Today, we're diving into the wild world of political polarization and outrage culture, and trust me, this isn't just your average chit-chat. We're thrilled to welcome David Beckemeyer, the mastermind behind the Outrage Overload podcast, who's on a mission to tackle these pressing issues head-on. With a background in media literacy, social psychology, and civil discourse, David’s here to share some seriously practical strategies for cooling down the heated conversations that seem to be taking over our lives. Whether you're feeling overwhelmed by the constant noise or just curious about how we got here, this episode is packed with insights that could make a real difference. So grab your favorite drink, sit back, and get ready for a fun, enlightening conversation that might just inspire you to bridge some gaps in your own life!

Takeaways:

• Political polarization is a pressing issue today, impacting our daily lives and mental health.
• David Beckemeyer emphasizes the importance of media literacy and civil discourse in bridging divides.
• Strategies to reduce outrage include being mindful of our language and seeking common ground with others.
• The algorithms behind social media often amplify outrage, so we must be aware of their influence on our perspectives.
• Connecting with mentors can greatly impact our personal growth and understanding of complex issues.
• The conversation around outrage culture requires us to actively engage and reflect on our own contributions to divisiveness.

Welcome to becoming bridge builders. We're about to dive into some deep ideas in shaping our world and the voices that drive change.

Today we're joined by someone who's tackling one of the most pressing issues of our time, political polarization and the outrage culture that fuels it. Our guest today is David Beckermeyer, host of the Outrage Overload podcast.

Dave is a leading voice in media literacy and civil discourse, drawing from social psychology and communication studies to help us understand the mechanisms behind outreach media. He is here to share practical strategies to reduce toxic outrage and foster unity in an increasingly divided world.

Whether you're overwhelmed by the noise or just curious about how we got here, this conversation is one that you won't want to miss. We welcome David to the show. Well, David, so good to have you on.

Yeah, it's great to be here.

This is a topic that I'm sure many of us either are dealing with anxiety because of, or we see it in our lives or among our families every day. So we're going to talk about this and really kind of get some insights from you about how we can move forward as a, as a nation and as a people.

So I'm looking forward to this conversation.

Yeah, it's impacting a lot of people.

Yeah. But I'm going to start out with my favorite question first. What's the best piece of advice you ever received?

Yeah, it's. I always have to think about this question because there's probably more than one I could choose because I'm old enough that I get a lot of advice.

But, you know, one that really sticks with me is one that I think my father in law is who said it. And I don't think he even thought of it as advice, you know, but it, but it really stuck with me anyway.

I think it was just like a passing comment, just, you know, move on kind of thing.

And I was asking him, you know, I was, I was a young, young man and, you know, kind of trying to figure things out, like we all are and, you know, what is, what is the future like and how do we do this? And you know, I was. And he had five kids by the time he was pretty young, I would say, like early 30s or something like that.

He already had five kids and all this kind of stuff. And I'm like, man, you know, how did you do that? You know, and, and his answer is like, what do you mean how you just do it?

You know, And I don't think it meant much to him, but it really stuck with me that, that comment so.

Nike owes him a lot of money then, apparently.

Right.

Since they borrowed his thing.

I think a lot of it means to me is like, don't overthink everything, buddy.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I like that because you do.

We get into our side of our own heads and we end up doing more damage by trying to process everything and figure everything out, but just like. And just paralyzes us by the decisions we're trying to make. So. Yeah, I agree with that.

As you think about your life, I'm curious, like you'd mentioned we're both a little older and have lived a little bit of a life. Who are some people in your life and your journey who served as mentors or inspiration for you?

Yeah, and it is similar because at different phases of my life, I've definitely. I mean, I definitely kind of have a.

Everybody that if you can sort of find a mentor, take advantage of it, like every opportunity that you have, you know, and for me, I was. I was pretty lucky to have a few at different times, at different stages in my. In my life.

I. I think one of my first ones was like a high school auto shop teacher. So I was, you know, I was looked at as somebody that was probably destined for, you know, definitely not like a high academic career. Right.

I think at that time.

And this guy saw something in me, and so he's teaching me autoshop, supposedly, or I'm in his auto shop class, but down on the side, he's teaching me physics and math. And he actually helped me get into a junior college class, which he was able to do the paperwork.

So even though I wasn't supposedly, I think he had to be 18 or something. I wasn't 18, but with a teacher's recommendation or whatever, you could do that.

