Pick a controversial topic. Whether it’s immigration, race, climate change, the role of religion, or the economy, many of our assumptions that we view as completely reasonable can seem whacky or wrong to others. This may well include very smart, thoughtful people, who’ve had very different life experiences than our own.

Our guest for this episode is Chauncey Williams, a Democratic-leaning Braver Angels volunteer in Denver.

He was shocked when Donald Trump was first elected President in 2016. But instead of retreating into his political silo, Chauncey began a unique project. On different occasions he set up a table with two chairs in local parks, and invited total strangers to have conversations about important public matters. 

“One of the important things I came to realize is that I walk into a lot of those conversations with a host of assumptions about folks that aren’t always true,” Chauncey told us.