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Guest: John Wood Jr.
Original Air Date: Episode 165 June 14, 2023
Host: Wilk Wilkinson, Derate The Hate Podcast
I’m taking a short break this week for some well-earned rest and family time, and I wanted to bring back one of the most important conversations ever featured on Derate The Hate. This replay features the first-ever DTH appearance of John Wood Jr., National Ambassador for Braver Angels and a voice of reason in a divided time.
🎤 Who is John Wood Jr.?
A nationally recognized speaker, columnist for USA Today, and podcaster, John is helping lead the charge in the American depolarization movement.
âś… Key Takeaways:
✔️ “Polarization is the one problem that ensures all other problems won’t be solved.”
✔️ How to work effectively with people you disagree with
✔️ The toxic trap of whataboutism
✔️ Why media and politicians pander to the extremes
✔️ The importance of long-term thinking over outrage culture
✔️ Why conservatives didn’t engage until they were enraged
Polarization isn’t just a political issue—it’s a personal one. This conversation delivers tools and insights for bridging divides, building understanding, and choosing connection over conflict.
📢 Don’t just listen—share this episode.
Your next conversation could be one that bridges a divide.
🎧 Available now wherever you get your podcasts.
What have you done today to make your life a better life? What have you done today to make the world a better place? The world is a better place if we are better people. That begins with each of us as individuals. Be kind to one another. Be grateful for everything you’ve got. Make each and every day the day that you want it to be!
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I look forward to hearing from you!
Transcript is AI generated and may contain inaccuracies
00;00;00;00 - 00;00;43;18
Wilk Wilkinson
Welcome back, my friends, to the Derate the Hate podcast. I am your host, Wilk Wilkinson, your blue collar sage, calming outrage and helping to navigate a world divided by FOG, and those who would spread that fear, outrage and grievance. Each week I'm sharing stories from my path and using the power of conversation and collaboration with my many great guests.
00;00;43;20 - 00;01;07;29
Wilk Wilkinson
Together, we chart a course toward understanding, bridging divides and fostering a community where wisdom prevails over discord. Friends, it really is about bettering the world, one attitude at a time. We did not create the hate, but together we can Derate the hate. The only good thing about a bad attitude is we have the ability as individuals to change it.
00;01;08;02 - 00;01;31;03
Wilk Wilkinson
For me, it starts with gratitude and personal accountability. I am so incredibly grateful that you have taken the time to join me for another powerful DTH episode. Please remember to subscribe and share the DTH podcast with your network of friends. If you would like to support the show, check out the Support Us page on the Derate the Hate website. With that, my friends, let's get to it.
00;01;31;04 - 00;01;54;18
Wilk Wilkinson
Friends. I'm taking a little time this week to enjoy some much needed R&R and quality time with my family, but I didn't want to leave you hanging, so I am bringing back a true Derate the Hate classic from episode 165, featuring the first time I introduced you to my good friend and braver angels National Ambassador John Wood Jr.
00;01;54;21 - 00;02;13;05
Wilk Wilkinson
This incredible conversation is just as powerful and relevant today as it was then. So sit back, soak it in, and let's keep bettering the world together. Easy way to do that. Hit that share button. So let's get to this incredible conversation with John Wood Jr. Here we go.
00;02;13;05 - 00;02;25;07
Wilk Wilkinson
John Wood Jr. My Braver Angels brother. National ambassador to Braver Angels. Thank you so much for taking the time to join me on the Derate The Hate podcast, John. I've been looking forward to it for sure.
00;02;25;10 - 00;02;29;14
John Wood Jr.
Brother Wilk, it's always a pleasure to talk to you. And, all the more so,
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John Wood Jr.
doing it,
00;02;30;00 - 00;02;34;10
John Wood Jr.
hot on the mic. So we're finally doing it, man. I'm glad we could make the time.
00;02;34;13 - 00;02;44;28
Wilk Wilkinson
We are finally doing it. You know, it's it's funny. We've been doing doing things together for, It's got to be a couple of years now with our favorite organization, Braver Angels. And,
00;02;44;28 - 00;02;47;02
Wilk Wilkinson
I've had cameo on your show.