So I was taking a few college courses while I was in high school, and it changed my life, you know, really, because I was on. I was not on a great track at that point. You know, I didn't see a lot of future for myself.

And I think there's a lot of young men that can find themselves in that space pretty easily. So that was, I think, in some ways, you know, between him and junior college, in a lot of ways, that saved my life. So that's been one.

And I've had others over my career. And sometimes it's that unexpected person that ends up being a mentor. Right. I actually had an employee that was a mentor to me in a lot of ways.

And, you know, because it was. It was one that. He was one of those people that really Modeled by behavior, not. Not talking. Right.

He didn't explain things, but he modeled that modeled sort of excellence by in behavior. And he served as a mentor me, so I've had several and my uncle when I was young was always a mentor that I'll always have. So yeah, I've had many.

So I've been lucky in that regard.

Yeah. If we get those people in your life who pour into you, it's so meaningful to have that influence.

So I always like to give people a chance to just kind of thank those people that have meant so much to them because we don't always think about it until sometimes it's too late. Man, I wish I'd said something to them while they were here. Just thank them for being in my life at that moment.

So this kind of gives us a chance to stop and reflect on those people who have been so important to us and shaped who we are.

Yeah, exactly. And don't be afraid to like, if you see somebody you think could be a mentor for you, just ask them, like have a conversation about it.

Yeah, I had a guest on too. He talked about, you know, don't be ashamed to be a mentor for somebody else.

If you see someone you can pour into, take the opportunity if they're willing to walk alongside them, pay it back or pay it forward.

Somebody said, oh, for sure. Yeah, 100%.

So you've had a very diverse career spanning technology, entrepreneurship, civil engagement. How did your journey lead you to focus on political polarization and media influence?

Yeah, I mean, I think 10 years ago if I told somebody what I'm doing now, or I told them what I'm going to be doing in 10 years, they'd be like, what? Like who kidnapped you and made you do this? But yeah, I mean, I think a lot of it was just the world we're in. Right. I mean, look around.

And I think seeing that and having the time, I'm retired, so I've got some time to do it. I'm kind of a science nerd.

So that took me down the track of kind of thinking about maybe there's some smart people, way smarter than me that are sort of looking at some of this and maybe that can help us understand it a little.

And there were, of course, so that was a big piece of it that I'm living in the same life and environment that we're all in and seeing the same things, experiencing the same things. And I just wanted to understand it better. And I felt like, well, maybe I can bring some of this bridge, some of that academic information to a more.

A wider audience without. You don't have to be a hardcore scientist. And I try not to make it, you know, like a two hour long academic to academic talk.

I try to make it, you know, presentable and try to make it flow and interesting enough that'll keep people around for half an hour to get some, get some, you know, a highlight of some of the science out there. And so that's kind of where how I ended up here from that perspective at the tail end of my career.

But yeah, I mean, so mostly I'm in what I'm doing now because I was retired and really got interested, got pulled into this and it's a, you know, I think I also like as a, as a, with all the things I've always done in my, in my, throughout my life from you know, my academic world and then, and then professionally, I've always liked sort of challenges.

So with this space, I'm really jumping from a place where I kind of had a reputation and people know me and it was almost like a comfort zone, right to this space where I don't know anything, I don't know anybody, you know, I've got to start all over again. So that was maybe just a challenge for me as well.

As you got into this space and things you've discovered what's been the most surprising thing for you as you've gone on this journey of discovery?

Yeah, I mean, I think in terms of surprising, it's probably that we are as wired as humans.

We have a lot of blind spots and that can make it really a challenge for us because it's easy sometimes to see some of these behaviors, some of these phenomenon when sort of other people are doing it. But we can be right in the middle of it and not realize we're doing it.

And I think that applies to a lot of things that have sort of a psychological underpinning to them.

But that surprises me a lot because I know people that really present themselves as sort of a champion of bridge building and you know, are upset about the divisiveness and this kind of thing. But then almost in the same sentence they'll, they'll, they'll use language and, and, and really, you know, mop be mocking and things like that.

And like they just don't realize they're doing it so they can hold on to those two. And I sure do it too, right? I mean, I think that's the surprise, right?

That I think it really takes a village almost, I guess in some way to really help you see those things. You know, you have to have some trusted people that can tell you, dude, you're doing the thing right now.

