America Talks provides a weekend of connection across the political divide during a time of deep division in America.
America Talks is organized by a coalition of nonpartisan, bridge-building organizations and promoted via news media partners. Americans who sign up for the event will be matched by an algorithm with people with different political opinions. Participants have online conversations over Junto, a secure video conversation platform with a built-in conversation guide.
In America today, it can feel difficult to bridge our divides. We might feel tempted to give up or not even try. But this puts America on a shaky path, as we increasingly demean, demonize, and dehumanize each other. Political gridlock and dysfunction, as well as societal and cultural rifts, are only deepening.
America Talks is a powerful two-day event that invites Americans to connect one-on-one, face-to-face on video across our political divides. By doing so, we remind ourselves that the “other” is – just like us – a person with family, friends, hopes, fears, values, beliefs, and intrinsic worth.
America Talks
America Talks takes place the weekend of June 12-13, 2021. Learn more.
America Talks is a fiscally sponsored project of Listen First Project, a 501c3 nonprofit, nonpartisan organization. Listen First Project leads the collaborative movement to heal America’s divides, enhancing the impact, visibility and voice of the interpersonal bridge building field by aggregating, aligning, and amplifying the efforts of 250+ #ListenFirst Coalition partners into large scale, collective campaigns and strategies.
My Country Talks
As filter bubbles and political polarization divide people, the chances to speak to someone who truly thinks differently from you are slowly diminishing. Yet social science experts cite realtime, face-to-face conversation as highly effective, dismantling the biases, prejudices, and stereotypes that fuel division. So how can we get more people talking?
My Country Talks is an international platform for political dialogue. Its matching software sets up one-on-one discussions between people with completely different views and establishes a new form of political debate. My Country Talks has engaged tens of thousands of participants around the world in the process of dialogue and its events have a proven impact.
"Even just a two-hour conversation between people with completely different political views is enough to weaken polarization. The meetings helped dismantle prejudices against those who think differently and, after the conversations, participants considered people with other views on average to be less incompetent, less malicious and less poorly informed." - Prof Armin Falk, University of Bonn.
Listen First Project
Listen First Project is helping organize America Talks. It leads the collaborative movement to heal America by enhancing the impact, visibility and voice of the interpersonal bridge building field by aggregating, aligning, and amplifying the efforts of 300+ #ListenFirst Coalition partners into large scale, collective campaigns and strategies.