Why national problems are best solved locally

Nearly 250 years ago, America kicked its king to the curb, as this new nation began a great experiment with the most ambitious idea that has ever existed on planet Earth: that a diverse people can self-govern.
But to live and breathe free, our founders knew we would need to maintain uneasy relationships across “factions.” That’s how you solve problems without a fancy-pants king telling you what to do.
Fast-forward a couple of centuries and the mutual tolerance required to self-govern is rare. From the groups we join to the things we like on Facebook, we design our lives to surround ourselves with like-minded people.
With too much time spent in homogenous digital silos and not enough encountering people we disagree with in the real world, we’re losing the ability to see each other clearly or to learn something new, much less solve the complex challenges we face. This problem is big and it is dangerous.
Americans can be forgiven for looking to our national elected leaders to address this fracture in the body politic. But in America, it was never about the king; it has always been about the people.
As much as we might wish otherwise, healing our civic rupture has to start in the hometowns we share and in the space between us as we lead our everyday lives. I know this because we’ve seen it in our community.
Formed in Tallahassee, Florida, after a divisive issue left leaders wanting a better way, The Village Square is on a mission to build civic trust between people who don’t look or think alike. In this local revival of the quintessential American town hall, we’ve had hundreds of conversations with tens of thousands of people.
We talk in bars, we talk in churches, we talk across a hundred continuous tables in the middle of a downtown street. Through all this talking, we’ve discovered something truly remarkable: People are hard to hate close-up.
Yet divisive politicians and media figures would have us believe that estrangement from our fellow Americans is inevitable because the differences are so vast that there is simply no reason to communicate directly. We can only hope to vanquish “them.” These conflict profiteers know that when we are locked in mortal battle with each other, their market share grows.
This crisis is driven less by the fact that we disagree (our country was built for disagreement) than by the very distance we’ve allowed to grow between us. We don’t know each other, so we don’t trust each other. And if we don’t trust each other, we’ll believe the worst about each other.
Closing that distance changes everything, and no president can do that for us.
Years ago, inspired by The Village Square, my husband sparked a friendship with an acquaintance because of their political disagreements.
When you decide to move closer, occasionally you realize you agree. But more often you’re struck with the obvious good intentions of people, even when the difference of opinion is vast. Most importantly, in proximity to each other, humans have a superpower — we reciprocate kindness with kindness.
My husband and his friend still disagree, but politics is now about the 20th most important thing about their friendship.
Imagine if most of us felt this way about even just one political “foe”? That’s something within our control. It may sound scary at first, but we’ve been inviting people across the country to “take the dare” to reach out to their political opposite, whether that’s a friend from high school or a neighbor down the street. We’ve found real joy in these new friendships.
Existing communities can encourage these same unlikely relationships at scale — churches can gather with politically dissimilar congregations around mission work and left-leaning groups can partner with right-leaning ones. You can even start a Village Square in your hometown. In a digital age driving us apart, we can become intentional about occasionally coming together. It’s tragic if we don’t at least try.
If we citizens do our part, then the next time politicians hold a finger in the wind — as they are prone to do — they will see that the wind has shifted, and that we no longer wish to live our lives in the toxic binary created by our distance.
Together we can write the next chapter of our history, in our hometowns and with our family, friends and neighbors. In a country of, by and for the people — we shouldn’t have it any other way.
Liz Joyner is the founder and president of The Village Square.
This story appears in the November 2024 issue of Deseret Magazine. Learn more about how to subscribe.