The World Cup is happening right now (sad that it’s winding down, actually).

TVs around the world are tuned in, and it's taken the US by storm as well. Bars around the country were full of people you wouldn’t normally find rooting for the same thing. Strangers high-fiving on goals. Half the bar wearing the same colors.

This camaraderie is real. And nowadays it seems, increasingly rare.

A week or so ago, I spent a weekend watching the same thing happen, but this time it wasn’t centered on sports. It was focused on, of all things…politics.

Different Views, All In The Same Room

A National Convention was recently coordinated by an organization called Braver Angels. Three days at Temple University in Philadelphia. And here’s the rare part - the room had 400 Democrats, 400 Republicans, 200 independents, and 200 students.

That mix was on purpose. Braver Angels’ whole concept is to put people who disagree in the same room and see if they can find common ground. The topics of this particular convention were heavy-hitting ones: immigration, journalism, what civic culture is supposed to mean as we celebrate 250 years of America.

I drew for most of the weekend and watched what happens when the design works.

A White House correspondent ran a session on what journalism could look like in a renewed republic. Dedicated citizens who’d been working in and on immigration for thirty years sat next to people who’d been fired up about the issue since the administration changed. Attendees sang America the Beautiful on stage in the theater and then again in the hallway on floor 13 in the residence hall, late at night.

By the end of the weekend, the attendees had built a pledge together. People wrote down what they thought should be in it after each session, and the words got worked into the final version. It was a beautiful thing.

Rare Moments, Routine Practice

Braver Angels has been at this for about ten years. They've got fifteen thousand active members and somewhere north of seventy thousand volunteers through their events.

They run debates, workshops, and trainings in cities where people actually live. They've started a citizens commission on immigration and are pushing to let independents vote in primaries again.

You probably haven't heard of them. I hadn't either, until I was hired. Once I experienced what this group could accomplish, I wanted to change that, and I can do that in my small way right here.

Do you know why? Because Braver Angels is working to create a continual momentum. This is an important point - continual.

We see momentum in short bursts - the scenes around the country during the World Cup being the most recent example. These examples are also rare and short. The match ends, the strangers stop high-fiving, the room goes back to being a regular bar.

Braver Angels is trying to make the rare moment a routine practice. At scale, on purpose, with funding and volunteers and a ten-year track record.

I've got more to say about what I saw at Temple University days before the 250th anniversary. The pledge they wrote, the music on the 13th floor, the conversation between thirty-year veterans of immigration work and the fired-up immigration newcomers. That's coming.

But in the meantime, know that a lot of people are doing this work already. They're not making noise. They're just doing it. What would it be like if this way of being together wasn’t so rare? Can you imagine it?

Grateful you are here,

Wade

PS - I'm building a course on how I turn live conversations into drawings at events like this one. If that's a skill you want, get on the list here and I'll let you know when it's ready.