So tell us about your podcast, Outrage Overload. Tell us what got you started doing that.

Yeah, so like I said, I was kind of witnessing and experiencing sort of this divisive environment that we live in and the sort of the toxicity and the hostility and animosity and, you know, anger and, of course, outrage, ultimately. Right. And.

And I started to see this pattern of there's so many sort of provocateurs out there, if you will, that kind of leverage outrage for their own. For their own benefit. And sometimes it's even, you know, not necessarily, like, nefarious. You just find yourself in an echo chamber. And.

And it's just the way we start. We start piling on the other side in some way. Right. And it's kind of a. It, you know, it's.

It's part of that tribal mentality that people have, and it kind of makes you feel more part of a group and all that, but ultimately it's not necessarily good for us in the longer term. And. And so sort of witnessing all that and then saying, well, I'm kind of a science nerd. And. And I do.

I think there's other people like that that are kind of interested in some of the science going on here.

So maybe we could take some of what we see going on inside of this partisan political realm and say, well, maybe there's some underlying stuff that's interesting about it. So we can talk about politics without talking about issues. You know, we can too much. We don't really.

We're not out there promoting policy and promoting, you know, specific issues for the most part. I mean, the biggest. The only place we would do that is typically if it's an issue, like, here's a bipartisan bill to promote bridge building.

Like, we might help support that. But in general, you know, we don't do that. So what we do instead, we don't. So we don't talk about issues. We sort of talk about.

How we talk about politics is a little bit more meta and.

And how we talk about politics, how we find ourselves, you know, with this kind of hostile attitude and participating in it and just some of the science around that.

And then I also talk to practitioners because that's the other thing I sort of discovered as I, you know, moved in, learned more about what's happening in this space out there, is there's this whole world of what I call practitioners. I don't know if that's the right word. Exactly.

But there's a whole bunch of organizations out there that are sort of looking at these problems and then looking at practical ways to maybe bring people together in dialogue or maybe other ways to lower what I kind of call in general this kind of idea of lowering the temperature.

So I always hear that, and I'm not a science nerd, but I have a few friends who were, who say that there are algorithms that intentionally designed to kind of amplify the outrage.

In your studying of this from a scientific perspective, are you noticing that there are algorithms in the social media Sphere, in your YouTube, your Google, that drive division or drive you to a certain mindset?

Well, it's definitely a factor.

And for the most part, most of the experts, I've talked to quite a few about this topic because it's of course, a very top of mind one with a lot of people, including myself.

Most of the experts sort of don't see it like sort of Mr. Burns, you know, sitting in the top, you know, in a building, kind of coming up with this way. We can, we can do that, but it's a side effect, for the most part, it's a side effect of this, you know, optimizing for engagement.

So these social media platforms, you know, they're, they're getting, they're incentivized by revenue, they get money. If we're on there, the more we stay on there, the more we engage in it, the more comments we do, the more time we spend on there.

And that's by creating an algorithm. You know, that was a turning point in all this is turning on algorithms. Right.

By creating an algorithm that benefits or tries to get us engaged, they sort of accidentally, you could say, something discovered, oh, well, this stuff that kind of enrages people, keeps them motivated, gets them to engage, keeps them coming back.

But I guess the other side of that though, is even though maybe it wasn't intentional initially, they've done a lot of research on this and they know they're doing it, right. And they also know they could stop doing it, but they also know that. So they know, but that hits their bottom line, right?

So they don't want to stop doing it.

In fact, they, there was cases where they, they did experiments to show that they could turn this off and it worked like people would calm down and find better things to do. But of course that's not good. They don't want that. Right. So. So they aren't necessarily guilty of kind of an overall plot to tear us apart.

But Ultimately, that's kind of what they're doing because they're trying to keep us engaged and keep us on these platforms, and these platforms are not ideal platforms to have difficult conversations.

You mentioned and kind of in your bio that the assassination attempt kind of impacted you. Tell us a little bit about, you know, what about that event kind of triggers you maybe more to talk about, like, how do we stop this?

Because we're going down. I would say, and you've mentioned it to kind of a dangerous path if we don't pull back and go, whoa, this is a. This has gone too far.

Right. And that. That's kind of what I was kind of hoping that event might signal that kind of thought. I mean, we had a little bit of that at 9 11.

