Broken america about how both sides need to stop ranting and start listening, because im very concerned about our current political environment. My husband jimmy and i have two children, they are 20 and 18, and i am concerned about the environment they are growing up in. It is important to disagree agreeably. We need to be able to talk about issues that are important to our country in a way that makes progress and not screaming at , each other. Jesse you are the daughter of former House Speaker newt gingrich. What was that childhood like . And tell me about what you want people to take away from this book. Jackie i am newts youngest daughter. I have a sister, kathy, who is three and a half years older. People often ask me what it was newts daughter. The truth is it is all i have ever known. He began in politics when i was very young. We lived in a rural town in georgia. I grew up in carrollton, georgia, where he he was a college professor. And the first two times that he ran for congress, he lost. This is in the 1970s, a different world than we are in today. No social media, no internet. We could not afford any tv out of atlanta, so most of the campaigning was done in the car on the road, with the family in tow. I spent a lot of time campaigning, learned about those defeats, and i talk about this in the book, i remember after my dad lost, one of the School Administrators came to me and said he was glad that my father lost. Im sure he was, im not sure why he was telling nml an Elementary School child that, but i learned a lot from the lessons. It hasnt in so many ways framed the way i think about life and politics. Jesse your Life Experience comes out in this book. What do you want people to take away after they finish reading our broken america . Jackie we have a chance to move forward in this country, but we have to do it very thoughtfully. The way i do it in atlanta, my husband and i live in atlanta, georgia, we do a couple things. We focus on community we focus , on problems in our community that we care about. For our family, it is so homelessness, early education, the environment and also church. And we spend time working on those issues with people from anywhere on the political spectrum. We dont care if you are republican or democrat, and we make progress together. So you can have your own political identity, but it does not need to be all you are. To get away from this, one side or the other, and to do that you have to get out and get , active in the community. Jesse i want to read a little bit from your book, our broken america, heres what you wrote. People from all political stripes are worried about the high level of polarization, and you have probably noticed it is virtually impossible to have a civil discussion about politics. All too often, i have steered conversations away from politics to avoid getting trapped. It has become so prevalent that it has silenced people and stop ped them from engaging with each other. Give me a situation where you have had to steer things away from politics because it has gotten to polarized . Jackie my father is newt gingrich, so for instance, so i went through a program 1. 5 years ago called leadership atlanta. And during that program, i didnt tell anyone who my dad was, because i knew once they knew who he was, it would change their opinion of me. I was very careful not to let people know. Even after the program was over, many people were surprised that i was newts daughter. We so free judge, and this happens on both sides, im not saying one or the other, but both sides, it is interesting, almost half of republicans and democrats dislike the other side without knowing who they are. And in addition to that, 64 of democrats and 55 of republicans have few or no friends on the opposite side. What has happened is that we have kind of selfselected ourselves by party. And what happens is we begin to , hate each other without knowing each other. And that is a real problem. Jesse what is a quick solution you see for that . What is one thing you could tell us really quickly that will get us past this . Jackie find someone of the opposite party and go to lunch with them, and learn about them as a person, not about whatever you hear on whatever form of media you listen to. If you have someone who lives in new england, is a democrat and watches msnbc, you have a republican who lives in the south and watches fox news, they have two worldviews the dont really intersect at all. But if they can get out of that, meet one another and maybe have a discussion over lunch, it makes a difference as you begin to see people as people, versus someone who is labeled as another party. Jesse i want to bring up a public it pinyon pole, they asked people the best way to understand people from the opposite Political Party. Here is what those numbers look like. 27 of republicans and 21 of democrats said the best way to understand the opposite Political Party is just what you said knowing someone who is a , republican or democrat. 15 of republicans and 25 of democrats say the best way is to understand the opposite Political Party is through the news media. Others said the best way to understand someone of the opposite Political Party is through social media. 