With Karl Rove now put back in his position of divider-in-chief, bipartisanship in Washington is looking more difficult than ever. But my own personal experiences from Charleston, South Carolina, to New Haven, Connecticut, give me hope that bipartisanship may come from below—hopefully uprooting the divisionaries above.

Three weeks ago, the organization I work with (Americans for Informed Democracy) hosted a youth summit in Charleston, SC, on the role of young leaders in ending global poverty. We realized that this goal was widely shared by a diverse group of student leaders in South Carolina and so we outreached as widely as possible, bringing in students from the Citadel, Bob Jones University, and other campuses across the state. While schools like Bob Jones have been the focus of grand stereotypes in some parts of the Northeast, we decided to outreach a hand to students there based on respect for their religious conviction and sense of purpose. We explained that we shared their concern for the preciousness of life and believed ,like them, that all of us have a role to play in ending global poverty and ensuring the dignity and respect for every human.

The response was tremendous. Students came to the Charleston summit in droves from across the political spectrum – and from across different religious, ethnic, and racial backgrounds – united by a common belief that America needed to do more to use its great military and economic might to realize one of the greatest opportunities of our time: the end of poverty. Certainly, students at the conference had their differences, but more mature and caring about our world than opportunistic Washington divisionaries, they decided to accentuate our tremendous agreement. One Bob Jones University student who attended the summit later told his college newspaper (click here) about “the irony of two afternoon-dress-clad BJU students sitting behind an individual with a ‘Save Roe Now!’ sticker on his notebook at the same conference.” But these differences were a positive to the student. They showed, the student wrote, “the ethnic, political and religious diversity of… the movement against global poverty as a whole.”

Earlier this week in New Haven, I had a similarly eye-opening experience. I was on a panel at Yale on the future of progressivism with the Nation’s Katrina vanden Heuvel and student leaders of the Roosevelt Institution. For years now, I have been pushing a “we’re not that different” message in New Haven and getting odd stares, with stereotyped responses like “but they believe that their God should run our government.” Indeed, I have been especially disappointed to see that some of the very people here who have the deepest understanding of the cultural and religious differences beyond our borders have little tolerance for the religious and social differences within our country.

But the panel discussion at Yale this week was totally different than my past experiences. I expected to be lambasted for my main thesis that while I think the core of progressivism is strong, the bridges we have built are week. Progressive institutions like The Nation and ACLU have been impressive in holding on to their convictions, even in the difficult winds that followed September 11^th where they were called unpatriotic. But we have lost our bridges–those important vehicles that can link in others who may share some but not all of our values. Those are the bridges that can create and sustain a national movement for the things Americans overwhelmingly want: fairer health care and wages, implementation of the 9-11 Commission’s sober recommendations, and respected U.S. leadership in the world. Those are the bridges that say “we realize we have differences on gay marriage and abortion, but our shared belief in recognizing the dignity of every person through health care and wages, through meaningful security, and through ending poverty” are too great to let our differences divide us. I closed the talk at Yale by saying if we were to ask one of the billion plus people living on less than a dollar a day if they thought we should build bridges with unlikely allies to raise U.S. development assistance, or instead say our differences are too fundamental to work together, they would tell us that progressive unilateralism is the sinner’s choice and that if we believed as strongly as we do in our principles we need to realize them wherever the political will exists.

After making such points for years now, I expected the usual, hardened response by the crowd telling me “but Seth we’ve tried working with them and they’ve used it against us.” To my surprise, though, the response was exactly the opposite. In my conversations with audience members after the panel, people even brought up other areas (such as energy security) where they believed we could work together. There was a general sense that the division that has characterized our politics for years is far worse than an outstretched bridge built on respect toward those who may not share all of our viewpoints.

As 2006 approaches, I hope this sense of pragmatism continues to grow outside the beltway because it is far healthier for our country than the political opportunism turned divisionism that now runs inside-the-beltway governance. My sense from Charleston, South Carolina, to New Haven, Connecticut, is that our country is ready and eager for a politics that values the huge common ground that makes our nation so special in its purpose and so great in its achievement.

Related posts:

1. Is election year bipartisanship possible?
2. Bipartisan Support for Non-Proliferation Programs
3. Bipartisanship still alive despite the health care debate
4. Science Diplomacy gets a Boost with New Bipartisan Bill
5. Politico: Bipolar on Bipartisanship?