After 9 11, there was some kind of coming together and saying maybe, you know, things need to calm down and we need to work together a little better. I was kind of hoping maybe that event or some of these other events could maybe be a trigger to be a catalyst for thinking about that.

Like, look, this is kind of going too far, right? This is kind of where this leads. And we kind of know this because we've seen it in other countries around the world. And so it was an event.

I would kind of hope to do that. Unfortunately, it kind of just didn't stick, and we've kind of moved on already. Probably within a. Yeah, I know maybe a month you could.

Could have given it. I don't know. But it's. And I was hoping, you know, that we could maybe take advantage of that and highlight that as a.

Whichever side you're on, you know, this is not a direction we really want to go in. And. Yeah, so that's. That's a. I think that's a big factor in all this.

That really concerns me that, like I said, I'm hopeful because there's so many people kind of looking at this. There are a lot of solutions that could work if we could find the will to implement some of them. But, yeah, I'm concerned because this escalating.

It's just an escalating spiral where each side. And I think you end up. What we see is that it's almost like preventive. It's almost like people think the other side's gonna do this thing.

So as a preventive measure, I'm gonna do it first. Right. And now you've done it. And the other side said, hey, they did this thing. Now we're gonna do this thing.

And as you build this animosity towards each other, which is the big place we are. It's more of a psychological thing than it is an issue separation. It's more, we don't like the other side, and we think they're immoral.

And that just continues.

I mean, you know a lot about morality in your work, and that just continues to sort of dehumanize, and it creates opportunities to dehumanize and, you know, become so righteous in a way on your political ideology that suddenly you can justify doing bad things. And a lot of bad things have happened in the name of my morality is better than yours.

I want to dig into something you just said because I think it's important. You said, a lot of times we don't realize that we're being. That we're also part of the problem.

How do you help people realize that even the language you're using is also contributing to the outrage that you're causing someone else? I mean, we can see it in the other guy. It's like it is a famous line in the Bible.

You know, I can see the speck in my brother's eye, but I can't see the plank in my own eyes. So how do we see the speck in our eyes? How do we see how we contribute to the outreach? How do you help people identify that?

Yeah, it's really hard, first of all, because of the way human brains work. We're really good at sort of seeing what we want to see. Um, but the first step, of course, is intentionality, right?

So the first step is saying, you know, I want to be. I, I, I want to try to see it in myself, which is a big step for a lot of people. They don't really care. They're doing fine.

They just keep doing what they're doing. But, but if you take that step of intentionality, then you can perform some active, active measures.

So, you know, one is if you have a trusted friend there, somebody that you trust that you know doesn't have, they don't have to call you out publicly, but that you trust to say, hey, you know, when I talked about this thing, what do you think someone on the other side might think of what I'm writing or what I'm saying or what I'm. My thoughts on it, or. And like you say, even just the language I'm using, right?

Because many times, especially if we're in our bubbles, we're not like intentionally trying to rile anybody up. It's just the language we use in our information sphere.

And we don't really realize that some of Those words are maybe triggers or have been sort of weaponized by some people. And we're just using these words that we think are kind of normal, but they can be taken as being weaponized. So it can be as simple as that.

So that's one thing is you can kind of, if you can have some people that can help check you a little bit because they're like you say, the easiest way is to have somebody else that can see it before you do. And I think, I actually think something like AI like, you know, could actually help a little bit too.

Like I'm, I believe this thing or I heard this thing and my position on it looks like this, you know, it somehow ask the AI, like do you think that's a partisan position or do you think that's contributing to toxicity, or do you think it's a polarizing view that could be harmful or, or disrespectful in some way or something like that? I think AI has opportunity to that if we choose to use it that way. Right. It can also obviously be used in lots of bad ways.

But if we choose it to use it that way, that's one thing that could probably help. I mean, I think AI is pretty neutral. I mean, I know that it is.

You know, there's been some studies to show it leans to the left primarily because the information it's pulling from especially, you know, media sources lean left somewhat. But it's pretty good about questions like that.

Like if you say is this a reasonable way to looking at it or is this possibly, you know, politically toxic? It's pretty good about that.

Whether the thing sort of would be politically toxic or you know, inflaming to somebody on the right or somebody on the left. So that can be one way and I think another is just cooling off a little bit and asking yourself, do I really have the full picture here?