31 of republicans and 23 of democrats say they dont have a good way. Thats almost a third of the people who say there is not a good way to understand of people understand people with differing political opinions. Where does that leave america . Jackie i think it is sad. You make a great we are a point, country where we have free speech, the ability to officials, and we have the ability to talk and believe what we want to believe. We need to use that. We need to be able to engage in hard discussions and not take it personally. Unfortunately, i think a few things have happened and i talk about them and our broken america that have really played an unhealthy environment. We have Political Parties that are labeled as colors instead of ideology. The ideology has really pulled apart from both parties, and because of that people think of themselves as belonging to a team, blue team, red team, versus the belief system underneath it. We have gone through a transitional phase and we need to step out of it and learn how to talk and listen to other. One jesse lets let our viewers join in the conversation. We are going to open up regular lines for this segment. If you are a republican and you want to talk about our broken america with our guest, you can call in at 202 7488001. If you are a democrat, we want to hear from you at 202 7488000. Independents, your line is 202 7488002. Keep in mind, you can always text us at 202 7488003 and we are always reading on social media, twitter and facebook. Facebook. Com cspan. Jackie, one of the places you point out in your book that is a problem is the media. I want to read a little bit from your book where you say gone are the days of unbiased factbased news. It is now dominated by opinion labeled as news. It is said that people truly dont know the difference between news and opinion. The media are partly to blame for the devolution of news into infotainment. Opinionbased news has a place in our world, but we need to be able to understand the difference between fact and opinion. Tell us a little about what youre talking about there, jackie. Jackie if you think about it, what i was growing up, probably when you were growing up, there hour where they delivered the news here is what , happened today. Then we talk about it the next day. Now what you get is 24 hour shows, 24 hour news channels, that really are more opinion. They dont talk about what has happened but they talk about , their opinion about what has happened. There is nothing wrong with that as long as people who are , watching understand it is opinion, and not factbased. For me, i watch a variety of news channels, a variety of ways to get information, so i understand the different biases. The challenge is when people look at those shows and they dont understand the bias in the show itself. Jesse that means i have to ask you, where do you get your news . When people ask me, i tell them i watch a bunch of different stations and i read a bunch of different newspapers. Whered you get your news . Thing, i do the same read anything from the new york the washington times, the Washington Post, the. Lanta constitutionjournal the atlanta journalconstitution. I do watch some tv but not much. I watch cnn, fox, msnbc. I watch very little tv. I write a column every week. When i am researching for my column, i try to find as many source documents as i can. The transcript of the speech, the call, the actual document of whatever happened. Maybe the bill that was passed, i have read through bills before. I think it is important when people talk about things to get down to the original document of what happened. Jesse here is another bit from the public agenda paul that i want to bring up. When they asked americans who promotes mostly destructive debates, National Political leaders came in at 78 . Social media was number two at 74 . News media was at 59 . How do we change the conversation among political leaders who are looking to get elected and reelected . How do we get them to change the conversation . Jackie i think it is a real challenge. You make a great point. When someone is trying to get reelected, part of what they talk about is partisan politics. That is just the way it is. But we need to look at a couple of things. I talk about this in our broken america, in the end, what people really want from leaders is they want an optimistic view of the future. We need to think about our country and what it means, and we need to have someone articulate the future for all americans. I will give you an example, one of my favorite quotes is from margaret thatcher, first you need to win the argument and then you need to win the vote. All too often today, we have politicians that try to win the vote without winning the argument. To win the argument, it does not mean screaming at the other side and telling them how terrible they are. That doesnt win an argument, it shuts them down. To win an argument you really , have to listen to the other side, to understand what they , and then to articulate your position in such a way that they understand where you are going, and they want to join you. Very, very different model. Jesse lets let some of our viewers join in the conversation. Lets start with mitchell in new jersey on the democratic line. Good morning. Caller good morning to you. Good morning ms. Cushman. To geteciate the need along with people from different local parties. I just spent the holidays with my motherinlaw, who is an avid republican. I spent Christmas Eve also with a bunch of trump supporters, and i work with people who are republicans. But under no circumstances in my i want to make a false equivalency argument that all the political positions are equally based. They are not, in my mind, and probably not in the minds of republicans, either. Politically, i am saying politically, now, i think they need to be shut down. And i am helping, and i will do what i can to ensure that that happens in the next election. I think the whole impeachment process that we are engaged in is also to set up the fall of the republicans, because they will not remove trump. And i think that is a very real thing. And you are talking about shutting people down in debate i , used to coach debate in