We Need to Talk Like Humans Again
How local citizen councils — and Sez Us — can help us escape the binary trap.
We’re living in a time of constant digital noise — and constant division. Everything is framed in extremes: like or dislike, Red or Blue, follow or block. Political discussion has collapsed into performance. Civics has become combat. Social media promises connection but delivers polarization. The result? A democracy where fewer and fewer people trust each other, the system, or even the possibility of honest disagreement.
But what if the solution isn’t more national shouting — but more local listening?
We need to reclaim what democracy actually is: not just voting, but participating. Not just broadcasting opinions, but deliberating. Not just reacting to each other—but learning from each other.
One powerful way to do that is by reviving the ancient, and deeply democratic, idea of citizen councils — small, diverse groups of everyday people who come together in their communities to talk, reflect, and problem-solve. In ancient Athens, these councils— made up of regular citizens selected by lottery — were at the heart of public decision-making.
In Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign, we used digital technology to empower people to connect online and hold Meet Ups where they lived, in their neighborhoods and communities. Strangers listening and solving problems together.
I remember then Hawaii Governor Neil Abercrombie sending me an email that said, “Do you know what you have done? People who were strangers are learning to have faith in each other again.”
That model could be just what our divided society needs.
Imagine this: A public library or city hall hosts a group of your neighbors — a bus driver, a retiree, a teacher, a recent college grad — gathered to talk through local issues like school funding, housing, or safety. No cameras. No social media pile-ons. Just real people, face to face, practicing the lost art of listening.
But we also live in a digital world — and to truly scale trust and civic renewal, we need a digital space built for humanity, not hostility.
That’s where Sez Us comes in.
Sez Us is a platform with a radical premise: millions of people coming together online— not to argue or perform — but to engage with civility. No bots. No manipulative algorithms. Just people, showing up with curiosity, decency, and respect—even (especially) when they disagree. It’s a place to listen, learn, and share across lines that usually divide us. A platform where disagreement doesn’t mean dehumanization, and where civil discourse is the default, not the exception.
Even better, Sez Us acts as a bridge — connecting people online with opportunities to form groups or their own channels, to meet locally, in person, create citizen councils and other neighborhood-based gatherings. It’s both a digital town square and a launchpad for real-world democratic renewal.
This is how we break out of the binary. This is how we escape the “like/unlike,” “us vs. them” trap that’s paralyzing our politics and poisoning our culture. Not with one big national fix — but with millions of small conversations. With spaces — online and offline — where people aren’t reduced to avatars, and politics isn’t reduced to rage.
Democracy isn’t dying because people disagree. It’s dying because we’ve forgotten how to disagree. But we can learn again. We can talk again. We can build again.
Let it start with a simple idea: sit down, talk it out — on Sez Us, in your neighborhood, face to face. No hashtags. No hot takes. Just humans, trying to live together.
That’s how we heal. That’s how we govern. That’s how we move forward — together.
That’s how we stand up, America.
Don't Feed the Outrage Machine
In the beginning, the internet promised connection. It was to be the great unifier — a place where knowledge flowed freely and people found each other across boundaries of geography, race, and class. But what was built instead? A set of binary social networks, ruled not by empathy or understanding, but by algorithms optimized for outrage and profit.
Joe, Your writings are informative and interesting, suggesting new perspectives to me, and at times just provide comfort in confirming that there still is some sanity out there. I enjoy the comments from strangers; the constant flow of shared opinions, sometimes consensus, sometimes not. BUT I increasingly feel that our messaging focused on healing the divisions in our society needs to consist, unfortunately, of shorter messages. Often the people who are the most misinformed just won't read paragraphs or chapters. The short messaging that helped create their lack of understand in the first place, with social media proliferating in our society, is, at least for now, the only way to reach many of them. Some will learn to read and enjoy longer treatises. Short messages of sarcasm or hatred won't help; some of these confused individuals can still be reached if our messaging sounds less polarizing.
Read this yesterday.. Still good today. ~Thanks Joe.