Because if we're looking at information in our information silo with our like minded folks, we're seeing necessarily like most people probably aren't trying to tell us lies and straight up lies. Sure it happens, the media sometimes straight up lies.

But more often, the more reality, more real picture that is very common is they're just sort of leaving things out. They're kind of creating a narrative to make it maybe sound worse than it really is to sort of get you riled up.

Because again, that media is also driven by engagement and likes and clicks and all that stuff. So they have the same incentives to kind of get your attention and get you riled up.

So this Article might be designed that way, and sometimes it's just unintentional because again, even the guy writing that article, the person writing that article is in the same psychological way too, and may not even realize they're using inflammatory language either. Right. Or may not even realize that they have a very sort of a more biased view than you might think, things like that.

So it can come out as a narrative that gets you more riled up. And then when you look at it, you find, oh, well, wait, it wasn't that bad.

When you put it in context a little more or you add a little bit, you know, some of the other facts that were sort of left out, you know, it's not as bad as they'd made it out to be. So that's always a good question to ask yourself, am I. Is it really as bad as they're presenting it?

Or maybe there's some more data here that I could go find. And, and unfortunately, all these things are heavy lifts for us to do because our first N reaction is to go, yeah, I'm really mad about that.

Right. So when we start out with that idiot, it's probably not a good way to reduce the outrage.

Right? Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's many of the folks that, the practitioner space that I'm talking about, there's a lot of work going on and building, you know, digital tools and tools to help with some of this. So I do think over the next couple of years we're going to.

I've seen some of the prototypes, but I think a lot of this stuff is going to get more widely available, and a lot of it is using AI and, you know, sort of AI for good, if you will. And I think there will be a lot more tools to help us with some of this, so I'm encouraged by that.

So give me some examples of things you see coming down the pike that would help with some of our outrage.

Yeah, one of them is a lot of people are doing things with, like depolarizing chatbots. So the idea that instead of you just. Instead of it just giving an answer like a normal chatbot, it might come back.

Some examples are coming back with things like, well, here's what. How someone on, like, you present an issue. Like, I think everybody. That everybody should just have to buy a gun. Right.

So I'm going to put out some opinion. And then it would say, well, here's what someone on the left might say about that. Here's what someone on the right might say about that.

And then they'll often Give like a third and it's not necessarily a center. Like one of them is called depolarizing GPT and it's alternative, its third option is not necessarily a center position the way you might think.

It's just splitting the difference. It's more an integrated values 1. So what it tries to do is say, well, the left kind of values these things, the right kind of values these things.

And so I can present a response that integrates some of those values. So that's one example. There's also a lot of examples of like helpers in dialogue, right? So say you're getting an online conversation.

You could have a, the tool could almost be like, if you think of like a Grammarly tool that sort of like can before you type the thing, can kind of inspect it and do some typos or fix your grammar and things like that. These tools could say, hey, wait a minute here, this one place where you're saying this, you know, that's. Do you really want to say it that way?

Like you want to take a breath first?

Or you know, there's, here's three other ways where you could sort of make that point without also sort of, you know, either being really generally hateful or individually hateful or somehow generalize people into a category that you may not be right or like it's not appropriate for this conversation.

So there's things like that, they're like, that will sort of help you maybe settle down a little bit before you respond and maybe just capture bigger input on it too. Like those same kind of tools can say, hey, here's some more context. Like you're kind of angry about this thing. Here's some more context about it.

Right? So, and you can decide then what do I want to do with that extra context? But it might just tell you a little bit.

Well, the person said this thing, but it was kind of in response to this, not what they're presenting it to be in response to things like that. Like oh, oh, well that makes more sense in that context or whatever, right? So there's tools like that.

So it's a lot of the things are along those lines helping us better with dialogue. One, one project is happening with, you know, they jump talk about jumping into the deep end.

They've been working on conversations between Israelis and Palestine, Palestinians and they've been conducting these conversations for, you know, quite a while, quite a number of years. And they've, you know, been improving it, improving it and taking it more and more from sort of human moderation and human assistance.

To more and more AI, and AI moderation. And moderation may not even be the right word.

It's more like an AI assistant in the conversation, and they're able to have dialogue there with folks that generally or have a hard time with that, as you probably know. So there's a lot of things like that happening, and I'm really encouraged by a lot of the efforts being put into that now.