high school, so i would always have my kids learn learn learn i would always have my kids learn both sides of an argument. We are seeing a chance of locking people up. Even your father, when he was running for office, had a very stern tone that was shutting down the other side, he was even yelling at moderators of different talkshows. Yes you are right, we need to , get along as people. I accept what you say about that, and yes, we need to understand arguments better and we need to filter out the news sources better. But at the end of the day, not everything is absolutely equal. Their says this, our side says this and then there is a perfect middle. Jesse go ahead and respond. Jackie i am trying to find out what the question was. Maybe you can help me with that. The challenge is, yes, we do have different opinions and people have their own perspectives and that is part of , the process we have in our country. If you want to go to a country where everyone has the same opinion and they believe the same thing, go to a country where they make you do that. Go to cuba or russia. Go somewhere where the government makes you believe what they want to believe. That is not our country. That has never been our country. I am not saying you have to agree with my side or i have to agree with your slide agree with your side. That is the whole point of our broken america, we need to have these discussions. We just need to understand that these are policy discussions and not personal discussions. I think that is where it gets hard. Jesse a lot of us have just finished the holidays with our families and those discussions not only go on in the news media, they went on during the dinner table at the holidays. If you cant have a civil discussions civil discussion at home, how are you going to have it out in public . Jackie let me tell you that my husband and i i will call it a , mix marriage from a political standpoint. My father is former speaker of the house newt gingrich, he is republican. As mitchell mentioned, he was outspoken and continues to be outspoken. We kind of know where he comes from, and i am republican, as well, clearly in a different tone. My husbands family, his grandfather was philip boston, now passed away, but he was the ambassador to australia under president jimmy carter. He was one of the supporters when carter ran for governor of georgia, so a very long democratic family that is very involved in politics. So when we began dating and got serious and became engaged, we were quite nervous about having my father meet his family, in particular his grandmother, who was still alive then. She was the matriarch at that time of the family. But they did, we all got together, and they got along famously. They did not agree on politics or policy necessarily, all the time, but they got along so well that my father told my grandmotherinlaw before he made the public announcement that he would run for president , and she assured him that even know he was a republican, she would support him. But back to your question about conversations at the dinner table, my suggestion is to be quiet and listen to the other side. And at least if you dont agree with them, you might begin to understand why they think how they do. Understand why they believe what they do. Jesse i want to read you from the gallup poll on polarized nation. This surprised me because the author said there is a good part polarized nation polarization. An ideological Reference Group can have positive effects for individuals who gain meaning and purpose in life from social solidarity with a group while railing against threatening enemies. Partisan, us versus them easier for many individuals to handle cognitively, rather than complex approaches that take into effect multiple pluses and minuses. There are benefits for businesses that can take advantage and monetize behavior of emotionallydriven partisans seeking reinforcement of their views. So there are some good things to ization. Polar jackie i had not seen that, that is fascinating. But i talk about this in our broken america. One of the things that happened in the last few decades is we have become less religious as a nation. While we are spiritual and we believe in god, there are fewer of us that belong to a religion and go every week. Additionally if you look at , people who believe god can help our nation, over half of us believe god can help our nation, but there are fewer of us that belong to religion. Im saying this in context with your pole, if you look at democrats and republicans and what brings meaning to their life for republicans, the number , one category is religion. Someone who believes in god. For democrats, the number one area is either arts, culture, and under that is social organizations and groups. So one of the things i discuss in our broken america is, is there shifting of how we identify ourselves from organized religion to a political cause . I think there is. I talk about that in the book. The other thing i found interesting is, we talked about Companies Taking advantage of the emotional attachment of both parties. And yes, that helps the es, but it makes me wonder how much are they fueling it and making it worse along the way . Jesse lets go back to the phones and see if we can get a question from ralph, who is calling from washington, d. C. On the independent line. Good morning. Caller good morning. It is a relevant topic. Thank you for bringing it up. I am strictly independent. I actually despise both the hard left and hard right. I think those folks are really just crazy. What we are seeing now in the i was recently with a friend, we had a conversation about immigration and i keep , bringing up facts and pretty soon he starts talking