people about the topic of my TED Talk, the reactions always have a bit of a “bless your heart” quality to them. They know it’s a worthy cause, but it also feels like a lost cause. Things are crazy, and the lunatics are running the asylum while they burn it down for the insurance money. Good thing I’m trying to do this because, well, no one else is crazy enough to.

“You’re doing the Lord’s work!” people would say. It never landed as a compliment. More like an epitaph.

So let’s deal with three key objections to equipping yourself to handle conflict: three of the things I believe were underlying those “compliments”. I get why people push back on what I’m saying, but dig just slightly under the surface and you’ll see the case for learning a little Civic CPR is pretty strong.

Objection #1: F-ck ‘em. I’d rather fight.

Maybe you’re not sure this is the way to go — finding ways to ease conflict with your political foes — because some people’s views are inherently dangerous and need to be beaten back. I get it. Helping an ideological adversary can feel like a tacit acceptance: "I disagree, but I'm a nice person, so here, let's let you off the hook this time without getting chewed out for your idiotic views."

If that’s the case, then consider this: suppose you saw someone, through their own stupidity, shoot themselves. Not fatally, but wounded. And they turned to you and shouted, "HELP ME!!!" Would you let them bleed to death? Gosh, I hope not. But as you bandaged their wounds, would you chew them out for being an idiot? Absolutely!

This is about crisis management, not moral endorsement. It's not your job to be neutral in the face of foolishness. If it was, then you'd be a paramedic. The goal is to equip ourselves with some basic skills that can ease hostilities quickly. What you think of a situation and whether to express your thoughts will always be your choice, but our clashes of beliefs can do tangible damage. They can get people hurt, or worse.

You can think what you want, and still do what's right. The alternative is worse.

Anger is an asset that shouldn’t be given away.

Objection #2: It’s between A & B. I’m gonna C my way out.

Conflict kinda sucks. Most people don’t go looking for it unless they just like to fight (and I’ll deal with that in Objection #3). For the other 99.999% of us, we’re just looking for a little peace of mind. Why would anyone take my advice if it means engaging more with conflict instead of less?

Simply put, conflict will come anyway. No matter how much you minimize it, something will flare up sooner or later. Why not prepare to navigate it? Conflict can be necessary, just, and even brave. The trick is navigating it so that the focus remains on the core issue and not on the confrontation itself.

If I believe X, and you believe Y, and if Y is morally reprehensible to me, punching you in the face over your belief in Y doesn't ennoble X! Similarly, if your belief in Y gets you killed, then no amount of my CPR will save you. But for the majority of conflicts you’ll endure in your life, resolving it is your smartest, safest bet. And you don’t have to wait for anyone to do that for you.

Civic CPR is about making confrontations productive and survivable so that the focus remains on comparing conflicting perspectives. If our social bonds keep breaking, the conflict can't happen and no one can win, because no one will be able to talk to anyone. This is an effort to keep people engaged sustainably and productively. If confrontations are going to happen anyway, then let’s face them intelligently.

Objection #3: You want me to deal with toxic people? BYE.

This would be much easier if we were dealing with conflicts driven by some external force beyond anyone’s control. The reality is, our biggest conflicts are caused by people: especially people who profit from strife. Amanda Ripley calls them “conflict entrepreneurs” (she’s got a great Substack about navigating conflict, BTW). People like that can defy even the most expert Civic CPR efforts. How do you deal with flamethrowers who just want to fight for fighting’s sake?

Don’t. If someone is fundamentally determined to prevent productive conflict, and you’ve tried to engage productively, get away from them. Tap out. Move on.

It's that old line about playing chess with a pigeon: they kick over the pieces, crap on the board and then fly back to their flock as if they won! Not worth it.

If you cannot avoid dealing with a bad-faith actor, use that “mental microscope” I mentioned in my TED Talk. (If you missed it, you can watch that moment here.) That can give you the emotional shielding to both endure the encounter and starve them of the upset reactions that feed their nastiness.

Whatever you do, don’t give them what they want most: your anger. It’s an asset that shouldn’t be given away. Strong feelings can be intensely influential when used properly. In a poisoned confrontation, strong feelings are just trophies to be collected: a prize won for ticking you off.

So here’s your first bit of Civic CPR training, on managing your anger in confrontations:

Ask this diagnostic question: is my anger the TRUTH, or the TROPHY?

• If your anger is the truth, then the other person responds to it reasonably. They should read it as a legitimate signal of how the issue affects you. Even if it makes them upset, they’re responding to the anger itself.
• If your anger is the trophy, then the other person celebrates it. They revel in making you take their bait, write you off, mock your emotions, etc. You can tell they’re in it for trophies if they appear happier or more content once you’re mad. That’s especially true if they keep brawling with you to keep you upset.

Remember, paramedics are paid to bandage wounds, not break up fights. You have the right to set and enforce boundaries, so don’t apologize for walking away.

Too many people make a fortune on lies and hoaxes and division, and they are using every trick in the book (now augmented by generative AI) to flood our minds with toxic waste. Our best chance to stop them is to defend the only bond that can be tighter than our connection to technology: our connection to each other.

So in the weeks to come I’ll share more of what I know, and I’ll launch a limited cohort of people who are serious about turning conflict into connection. Yes, I have an unfair advantage, but it’s really nothing more than an uncommon education. I’m not magical: I’m skilled, and anyone can build my skills. You might even be able to connect with people I can’t, simply because you have more in common with them than I ever will.

I am overwhelmingly excited at the possibility of helping people live more peaceably with one another. It gets me out of bed every morning. It also nags me all day long, because I worry that people like me — people with my skills — are outnumbered by the conflict entrepreneurs. Do we let it stay that way and just accept our fate, or do we upskill and push back?

No more waiting for anyone else to solve our problems. I can’t do it alone, but We the People are more than enough.