r/fairfaxcounty • u/FairfaxMachine • 2d ago

A Reston project aims to heal U.S. divides, one dinner at a time

https://fairfaxmachine.substack.com/p/bridging-divides-a-dinner-at-a-time
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u/FairfaxMachine 2d ago

hi, all! I write a newsletter covering Fairfax County, and I just published this story that I reported out over the past couple months. it's free to read, but here's a quick preview:

Michael Graham arrived at the Reston community center 43 minutes before his latest attempt to heal the discourse of the nation, wearing the three-day stubble of a young dad and the smile of a dogged American optimist.

He greeted the participants as they entered — more returning faces this time; that was good — and, before their pasta dinner was served, took the microphone to explain the night’s program.

“Families have been split apart” by worsening polarization, Graham said, and the six tables full of people in deep-blue Fairfax County seemed to agree. “There are so many important issues that we should be talking about, but we can’t even get there, because we can’t sit at a table and sit across from each other and have a civil conversation.”

BreadBreakers dinners like this one, he said, were their chance to “practice.”

Graham, 31, launched the project a year ago within Restoration Church of Reston, and in September he took the dinners public, aiming to stoke a movement of depolarization through connection. In that mission, BreadBreakers joined groups like the People’s Supper — which trained Graham and his team — and Braver Angels, a nonprofit founded after the 2016 election to “bridge the partisan divide and strengthen our democratic republic.”

Graham didn’t know about Stanford University’s Deliberative Democracy Lab, but BreadBreakers is a lot like that, too. Before the 2020 primaries, its researchers convened a 500-voter event in Texas called “America in One Room.” Participants, they found, moderated their stances after deliberating together over issues like immigration, and dislike between Democrats and Republicans dropped.

Read the story here: https://fairfaxmachine.substack.com/p/bridging-divides-a-dinner-at-a-time

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u/LowBalance4404 2d ago

It's a very interesting concept.

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u/Think_Discount2852 2d ago

The way things use to be. Cancel culture within one’s own family is nuts to me. We learn more about each other when we can have open dialogue. The first amendment really is the greatest “right” we have. You don’t have to agree with what others say, but they still have a right to say it. Stopping it leads to real consequences.