about racists, nazis, socialists, all these terms that people are being indoctrinated with. I look at the media and what they are doing is they are fanning the flames of this. If you go back and look at the , say the covington kids, or you go back and look at some of the other things that have led to violence, the media portrays a halftruth, a story, for example rodney king. Everyone hates the idea of a cop beating somebody, but they did not show the guy on the ground attacking the police. I come from a rough neighborhood in chicago. If you attack a police officer, you are going to get beat down. I am sorry, but that happens. But what they did was, they only portrayed a small segment of it, they fanned the flames, and 67 people died because of it. So the media is feeding into this, and i dont know for what gain. Maybe they are trying to keep us looking at something other than the wars or the confiscation of wealth by the top 1 10 of 1 , but look at the media. Jesse based on his comments, what you tell people about their News Consumption . And how will that help solve this problem . Jackie i think he raised a great point. First of all, what has happened is, in a rush to break news and get on the air fast, there is often a lack of making sure it is accurate. We even saw this with the recent movie out about richard jewell. It was an old case in atlanta , and he was found innocent, but it was a rush to judgment and in the media and it ruined , his life. If you look at the covington is an attorney in n wood, lynnwood, li and he has been representing the gentleman in that case and they have recovered some damages and made progress. You can watch the process of him on twitter talking about what is truth and what is not truth. We have to be very conscious of news to make sure what we are seeing is truth, and not partial information, and not bad information. And i do think that as attorneys wood track this down and make sure the damages are paid and the truth comes out, i think news organizations will become more careful with what they give out to the public. Jesse we have talked about the political ramifications of partisan polarization and partisan Political Division, but i want to talk about what this poll says about the personal impact on Political Division. The public agenda pole says the impact of Political Division was says the agenda poll impact of Political Division was, 11 of people experience depression, anxiety or sadness because of Political Division. 10 of the people in the poll lost friends or had serious fights. And 9 said they got less involved in civic and political life because of polarization. 5 of people said Political Division caused them to get more involved in civic and political life, but those numbers of people experiencing depression, losing fights with family, getting less involved in political life, that is exactly what we dont want as americans, correct . Jackie you are exactly right. A couple things i talk about in our broken america, the first thing i talk about is we need to reframe it. We need to reframe how we think about discussing politics. Currently we are in this position where we have to win, we have to win, we have to win an argument. My theory is we need to reframe it that we need to be grateful we can have this debate, we can have this discussions, and we live in a country where we can have differing opinions. When you begin to understand that, it gives you a different perspective. I will give you an example. Years ago i went to harvard with my dad, he was giving a speech at the law school. One of the students came up to him, and he is a republican, and he said the reason he went to was, they knew that if he could debate well at harvard, which has a liberal bias from his perspective, that he would do great in the world. He deliberately chose a place where he had to hone his argument, had to get better and did, to bet what he able to do better later on. Going back to my initial discussion about margaret thatcher, first you win the argument and then you win the vote, i think especially for politicians, they should look at this debate as a chance to hone their argument and get better at what they believe, articulating it as opposed to looking at a , way to scream at the other side. Jesse lets go back to the phone lines and talk to william , who is calling from bay city, texas on the republican line. Good morning. Caller i am living in texas but i am from missouri. But i am tired of hearing about broken america. America is not broken. America had a revolutionary war , and we had a civil war. United we are a independent country. , america is strong and we will stay strong and there is nothing nobody will do about that, except for the people in house who are causing all these problems. They need to stop. Thank you. Jesse go ahead and respond. Jackie i agree that the structure of america is not broken. Unfortunately the majority of , americans think our political system is broken, and that is what i address in our broken america, that we need to understand where we have a government where we discuss policies, and to not take it personally. I totally agree with them, i dont think our government framework is broken. I just think our political process right now could use a lot of work. Personally. I totally agree with them, i jesse is it more a matter of perception . Is it more that americans think that this polarization is equal to broken government, or is it that actually there is a process somewhere we need to change . Jackie i think it is a little bit of both. Let me explain. We have pulled apart from an it from an ideology standpoint between the parties. There used to be a 22 point overlap in terms of ideology. You would have