00;02;47;02 - 00;02;49;01
Wilk Wilkinson
I know I've referenced your work
00;02;49;01 - 00;02;56;26
Wilk Wilkinson
on mine plenty of times, and this is the first time we've actually sat down for a conversation together on the mic, just you and I.
00;02;56;29 - 00;02;57;13
Wilk Wilkinson
And,
00;02;57;13 - 00;03;21;12
Wilk Wilkinson
so grateful for a man. So grateful for it. And more than that, I'm grateful for all the work that you've been doing with Braver Angels for as long as you have. So, John, a lot of the DTH listeners are very familiar with Braver Angels because of of me talking about them, obviously, but I can not nearly as eloquently talk about braver angels as you do, John.
00;03;21;12 - 00;03;21;26
Wilk Wilkinson
So,
00;03;21;26 - 00;03;29;13
Wilk Wilkinson
tell me, John Wood Jr, how did you get involved with Braver Angels and
00;03;29;13 - 00;03;34;15
Wilk Wilkinson
what do you do in your role as National Ambassador for braver Angel?
00;03;34;17 - 00;03;36;01
John Wood Jr.
Yeah. Well, appreciate
00;03;36;01 - 00;03;51;11
John Wood Jr.
the question. You know, it's one of those things where I'm always trying to figure out, like, okay, do I give the, you know, the medium version, the long version, the extra long version, the extra, extra long version, agents to the story. There's not too many short ones.
00;03;51;11 - 00;03;52;29
John Wood Jr.
But I'll try and shoot somewhere,
00;03;52;29 - 00;03;55;01
John Wood Jr.
in the middle here.
00;03;55;04 - 00;03;55;24
Wilk Wilkinson
Man.
00;03;55;26 - 00;03;59;13
John Wood Jr.
Yeah, well, you know, so I guess I'll just pick it up.
00;03;59;13 - 00;04;05;19
John Wood Jr.
I'll I'll skip a whole lot of life details and say that I'm a person who who grew up a liberal activist,
00;04;05;19 - 00;04;15;22
John Wood Jr.
who was very inspired by Barack Obama's 2008 campaign, who believed that the idea behind hope and change was sort of creating sort of a,
00;04;15;22 - 00;04;18;11
John Wood Jr.
a post-partisan, post-racial sort of America.
00;04;18;14 - 00;04;26;02
John Wood Jr.
I was one of many people who was inspired by Obama's, 2004 keynote address. I don't know if you remember it well, but it was the one that really,
00;04;26;02 - 00;04;28;01
John Wood Jr.
delivered him to the national stage.
00;04;28;01 - 00;04;29;27
Wilk Wilkinson
Brought him to the national stage? Yup.
00;04;29;29 - 00;04;39;24
John Wood Jr.
Yeah. He said we're not red states or blue states or the United States of America. We're not, you know, black, white or Latino America. This is the United States of America. And,
00;04;39;24 - 00;04;44;28
John Wood Jr.
I had really thrown myself behind Obama's campaign and,
00;04;44;28 - 00;04;46;23
John Wood Jr.
started really studying,
00;04;46;23 - 00;04;55;20
John Wood Jr.
conservatism and Republican perspectives from the vantage point of somebody who wanted to bring Republicans into this unifying Obama movement.
00;04;55;21 - 00;05;09;08
John Wood Jr.
Now, I had always had conservatives and and folks who have more traditional values in my family. So that was in my background. But I really leaned into it in terms of consciously studying some of those things,
00;05;09;08 - 00;05;13;07
John Wood Jr.
at that time and wound up experiencing this very,
00;05;13;07 - 00;05;18;00
John Wood Jr.
this very disconcerting realization after having studied,
00;05;18;00 - 00;05;19;06
John Wood Jr.
you know, conservatism,
00;05;19;06 - 00;05;30;20
John Wood Jr.
for, for a certain period of time in an effort to convert Republicans, I looked up and sort of started asking myself questions, and I went down a list of issues and asking myself where I stood on them.
00;05;30;23 - 00;05;39;16
John Wood Jr.
And I looked up on names like, Holy cow, I kind of am a Republican myself and really didn't like that realization. It was like coming out of the closet or something like that.