Some of it takes some will, but a lot of efforts are trying to be done without that. Don't need, you know, to go get help from the social media platforms. Right. They work.

They can work outside it or alongside it, so you don't have to go get the cooperation of social media companies.

So this is something that I can tell you're passionate about. Do you sense that's something that more and more people are becoming aware of? The fact that. I just. I'm really tired of the atmosphere, the outrage.

I really wish we could just tone down. I think as I interview a lot of people on my podcast, I discover that more people are in the center than on the extremes.

And I think my sense is more and more people are just frustrated with. Why can't we just talk and have conversation? I'm not on either. At either of these two extremes.

Are you finding more and more people are kind of in the center of this battle between both sides?

Well, yes. I'll do sort of a yes end here because there's a lot of data, you know, talking about how. I mean, first of all, I have a problem.

I have a challenge about the. I think the whole paradigm of left and right is kind of broken. But that's probably maybe another conversation we could have.

But there's a lot of data and a lot of research that shows that, you know, most people, there's this idea of sort of the exhausted majority that are, you know, tired of kind of the both sides fighting and, you know, and they're certainly more moderate in terms of the rhetoric they want to hear and things like that. They still might hold, you know, strong positions on certain things, but they're less tribal.

I mean, that's a big, big problem that we have, is that we're. We don't really. We don't even know we care about the issues, but we're told to care about it.

So you're supposed to think this way about these five things. And if we really step back, do we really care about all five of those things that much? Like, you know, things like that.

And we know that that majority is out there, right? So you can call them center, you can call them a lot of different names, but.

And more people are registering or declaring themselves to be independent too, right? I mean, there's more independents than there are Republicans and Democrats combined. I think that's an indicator that that space exists. Right.

That it's real, you know, but. So yeah, it's definitely out there. And I think. And it's real.

And I think that's where these people that are willing to break with their tribe are probably the biggest thing that can pull us out of this. Because it's a hard emotional or psychological thing to do. Right. To break with your tribe. It's risky, right?

If I break with my tribe, I might get kicked out of my tribe and then where do I live? And a lot of the people that we're talking about even call themselves kind of politically homeless. Right. Like they don't really know.

Neither party really serves them and there's no real third party option that's viable either. So they do feel politically homeless. And yeah, so those people are probably who is going to get out.

But I will add one aspect of that a little bit because I talk to a lot of people and I also talk to a lot of experts on this.

But even I do some sort of non scientific, what I call kind of these man on the street interviews where I talk to a lot of people about a lot of this and it's somewhat self selective of course, because they agreed to talk to me. But you know, they, they all say they want to lower the rhetoric and lower the temperature in some way.

But then at the same time, when you probe that a little deeper, what they, their way to do that is to convince the other person to think the right, you know, so it's, it's, that's true of a lot of people too. And it's natural. Like I get that. Like they think if I could just convince them then we wouldn't fight anymore. That's what my wife says.

If I would just do what she says, we wouldn't be fighting.

Exactly. That makes sense. So as you, as you think about the impact you want to have in your legacy, what do you want your legacy to be?

Yeah, I mean, I think with this show, you know, and I get some of these kind of comments already and I've had people literally say, you know, I was, you know, considering suicide and I listened to some of your episodes and now I'm like, wait, whoa, this is like too much for me. I can't handle that. But, you know, but I. So I think The. You know, so I'm not.

I'm one little show, but I think, you know, as part of this larger network or this larger sort of coalition, if I can help, you know, sort of six people, like, maybe reconnect with their uncle or their brother or, you know, somebody in their family, a good friend, you know, in some way that, you know, if I can help them build some of the tools and understand or even want to do that, because that's what I'm saddened by the most. It seems like almost everybody has a story like that.

You know, like, I don't go home for Thanksgiving anymore because my brother this, my uncle that, or I don't talk to Uncle Jones anymore, or he's not invited as Thanksgiving or whatever it might be. Everybody seems to have stories like that.

Certainly people have either experienced one side or the other sort of getting blocked or unfriended on Facebook or something like that.

And these stories really saddened me because, you know, part of what trying to do here is message that those are the people I really want to reach and talk to and help. But it's hard for someone to look at my show. I mean, I have to get better.

I have to figure out how to message that, because people think my show is going to sort of be about politics, and I'm sort of tired of talking about politics anymore. Right.