moderate democrats, moderate republicans and they would be close in terms of belief systems. Thathat has both now has pulled apart, and there is really only a 2 overlap. And we are broken in some other ways. The other thing that has happened is, before social media, before cable tv, something would happen in politics and we would hear about it later. Now, we can hold our phones and look at twitter and hear things immediately, over and over. So the speed of information has changed a lot, so a lot of it is the infrastructure around the process. But if you look at how information is reported on the major news channels, it is more about things that dont work, than things that do work. Jesse one thing we have talked about a lot is the television medium. How has social media played a role in this . Has social media played a role in this . Jackie social media absolutely has played a role in this. Jesse one thing we have talkede people did not have a natural outlet, that werent on tv now , have a way to speak up. But in a lot of ways it is bad. If you are having a discussion with someone, if you have two people sitting across the table and discussing a topic, because they are personally next to each other, because they can see each other, it is less likely to get heated than if they are on their phone at 3 00 a. M. , tweeting at each other. Plus, you have accounts that mask the name, you dont even know who they are, so people can troll each other easily. I think there is a little bit of both. I do use twitter. I dont look at it as a place to get all of my information and certainly, if someone is going to tweet something nasty at me and they dont have a real account, mi really going to take them seriously . No. Jesse kevin is calling from colorado on the democratic line. Kevin, do you have a question . Caller i have a comment and a question. This is a fascinating conversation, first of all, very good. I dont think it is the politics that divide us. It is the values. Actually,t on it, very well, what she was talking about religious thing. That is the number one thing for republicans that you know, the ones that you know, southern evangelical, they are churchgoers. I think the vast majority of americans, there is a ruralurban divide. 85 of us live in cities and metro areas. This is a fact. Go to the thread here. The thread starts in 1972 with roger ailes working with nixon. When the that is war on media started. Nabobs of negativity. There has been a score to settle with the media since nixon resigned, because the Washington Post put him down. Roger ailes dreamed of fox news, he could not do it though. He knew to get rid of something, that was the fairest doctrine. In 1988, that was part of the agenda, following up on a agnew. D nixon and when the fairness doctrine went away, conservative talk radio, rush limbaugh, mark levine, michael savage, took over a entire radio band used by bluecollar workers. Truckers listen to a lot of talk radio. Jesse please get your question. Caller the threat is the media. You are missing the thread. Can you say all the media is equivalent . Like, conservative or progressive media and objective media . Because we do have objective media and it is really great. , jesse go ahead. Jackie who does he view as objective media . I talked about this in our broken america, i think there are biases on both sides. Im not saying one side has it and the other doesnt. That is not my point. The point with the media is, yes there is bias on both sides. You mentioned you look at different sources to get the full picture. I believe it is a variety of things. It is changes in society, changes in religion, demographics, media, technology, there is a variety of reasons for why we are where we are today. What i try to communicate in our broken america is how we can move forward. And i really believe, to do that we have to learn how to listen to each other. And even if you are a politician, my theory is if you cant listen to someone, understand where they come from and what they want, and then articulate your solution in a way that draws a majority of americans toward what you want to do, you need to rethink where you are. Jesse you talked about how the Political Parties dont share that common space anymore, or there is moderate anyone in the middle. Do you think politicians reflect the polarization of the electorate, or are they causing the polarization of the electorate . Jackie that is a great question, well articulated. I would say probably they reflect it more than they have created it. If you think about how we are set up as a system, the people get to elect their officials and go to washington. But i will say this, back to the point, if yous look at the news media we have , had some good bipartisan bills since President Trump was elected. There was the v. A. Bill, the agricultural bill, the first criminal Justice Reform bill. So there has been a variety of bipartisan, really big bills that have been passed, with almost no media coverage. Human, this is, we are we look at what is in the news and what happened. I think if there was better coverage of what was done on a bipartisan basis, we might have more of that actually happening again. Jesse lets go to dan in massachusetts on the independent line. Dan good morning. , caller good morning. I would just like to make a comment that if there is perceived polarization, that much of it is made in the media, and the media seems to respond. Whether it is conservative, liberal, democrat or republican, they tend to inspire polarization and try to inspire indignation and anger, primarily to get clicks and additional viewership. Until the media on any side begins to become more objective and neutral and not try to add their