Happy Wednesday. The legislature is in full swing, there are impeachment discussions on the state and national level, more vaccines are coming, and no one better diss “Spida.” On a somber note, it’s also International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the day the survivors of Auschwitz were liberated.
If you only have time for one thing: Don’t miss this piece by Anne Applebaum writing in The Atlantic: Coexistence is the only option. In it, she writes about the path forward for our country, drawing on peace-building and conflict resolution practices. The answer? “Drop the argument and change the subject.” Whether it’s Rwanda, post World War II Germany, South Africa, Northern Ireland or today’s deeply divided United States, the answer it not to convince people to drop deeply held beliefs – it’s to find some commonality and work on a project together. “Make the problem narrow, specific, even boring, not existential or exciting. ‘Who won the 2020 election?’ is, for these purposes, a bad topic. ‘How do we fix the potholes in our roads?’ is, in contrast, superb.” This approach is not accidental. It’s deliberately “built on the idea that people should do something constructive—something that benefits everybody, lessens inequality, and makes people work alongside people they hate. That doesn’t mean they will then get to like one another, just that they are less likely to kill one another on the following day.”
TICK TOCK
37 days to the end of the 2021 Utah Legislature (3/5/21)
77 days until the end of the Cox/Henderson administration’s first 100 days (04/14/2021)
93 days until the Biden/Harris administration’s first 100 days are up (04/30/2021)
