Nobody in this room is allowed to grab the mic and rant. Ambassador Allan Katz spent his career in diplomacy and city government before building American Public Square, a Kansas City nonprofit that gets people on opposite sides of gun violence, immigration, and abortion into the same room to actually listen, with real-time fact-checkers on standby and a civility bell for when things go sideways. We talk about the fight for a coal plant in Tallahassee that started it all, the moment he realized strangers were desperate for this, and the question underneath everything he does: what if changing someone's mind was never the goal?

Please visit congressionalcommunities.org to learn more about your community.

Learn more about American Public Square at americanpublicsquare.org.

Hosts:
Dan Carracino
Alex Clark

Executive Producer:
Alex Clark

Music:
Aditya Shrestha

Animation:
Seventy Seven Lab

What actually pulls someone out of an extremist mindset, and what pulls them in? Alex Clark and Dan Carracino sit down with Heather Rosso, a PhD candidate in Peace and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University, whose research spans lone actor violence, polarization, and disinformation. Heather explains why polarization isn't really about two sides clashing, but about people drifting so far apart they lose the ability to meet in the middle, and why the antidote, again and again, comes down to one person reaching out. She connects the dots between extremist recruitment, cults, intimate partner violence, and even online scams, and argues that the algorithms shaping our feeds function a lot like cults.

Please visit congressionalcommunities.org to learn more about your community.

Hosts: Dan Carracino, Alex Clark

Executive Producer: Alex Clark

Music: Aditya Shrestha

Animation: Seventy Seven Lab

Why does the U.S. House of Representatives still have 435 members, even though the country has tripled in size since that number was set? Alex Clark and Dan Carracino sit down with Dr. Christopher Malone, Deputy Executive Director of Policy and Education Innovation at the Consortium for Worker Education, to unpack his recent Newsday op-ed arguing that the House of Representatives should grow from 435 members to 1,100.

Chris walks through the forgotten history of proportional representation in Congress, how we could get back to it, and what it would actually mean for your day-to-day life. Along the way: what even counts as a "community," and why Chris thinks engagement, not perfect representation, is the real goal.

Please visit congressionalcommunities.org to learn more about your community.

Hosts: Dan Carracino, Alex Clark
Executive Producer: Alex Clark
Music: Aditya Shrestha
Animation: Seventy Seven Lab

What if the loudest voices in Washington don't actually represent what most Americans agree on? Alex Clark and Dan Carracino sit down with Keith Allred, Executive Director of the National Institute for Civil Discourse and founder of Common Sense American, an organization with over 91,000 members that identifies where Republicans, Democrats, and Independents already agree. Then, they bring that consensus straight to Congress. Keith walks through the four-step model he built first in Idaho and now runs nationally, the surprising story of running for governor as an independent recruited by the Democratic Party, and how a bipartisan push on "workforce Pell" grants turned into real legislation. As Keith puts it, the biggest misconception isn't that we're divided, it's that we don't realize how much we already agree.

Please visit congressionalcommunities.org to learn more about your community.

Hosts: Dan Carracino, Alex Clark
Executive Producer: Alex Clark
Music: Aditya Shrestha
Animation: Seventy Seven Lab

What if we gave ordinary people real power over public money? Alex Clark and Dan Carracino sit down with Isabel Luciano of the Participatory Budgeting Project to explore what happens when communities, including young people, get to decide what their government should fund. In Phoenix, students got to decide how $600,000 would be spent to make their schools safer. What they wanted was not what you might expect: shade, water, and better bathrooms.

Participatory budgeting is built on a simple idea: people who live in a community have knowledge that policymakers and experts may not. Isabel shares what happens when we trust that knowledge: young people discover their own power and governments learn things they might otherwise miss. As she puts it, “you have a lot of knowledge just being a resident in your own neighborhood.”

Please visit congressionalcommunities.org to learn more about your community.

Hosts:
Dan Carracino
Alex Clark

Executive Producer:
Alex Clark

Music:
Aditya Shrestha

Animation:
Seventy Seven Lab

What happens when two people from opposite sides of the political spectrum decide to work together? We sit down with MoveOn.org co-founder Joan Blades and AllSides.com co-founder John Gable to discuss why they are teaming up on trustworthy elections and an upcoming American Dream Roundtable, which will bring people with different viewpoints together to mark America’s 250th anniversary. Moving through money in politics and climate change, the conversation asks the larger question: How do people actually change their minds? For Joan and John, the answer starts with relationships and real conversations across differences.

Please visit congressionalcommunities.org to learn more about your community.

Register here for the AllSides American Dream Roundtable, in partnership with Living Room Conversations: https://www.allsides.com/american-dream

Hosts:

Dan Carracino

Alex Clark

Executive Producer:

Alex Clark

Executive Assistant:

Karina Nguyen

Music:

Aditya Shrestha

Animation:

Seventy Seven Lab

Why would an Emmy Award-winning filmmaker and successful CEO walk away from it all to focus on congressional representation? Alex Clark sits down with Congressional Communities founder Dan Carracino to discuss the future of American democracy, why local representation is more important than ever, and why the country's greatest untapped resource isn't money or technology—it's its people.

Please visit congressionalcommunities.org to learn more about your community

Hosts:

Dan Carracino

Alex Clark

Executive Producer:

Alex Clark

Executive Assistant:

Karina Nguyen

Music:

Aditya Shrestha

Animation:

Seventy Seven Lab