emotions to the news broadcast, the problem wont be solved. There needs to be some control on the outrage that the media tries to inspire and until that happens, you will not solve the problem. Jesse go ahead. Jackie i think dan has got a great point. I talk about in our broken america, one of the things we can do is we can stop watching programs that fuel outrage. This is a great program. This is a program where people can call in, they can talk about issues, perspectives, there is no ranting, there is no raving. Here in georgia, i am often on political rewind which is a political show where it is very respectful and we talk about the , issues and dont scream at each other. Part of what we can do is Pay Attention to those shows that are good and more indepth and dont reflect the ongoing outrage. But the challenge we have is the theory of, wouldnt it be nice to have someone control that . If someone control that, someone can control everything in terms of information flow. I think the citizens have to step up and take action. Jesse you preempted my next question, because i was going to ask you, we understand the media has a role to play in reducing polarization, what role does the news consumer have to play in reducing what they intake from media that might be pushing polarization . , and danbsolutely had a good point. It is a cycle where you have outrage on a station that drives the clicks, advertisers, money , and again, that drives more outrage. And the only thing that can stop it is for someone to decide to stop. And it is hard to get a company that makes money fueling outrage to stop fueling outrage, which means that we have to do it ourselves, which is often true with many hard things in life. No one can exercise for me besides me, no one can choose what to eat but me no one else , can determine how i spend my time or what news channels i can watch. It fits in the republican model of personal responsibility and you have to do it yourself and , cant rely on the government to do it for you. Jesse lets go to thomas in texas on the republican line. Thomas good morning. , caller i am another texan. The fairness law was enacted to stop propaganda. Once we removed it, we got propaganda. And what i would like to say is, theink trump for solving immigration program. If china is going to buy 5 million pigs or chicken, someone has to to process them. Guess who . We may be broke but we are not , broken. Thank you. Jesse go ahead and respond. Media has fueled this, and do have to take responsibility. But i do think it is great we have two texans coming in. I am a big fan of the state of texas. I am glad we have people interested in we believe our country is not broken. I dont believe our country is broken, i just believe that the political system and what is happening in the political system is broken. And i believe we can do better and we can actually learn to listen to one another, as opposed to screaming at one another. Jesse we are going into the 2020 president ial election. That seems to be where our country gets more polarized than ever. What can we do as a society to become less polarized, knowing we have a president ial election coming up in a few months . Jackie that is a great question, and you are exactly right. So my father ran, as i am sure you remember, in 2012 for president. I can remember in january getting on the plane to go to iowa for the first few weeks of to campaign for him. Januaryand it is a very polarizing time. My recommendation is a couple of things. First, focus on policy and focus on issues. It takes a lot more work and digging. Focus on that. Secondly, dont watch shows where they talk all about the horse race the numbers but , forget about the policy, because that actually feeds upon itself and in the end, views dont mean a lot. If you look at the polls in the elections, they were all over the place and provided no meaning. If my memory serves me, the polls showed that he would not win. It requires more work. But it is important to understand what the policies are of the candidates, versus listening to opinions from other people. Jesse washington, independent line. David, good morning. Caller hello . Jesse go ahead, david, you are on the air. Caller someone else called. Jesse i think we lost david. Lets go to alan, who is calling from east chicago, indiana on the democratic line. Good morning. Caller good morning. Thank you for washington journal, cspan, i love it. I have been watching you for decades, longer than i care to mention. I would like to take issue with the lady on one thing. I dont think it is the media that is causing the divide. The media is reporting mostly. What i put it on is Mitch Mcconnell. Two weeks after obama was elected, Mitch Mcconnell came out and said, we will do nothing to help this president succeed. I thought it was kind of odd because we were having two wars at the time, the Great Recession was raging, people were losing jobs and homes and all that and , it was a golden opportunity for the democrats and republicans to Work Together to set america back on course. But Mitch Mcconnell and the conservatives decided to become the party of no. And for eight years, they were the party of no. Obama even went to the house and spoke to republicans and said, if you dont like what i am putting out, give me something, work with me, give me ideas. And john boehner said the to tellt is not going us how to do our job. They refused to work with him, and i think that created a divide that is even going on today. A lot of bills have been passed by the house, 400, 275 bipartisan, and they are sitting on Mitch Mcconnell s desk. He is not willing to work with democrats at all. That opened the door for the tea party, who were