I Never Thought of It That Way: A Guide to Building Bridges in Dangerously Divided Times

PORCHLIGHT BOOKS JUNE 2022 NONFICTION BESTSELLER

＂Assigned reading for fractured families aspiring to a harmonious Thanksgiving dinner.＂

--New York Times

＂Anyone who sincerely wants to bridge the gaps in understanding will appreciate this book.＂

--Manhattan Book Review

Learn how to bring curiosity and courage to even the most difficult conversations across America’s polarized political divide with these actionable tools for navigating challenging disagreements.

Journalist Mónica Guzmán is the loving liberal daughter of Mexican immigrants who voted--twice--for Donald Trump. When the country could no longer see straight across the political divide, Mónica set out to find what was blinding us and discovered the most eye-opening tool we’re not using: our own built-in curiosity.

Partisanship is up, trust is down, and our social media feeds make us sure we’re right and everyone else is ignorant (or worse). But avoiding one another is hurting our relationships and our society.

In this timely, personal guide, Mónica, the chief storyteller for the national cross-partisan depolarization organization Braver Angels, takes you to the real front lines of a crisis that threatens to grind America to a halt--broken conversations among confounded people. She shows you how to overcome the fear and certainty that surround us to finally do what only seems impossible: understand and even learn from people in your life whose whole worldview is different from or even opposed to yours.

Drawing from cross-partisan conversations she’s had, organized, or witnessed everywhere from the echo chambers on social media to the wheat fields in Oregon to raw, unfiltered fights with her own family on election night, Mónica shows how you can put your natural sense of wonder to work for you immediately, finding the answers you need by talking with people--rather than about them--and asking the questions you want, curiously.

In these pages, you’ll learn:

• How to ask what you really want to know (even if you’re afraid to)
• How to grow smarter from even the most tense interactions, online or off
• How to cross boundaries and find common ground--with anyone

Whether you’re left, right, center, or not a fan of labels: If you’re ready to fight back against the confusion, heartbreak, and madness of our dangerously divided times--in your own life, at least--Mónica’s got the tools and fresh, surprising insights to prove that seeing where people are coming from isn’t just possible. It’s easier than you think.

Mónica Guzmán is a journalist and entrepreneur who lives for good conversation sparked by challenging questions. She’s the cofounder of The Evergrey, an award-winning newsletter and community in Seattle, and serves as an adviser to Braver Angels, a national organization out to depolarize America, and Together Washington, an organization building collaborative local relationships among leaders in Washington state. Mónica is a former columnist at The Seattle Times, GeekWire, and the Columbia Journalism Review. She studied social and political division as a 2019 Henry M. Jackson leadership fellow, and spent the 2015-2016 academic year studying how journalists can evolve to better meet the needs of a participatory public as a Nieman Fellow at Harvard. She is an immigrant, a Latina, a dual US-Mexico citizen, and the mom of two bilingual kids.