00;05;39;17 - 00;05;40;29
Wilk Wilkinson
Oh man.
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John Wood Jr.
Yeah, I know it was terrible Wilk, it was terrible.
00;05;43;20 - 00;05;46;15
John Wood Jr.
Good. But you know, the thing that remained,
00;05;46;15 - 00;06;03;13
John Wood Jr.
true about me was that, you know, I believed in what I considered to be sort of the the original sort of, you know, Obama vision or the Obama vision, as I understood it from that early campaign, just wanted to bring people together, wanting to make it possible for people to understand each other humanely, empathetically,
00;06;03;13 - 00;06;06;14
John Wood Jr.
across party and race and religion and so forth.
00;06;06;17 - 00;06;14;06
John Wood Jr.
So I ran for Congress. I ran for Congress against Maxine Waters as an unknown Republican challenger in 2014, in,
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John Wood Jr.
South Los Angeles.
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John Wood Jr.
I lost, but I lost in the smallest landslide of any,
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John Wood Jr.
Republican or Democrat would ever run against Maxine before or since, including. I literally raised millions of hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars.
00;06;26;27 - 00;06;28;27
John Wood Jr.
I was like ten grand, you know,
00;06;28;27 - 00;06;30;06
John Wood Jr.
in that race. Yeah.
00;06;30;06 - 00;06;36;13
John Wood Jr.
I basically ran as a hope and changed Republican. I ran a very bipartisan campaign. My, my my,
00;06;36;13 - 00;06;39;03
John Wood Jr.
team was very bipartisan. And,
00;06;39;03 - 00;06;52;19
John Wood Jr.
I tried to bring that sort of fraternal spirit to the Republican Party on an institutional level. I was elected, second vice chairman of the Republican Party of Los Angeles County,
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John Wood Jr.
in 2015.
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John Wood Jr.
Interestingly, the,
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John Wood Jr.
say I'm already tipping into the to do a longer version of the story here. Interestingly, the LA County GOP is actually the biggest county Republican Party in America. But it doesn't matter because it's still four times smaller than the LA County Democratic Party. So, you know, we still that we still rarely win anything.
00;07;15;12 - 00;07;16;01
John Wood Jr.
But,
00;07;16;01 - 00;07;17;12
John Wood Jr.
you know, I had,
00;07;17;12 - 00;07;28;10
John Wood Jr.
you know, I wanted to see a politics where we actually had reasonably friendly relationships with the other side, where we could come together and have debates and discussions in front of the community, still compete,
00;07;28;10 - 00;07;28;14
John Wood Jr.
be.
00;07;28;14 - 00;07;32;16
Wilk Wilkinson
Reasonable and uncivil back and forth and being able to actually,
00;07;32;16 - 00;07;33;14
Wilk Wilkinson
talk.
00;07;33;17 - 00;07;44;19
John Wood Jr.
Yeah. You know, sort of emphasizing the idea that, like, hey, you know, we're all Angelinos here. We want what's best for, for the city, for and for the state and for the country and so forth. And,
00;07;44;19 - 00;07;51;11
John Wood Jr.
what wound up happening was I wound up basically being threatened with the end of my career,
00;07;51;11 - 00;07;54;06
John Wood Jr.
for being too friendly with the wrong Republicans.
00;07;54;06 - 00;08;04;14
John Wood Jr.
I couldn't even get far enough to to try and bridge the gap between Republicans and Democrats, because what had happened at the time was that the Republican Party,
00;08;04;14 - 00;08;22;18
John Wood Jr.
sort of nationally, but definitely in California, was sort of torn in this internal scene in the Civil War between sort of the old guard establishment and conservative factions, on the one hand, versus the insurgent Ron Paul libertarian wing on the other hand.
00;08;22;20 - 00;08;35;29
John Wood Jr.
And I sort of got caught being friends with both sides and having people tell me, no, you can't do that. You know, you got to pick one or the other. If not, you know, you're going to make enemies out of the people who were your friends. And,
00;08;35;29 - 00;08;49;02
John Wood Jr.