radical, and that gave way to donald trump, who now is a symptom, he is not the problem, he is a symptom but he is making it more divisive by calling people names, his arrogance, just the way he is talking. Jesse is there any way for us to get past polarization when we are all worried about the current political situation . Jackie i think it is hard. I will be honest with you. The caller had a good point, when people are throwing out names at other people, it becomes hard. This is quite sad for our country, the last time we passed a balanced budget was when my dad was the speaker and bill clinton was president. You had a republican House Speaker and a democratic president who were able to sit down and get things done. As you know, the government did shut down a few times and it was a hard process. But in the end, they were able to pass a balanced budget and make a difference. That is a point i want to get back to. We have always had partisan politics in our country, we have always had people with different beliefs, but my husband jimmy and i, one of the things we tell our children is it is not about fixing blame, but figuring out who is responsible to get things done and fix things. In a lot of ways i think the caller is exactly right, it is not helpful to sit here and blame everybody. The question becomes, how can we make it better . And we can make it better by meeting people from the opposite side, working on real problems in our Community Together and , learning how to make a difference in our daily lives. Jesse i want to read to you from the public agenda poll , because i think it dovetails exactly what you are saying. Overall, 69 of americans think our country deals with disagreements in a destructive way. But for the most part, americans dont think our nation has too many irreconcilable differences. 43 worry more about americans not knowing how to talk about their disagreements and conflicts in constructive ways. While only 10 worry fundamental disagreements and conflicting values are a more pressing issue. 38 worry equally about both of those problems. So it seems like americans understand we are not disagreeing correctly. But we dont see it as a fundamental flaw with our democracy. Is that what you are seeing as well . Jackie that is a fascinating poll. I have not seen that, so thank you for bringing it up. I think that is exactly right. Our country is designed to be a place where people can have different ideas, and they can talk about those ideas and gather support for the ideas and pass them into law or make progress. But part of that also means we have a country where it is ok to disagree. And part of the challenge is we now come into a time where, if you disagree with someone and you dont like them as a person or you call them bad names or Say Something terrible. We need to back up and say, if you disagree with someone, you disagree with someone. And it is not about who they are as a person or that they are a terrible person. And i talk a lot about this in our broken america, what guides me is my belief system. I am an episcopal, my husband and i go to st. Lukes church. Part of what i talk about in our broken america is that when you are having these discussions with other people, try to see the partisan divide in them as well as yourself, so you will remember to have respect for the other side, listen to their side and even if you dont believe in them, be respectful of them. Jesse lets see if we can get a few more questions from our callers. Lets go to sylvia in virginia on the republican line. Sylvia good morning. , caller good morning. I want to say we dearly love her family. We have always respected them so much. But i live in a very republican county, and our church is very open about discussing republican politics. And we have made the democrats very miserable and that concerns , me sometimes. Is, our concerns me state has become blue. And i am wondering if we have become too soft because i dont , know if we can switch our house here in virginia to red again. Are we becoming too complacent is what i am wondering . Jackie thank you for your call. That is a great question. Part of it is on either side, republican or democrat, if you are surrounded by everyone who thinks the way you do, it becomes easy to not think about how to articulate what your position is better. That is part of the value of our political system. And in areas that have more of one than the other, my recommendation would be to go out and try to articulate those. People say, why do you talk about listening, why should people listen to your side . You know think about in your own arguments, if you dont understand where the other person comes from, you dont understand their belief system, what they care about, what their fears are, what their hopes are, then you cant really communicate with them. When i talk about listening as opposed to ranting, that is what i am talking about. You have to understand the other side to begin to figure out, how do you frame the argument in a way in which you get people to agree with you . Jesse lets go to john, calling from trenton, new jersey on the independent line. John good morning. Caller happy holidays or belated holidays to you, and thank god for america. And iteran of vietnam, used to be a republican. The reason i stopped being a republican is because my party does not listen to me. I dont want this president in office. He is a ridiculous man, he does like mccain, who i honored, and Ronald Reagan is no more. And there goes my belief system in the Republican Party. And if somebody wants to listen to somebody rant and rave, listen to the president. He is ranting and raving every day of his life. Newt gingrich did not pass bills. Mitch mcconnell is not passing bills. Where is he getting his money from . From the United States people. If he has an outside income that is paying him to do the deal of wish heing bills, i would just quit. Jesse go ahead and respond. Jackie i want to thank john for his service to our country in vietnam. Both my husbands family have people who served as did my grandfather. My dad was an army brat. Back to his questions or comments about leaving the Republican Party, that is part of the process. People are free to leave whatever party they want. When i think of the republican vision, and this is the thing about parties in america, he dont have to subscribe to their own belief system, you could talk about what it means to you and why you are a part of that party. I am a part of the Republican Party because i believe in limited government. And i believe in a lot of the same ends that people on the democratic side talk about. For instance i am very concerned , about homelessness and i have been involved with a homeless shelter in atlanta for about 20 years. But i believe that work has to be done in the community, with some government help but with volunteers and foundations and individuals and corporate donations. But you cant have a federal government that decides to make changes, and it instantly happens. It really has to be done in the community. That is the core of my belief system. I am very much in the reagan tradition of a big tent Republican Party. And i think republicans would be wise to think about that and include and listen to anyone was include and and list anyone was to be part of the Republican Party. Jesse lets see if we can get two more quick comments in. Lets go to juanita from cincinnati, ohio on the democratic line. Good morning. All, this is of for cspan, there are black evangelicals out here too, and i think you should give them a platform. They are the basis of the civil rights movement. I respect the white evangelicals, but they are not the only game in town. Secondly, i am a graduate of osu. Number one. Number when the republican two, party, mr. Reagan announced his candidacy in 1979, i was 28. Media didnt do that. The Republican Party did that. And he also did lee atwater, from atlanta, i believe. He is another one who packaged the message, the media did not do that. Lee atwater the Republican Party did that. And please, put some black evangelicals on there, because many white evangelical nominations [inaudible] jesse lee atwater could be from south carolina, if im not mistaken, not atlanta, but i could be mistaken. Does atlanta claim him . Jackie i am not up on my historical trivia, sorry. Jesse lets see if we can get one last caller in. Lets try liz, who is calling from hot springs, arkansas on the republican line. Good morning. Caller good morning. My concern is, i see a broken america. We are having our legislators oversee the peoples vote. We had a special election last and the voters we wanted one. To keep our district the way it basis, andluntary not on our taxes. It would have been placed on our taxes and have been mandatory, and it would have changed the whole situation. Here in hotors springs did not like the way the people voted, so they said we , are going to do it anyway. So they negated everyone who voted in the special election. I have seen this over and over. The people did not want to be annexed into the city, so they went around and skirted and took the vote away from the people, because that was the only way that action could be taken, as if it was voluntary or voted in. They go, the people always voted no, so we are not going to let them vote anymore. We are just going to take their property and incorporate it in the city without their vote. I am seeing more of this in the country. The people are not ruling anymore. It is our government and that is , communism and socialism. Jesse how do people protest things, as the caller was talking about, without falling into the polarization that no one wants . Jackie it sounds like there are some legislators that might need to be voted out of office. They need to think about running somebody else, or having somebody else run against them. Clearly, the way we are set up is for legislators to reflect the will of the people they represent. And we are also set up so that if they dont represent the will of the people they represent, they can be replaced. Jesse what is the take away from your book, our broken america . What do you want people to say after they finish reading it . Jackie i want them to understand we live in the greatest country on earth. That we should be grateful we have a political system where we can argue our views and articulate what we believe. Take advantage of that to listen to the other side and learn how to move forward together. Jesse we would like to think our guest, author Jackie Gingrich cushman and her book our broken america for spending this hour with us. Jackie thank you so much. , jackie thank you for having me on. I appreciate it. Journal,s washington live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Coming up sunday morning as part of authors week, National Reviews rich lowry discusses news of the day and his book, the case for nationalism. Democratic and republican cspanso watch washington journal live at 7 00 eastern sunday morning, join the discussion. Up tonight on cspan, president ial candidate Representative Tulsi Gabbard at a town hall event in new hampshire. Campaignt a look at 2020. Then, a discussion on congress, courts, and the socalled Administrative State at the Steamboat Springs conference in colorado. Now, president ial candidate tulsi gabbard. It is more important than ever to choose the right person house, white representative tulsi