I just didn't want to play that sort of game. All of this was kind of before Trump came along, when Trump came along, you know, for myself, he just had a breed of politics that I just had a very difficult time, you know, sort of getting.
00;08;49;05 - 00;08;49;21
Wilk Wilkinson
Myself.
00;08;49;22 - 00;08;51;02
John Wood Jr.
Via his approach.
00;08;51;02 - 00;08;58;08
John Wood Jr.
But even before Trump came along, I sort of realized that, like, hey, my my philosophical disposition,
00;08;58;08 - 00;09;00;05
John Wood Jr.
is not very welcome here.
00;09;00;05 - 00;09;06;22
John Wood Jr.
In the GOP, at least on this institutional level. I mean, it was different if I'm talking to just regular Republicans in the neighborhood, you know,
00;09;06;22 - 00;09;09;08
John Wood Jr.
and he's very popular with, with Republican,
00;09;09;08 - 00;09;16;14
John Wood Jr.
voters and just ordinary folks who wanted something better for, for the country and for their for their communities.
00;09;16;16 - 00;09;18;11
John Wood Jr.
And but. Yeah, but,
00;09;18;11 - 00;09;34;05
John Wood Jr.
I realized I needed to find another way. And so I tried to launch actually built a digital media network way back then. This was like 2017. That was meant to be sort of like The Young Turks or the Daily Wire, with a couple differences. One, it was meant to be,
00;09;34;05 - 00;09;35;07
John Wood Jr.
cross Partizan,
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John Wood Jr.
bring together people who disagreed about politics, but who agreed about how we ought to be treating each other and politics.
00;09;41;12 - 00;10;05;27
John Wood Jr.
And two, it was meant to jump off the screen. It was meant to be something that would build sort of a cross partizan cross cultural audience that could lead to people actually engaging with each other and physical reality on the local community level. And so I tried to do that. I wound up getting hit with a cease and desist letter from a multibillion dollar company that didn't like the fact that the name of our network was a little bit close to the name of their company, even though,
00;10;05;27 - 00;10;11;14
John Wood Jr.
we were dealing with news and information, they were dealing with baseball hats and basketball jerseys, whatnot.
00;10;11;17 - 00;10;12;01
John Wood Jr.
And,
00;10;12;01 - 00;10;14;24
John Wood Jr.
but then a friend of mine,
00;10;14;24 - 00;10;19;09
John Wood Jr.
who I had met through an organization that you're familiar with called No Labels,
00;10;19;09 - 00;10;23;27
John Wood Jr.
but a friend of mine, by the name of Luke Phillips,
00;10;23;27 - 00;10;28;01
John Wood Jr.
introduced me to or turned me on to the existence of this group,
00;10;28;01 - 00;10;30;22
John Wood Jr.
then called Better Angels. And I looked at,
00;10;30;22 - 00;10;31;21
John Wood Jr.
Better Angels,
00;10;31;21 - 00;10;32;17
John Wood Jr.
online.
00;10;32;17 - 00;10;38;26
John Wood Jr.
And I got really excited because I thought, Holy cow. You know, these people have exactly my philosophy and on.
00;10;38;27 - 00;10;40;06
Wilk Wilkinson
The same track. Yep.
00;10;40;10 - 00;10;44;08
John Wood Jr.
On on the same track. And they were doing the sort of on the ground,
00;10;44;08 - 00;10;46;04
John Wood Jr.
in-person sort of event,
00;10;46;04 - 00;10;59;11
John Wood Jr.
event building. This is the workshop ups and so forth, bringing together red and blue. They were already doing the things on the ground that I thought a media network could lead to. But what I noticed at the time was that they had,
00;10;59;11 - 00;11;02;24
John Wood Jr.
they had a Facebook page, which was sort of barren and abandoned.
00;11;02;24 - 00;11;06;28
John Wood Jr.
They had a website that was text heavy and pixelated.
00;11;06;28 - 00;11;07;14
John Wood Jr.
They had,
00;11;07;14 - 00;11;19;22
John Wood Jr.
a, a YouTube channel with a couple of nice clips, but nothing much else going on. They basically had no digital media strategy, and I had just spent a year trying to build up a digital media strategy,
00;11;19;22 - 00;11;22;04
John Wood Jr.
with the exact same philosophy in mind.
00;11;22;04 - 00;11;26;08
John Wood Jr.
And so I drove down with my friend Luke,
00;11;26;08 - 00;11;32;22
John Wood Jr.
to sit in on a workshop in San Diego, drove from L.A. to San Diego, just so happened that,
00;11;32;22 - 00;11;35;07
John Wood Jr.
the two of the founders of the organization,
00;11;35;07 - 00;11;39;20
John Wood Jr.
were there Bill Doherty, who was moderating, and David Blankenhorn,
00;11;39;20 - 00;11;46;25
John Wood Jr.
who was the founding, of course, was and is president of Better Now, Braver Angels.
00;11;46;27 - 00;11;56;23
John Wood Jr.
Another funny thing about that workshop, though, there's an old fellow sitting in the corner. He didn't participate in the workshop, but there was an old fellow sitting in the corner holding a guitar.
00;11;56;23 - 00;12;08;00
John Wood Jr.
The whole time, just wearing kind of a friendly smile on his face. And at the end of the workshop, which keep in mind, Wilk, I don't know if he's ever done one of these red blue workshops was a seven, seven, eight hour affair.
00;12;08;03 - 00;12;26;03
John Wood Jr.
So at the end of it, this this, this old fellow, he gets up and after we're all fairly exhausted, you know, after this long workshop, he starts strumming the guitar to start singing This land is Your land. This land is, from New York Island. That,
00;12;26;03 - 00;12;30;22
John Wood Jr.
And, you know, he sounds pretty good, but after about eight minutes of that, I was just like, okay, I'm tired.
00;12;30;22 - 00;12;44;01
John Wood Jr.
I'm ready to go. Can anybody ask this fella to, you know, take, take five. And then at the end of a David, like an hour comes and he puts his arm around the guy. He says, for all the young folks here who don't recognize them, I just want to,
00;12;44;01 - 00;12;47;15
John Wood Jr.
introduce you all to my good friend Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary.
00;12;47;15 - 00;12;48;01
John Wood Jr.
And I was like,
00;12;48;01 - 00;12;52;19
John Wood Jr.
oh, that's why you got to give him ten minutes to play the song, you know?
00;12;52;19 - 00;12;53;13
Wilk Wilkinson
Right, right, right.
00;12;53;14 - 00;12;58;01
John Wood Jr.
Well, but yeah. So I met Peter Yarrow there too, who of course is amazing. And,
00;12;58;01 - 00;13;04;08
John Wood Jr.
yeah. So, you know, I brought this media network idea to to Better Angels, to David Blankenhorn and,
00;13;04;08 - 00;13;06;01
John Wood Jr.
and,
00;13;06;01 - 00;13;11;25
John Wood Jr.
he got back to me a few weeks later and he said, John, he said, I like your media network idea.
00;13;11;25 - 00;13;12;10
John Wood Jr.
I want,
00;13;12;10 - 00;13;13;02
John Wood Jr.
I want to get behind it.
00;13;13;02 - 00;13;14;29
John Wood Jr.
I want to hire you to build it.
00;13;14;29 - 00;13;29;29
John Wood Jr.
He said. But more than that, he said, I looked into you, looked into your background. You said, I want to get behind your voice. I want to get behind your pin. I know what you've done. I know what you stand for. I want better angels to be a platform for you to speak to America on race and polarization.
00;13;29;29 - 00;13;34;04
John Wood Jr.
Because I think the country needs your voice. And the thing about Wilk is that I had been,
00;13;34;04 - 00;13;42;22
John Wood Jr.
you know, active as an activist for, for this kind of reconciliation politics for literally in one form or fashion or another.
00;13;42;22 - 00;13;51;04
John Wood Jr.
You could say, since I was 15 years old and I was like, you know, 30 out of been just turning 31 at that time.
00;13;51;07 - 00;14;09;07
John Wood Jr.
And I never made any money doing any of that, you know, and, you know, stacking part time jobs. Even when I was running for office and when I was working for the for the Republican Party, that was actually a glorified volunteer position, you know, you should get all you still puts you in the center of a lot of people's, a lot of people's, grief.
00;14;09;07 - 00;14;09;25
John Wood Jr.
And,
00;14;09;25 - 00;14;13;03
John Wood Jr.
so, yeah, I mean, it was sort of my big, my big break.
00;14;13;03 - 00;14;25;23
John Wood Jr.
And I just remember it being just a deeply meaningful moment of gratitude for me. And then the next thing David Blankenhorn said was, the only problem is, is we don't have any money. Yeah, of course you don't. Of course. You know,
00;14;25;23 - 00;14;35;26
John Wood Jr.
he said, but he said, if you if you volunteer with us for a while, he said, we can get some fundraising, together and we'll put will, you know, we'll go to the, we'll shake the tin cup at the right people.
00;14;35;26 - 00;14;41;17
John Wood Jr.
And, and I bet we can put together the money to get you hired. And, and ultimately that basically happened. And so,
00;14;41;17 - 00;14;43;28
John Wood Jr.
yeah, I, I so I pretty much gave you,
00;14;43;28 - 00;14;49;17
John Wood Jr.
one of the longer versions of the story Wilk, But I felt like you deserve the Odyssey, you know?
00;14;49;18 - 00;15;07;22
Wilk Wilkinson
And that's good because I want the listeners to have that. And there's there's so much there, John, that I want to unpack and a couple of things that I want to touch on, but then I want to, you know, and I want to use those things to dive into kind of where the direction I was thinking that I want this conversation to go.
00;15;07;22 - 00;15;28;02
Wilk Wilkinson
So, so first of all, thank you very much for that rendition, even though it was a longer one. It brings so much clarity to, you know, how this, this digital thing got tied to better and now braver angels and that's awesome. So thank you for that. So so I want to go back to, you know, a couple of things you said there, John,
00;15;28;02 - 00;15;39;21
Wilk Wilkinson
those different awakenings that you had the you know, first of all, you know, your intention is to to really be, you know, you're leaning in on the on the Barack Obama,
00;15;39;21 - 00;15;45;07
Wilk Wilkinson
you know, campaign that wave you want to bring conservatives to that.
00;15;45;09 - 00;15;50;14
Wilk Wilkinson
And, and in doing so, and this is what I think way too many people
00;15;50;14 - 00;16;11;20
Wilk Wilkinson
are afraid to do today. In doing so, you actually diving into conservatism to understand them better, to see how we can bring people together now, people are just far, too, far too quick and and eager to attack versus learn. And I think that's very unfortunate.
00;16;11;23 - 00;16;12;13
John Wood Jr.
Right.
00;16;12;15 - 00;16;44;11
Wilk Wilkinson
We have people who are less interested in civility and unity than they are about this, like tribalism and polarization and that's one thing I want to get back to because you talked about being, you know, starting this at a very young age and really realizing that, you know, I would rather bring people together than tear people apart. And when you dove into conservatism and started to see we I actually relate to this.
00;16;44;16 - 00;17;10;29
Wilk Wilkinson
I relate to this, I relate to this. It's something that I've been talking about so much lately. John, is is, as we find out more about those people that we oppose or supposedly oppose or that are in that other tribe. Now all of a sudden, we're starting to realize, we're starting to realize, well, I do kind of relate to that or or or I can I can see where they're coming from on that.
00;17;11;01 - 00;17;34;10
Wilk Wilkinson
So that whole, that whole dynamic. And I think a lot of people are just maybe afraid, right? Because like you said, the other thing that you that that other awakening that you had in there was as soon as you got in and found out, okay, maybe I am a Republican. And then you dive into Republican politics and now you've got two different factions of the Republican side that are saying, well, you can't be friends with him.
00;17;34;16 - 00;18;09;10
Wilk Wilkinson
You can't be friends with them. And now if you're going to spend your time with them, you're surely not going to spend time with us. So that's that's weird, but way too many, way too many tribalistic mentalities have been fracturing our politics for too long. That now really nothing is getting done. But now is where in my mind, if we don't, as a nation, as a people, start to focus on depolarization.
00;18;10;08 - 00;18;35;23
Wilk Wilkinson
Polarization will wipe us out. In my opinion, John, and you can tell me where you stand on this. I think polarization is one of the, if not the only existential threats that we face as a nation. There's a lot of people that use that word. We hear it way too much nowadays. It's one of the most overused phrases that I, I can think of hearing lately is this is an existential threat.
00;18;35;23 - 00;18;41;20
Wilk Wilkinson
That's an existential threat. You know, Donald Trump is an existential threat. The Democrats are an existential threat. The,
00;18;41;20 - 00;19;04;02
Wilk Wilkinson
you know, the woke mob is an existential threat. It's the most overused thing in the world. But I think, personally, the only real existential threat we face is polarization. And that is now leading to and this is this is just a symptom or a byproduct of that, but that institutional distrust, people no longer trust, you know?
00;19;04;04 - 00;19;12;10
Wilk Wilkinson
Well, very seldom did people, not in my lifetime. Today, I know a lot of people that trusted politicians, but, I mean, they don't trust the politics.
00;19;12;10 - 00;19;13;24
John Wood Jr.
It's getting worse and worse and.
00;19;13;27 - 00;19;18;25
Wilk Wilkinson
Right. So talk about that for me, John. What what are your thoughts on that?
00;19;18;28 - 00;19;39;04
John Wood Jr.
Well, you know, I'm I'm where you are on this. I mean, you know, the sort of a quick way I say it is to say that, you know, polarization is is the one problem that ensures that all other problems will not be solved. You know, it really doesn't matter what the issue is.
00;19;39;04 - 00;19;49;13
John Wood Jr.
If it can be solved, you know, you're going to have your best chance of solving it by marshaling the full capacity, talents, resources,
00;19;49;13 - 00;19;52;07
John Wood Jr.
of the American people and putting that to bear on the problem.
00;19;52;07 - 00;19;53;22
John Wood Jr.
But you can only do that,
00;19;53;22 - 00;19;56;12
John Wood Jr.
with a culture of trust that can yield,
00;19;56;12 - 00;20;02;22
John Wood Jr.
yield some degree of unity. You know, in the absence of that, what you have,
00;20;02;22 - 00;20;27;21
John Wood Jr.
are people who take the rules of society and the institutions of society and essentially weaponize them for the purposes of partizan and tribal gain, because they don't see themselves as being engaged in, engaged in a competitive process that's still supposed to yield progress for the common good.
00;20;27;23 - 00;20;30;19
John Wood Jr.
You know, even if they don't agree with an individual,
00;20;30;19 - 00;20;50;29
John Wood Jr.
political or legislative outcome, but rather the rules and the institutions of society themselves are really only weapons and tools that are being used to vanquish an enemy while speaking sort of the superficial language of, you know, sharing, sharing a community, sharing a country together. Right? Right.
00;20;50;29 - 00;20;51;14
John Wood Jr.
And,
00;20;51;14 - 00;20;53;18
John Wood Jr.
you know, societies have fallen,
00;20;53;18 - 00;20;55;28
John Wood Jr.
this way in, in the past.
00;20;55;28 - 00;21;02;01
John Wood Jr.
You have to have a commitment to something bigger than yourself, something that transcends yourself. You know,
00;21;02;01 - 00;21;13;03
John Wood Jr.
the idea of a shared nation, of our having a shared destiny as a as a people, that should be something that's big enough for us to say, okay, this is bigger than our differences. You know,
00;21;13;03 - 00;21;23;11
John Wood Jr.
even if I disagree with you, even if I disagree with you vehemently, I should have some enough humility to be able to accept the fact that there's a process by which we engage in our disagreements.
00;21;23;11 - 00;21;30;03
John Wood Jr.
And if I lose this round, well, I've got to come back with better arguments the next time. The next time around. Right.
00;21;30;03 - 00;21;37;16
John Wood Jr.
In that at the end of the day, you know, the thing that allows us to hold society together isn't so much, you know,
00;21;37;16 - 00;21;43;23
John Wood Jr.
I mean, this is this is just the ultimate cliche, but it isn't so much whether I win or lose this, this round or the next.
00;21;43;23 - 00;21;46;12
John Wood Jr.
It's literally how we play the game, right?
00;21;4
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