So, you know, I have to do better to figure out how to present this in a way that, you know, what we're really trying to do is help people with those challenges because it's so common.

Sort of figure out some of the ways to be resilient, the ways to maybe reconnect, you know, but still have to, you know, your mental health comes first. I get that. Like, you do have to take, you know, take. I'm not.

I'm not necessarily saying you must go deal with your uncle, who's totally toxic and you can't deal with. But maybe there's, you know, this. Some bridge you can build a little bit. You know, maybe you can start some kind of a dialogue. Maybe you can.

But, you know, there. There may be others in your life that you can start to build some of that bridge. And.

And I think that's where I get frustrated sometimes about people thinking my show is just about. Just about politics. Like you're gonna just tell me, I don't know. I have to get better at messaging because those.

That would be the legacy that I'd love, is that I, you know, helped a hundred people kind of reconnect in one of those, you know, some. Some loved one with them, you know, kind of before it's too late, maybe is. Maybe not quite the right word, but you know what I mean?

I do. That's. That's. That's kind of what my show was designed to do, too, is how do we begin to have conversations about.

Everybody was hot and bothered about the George Floyd thing, and we couldn't talk, and everybody was angry and there were people upset. I'm like, there's a deeper issue. How do we begin to have this conversation in a way that bridges. Bridges. Gaps between.

Bridges between the two different sides. So, yeah, I get what you're saying. Hope, is that we can encourage people and inspire them to realize that there's.

There's a much, much deeper conversation and more ways that we can. We connect and can connect than ways that divide us.

Yeah. And, you know, I work. I worked a little bit in racial justice around that same time period, and there are a lot of parallels, for sure.

Yeah. So I got something new for my guest issue. Pick a number. We pick number one or number two for your surprise question.

Okay, well, I gotta go with two.

Your surprise question is, what's the most awkward thing that happens to you on a regular basis?

Well, I'm a fairly awkward guy in general. Right. So I think, yeah, it's probably awkward just awkwardly introducing myself or awkwardly saying hi to someone. Like, I'll.

They'll say, how are you? And I, you know, I'll say, you know, blue. You know, you know, say something like, not the answer to the question at all kind of thing.

You know, how are you? Yeah, my car is. I don't know, just something weird like, okay, why. Why did I do that? What's wrong with me? Why did I say that weird thing?

That's hilarious. I have to try that just for fun now. So where can people find your podcast connect with you on social media?

Yeah, that's great. So, yeah, well, of course, the main website where we have all those links, so whatever platform you're listening on, you can find it.

There is outrageoverload.net and that's also where all my contact info is. But yeah, you could also obviously search on your podcast player platform just for just outrage overload. And we're.

We're basically outrage overload on.

I only have so many hours in the day, so I spend probably more time on Instagram than some of the other socials, but we do have a Facebook page with a Facebook group. Again, they're all named Outrage Overload. So this should be pretty easy to find. And do we have a blue sky? I think we have a blue sky as well.

I don't get on there very often, though, to be honest.

I have one, too. I haven't. I've only been on a couple of times. Yeah, I forget I have it most of the time.

Yeah. U.S. independence. I mean, we just don't have a team of people to handle our social media for us.

I love that. So as we end, I want to kind of leave you with. Give you a chance to kind of say this. What. How do you.

In terms of your perspective on moving forward, what's your degree of hope that this weekend, as a country, resolve some of the outrage that we have? Kind of give me your. Your elevator speech for. Yeah, I feel hopeful that we can. We can do something with this.

Yeah. Well. And I'm going to be honest with you that it's a challenging space.

Like, you know, and I've talked to people that have been in it for decades, and they struggle with this. Like, every once in a while they're going, why am I doing this? It seems like we're not getting any better. It just keeps getting worse. So it is.

It is definitely a challenging space. And I. And I have, you know, the encouraging days and I have the less encouraging days. But. But overall, you know, I'm doing it.

I wouldn't be doing it if I thought it was completely hopeless. So.

So I'm encouraged again, like, sort of where I started, I'm encouraged by all the smart people that are putting energy into this and accepting it as a real problem. So whether that's, you know, people doing the science in it that I.

That I talk to on the show or whether that's people that are, you know, sort of doing things with these different organizations and these practical tools. So those are the things that give me the most hope that there's. It's. It's recognized as a problem and there's really smart people looking at it.

And, you know, I'm. I think where I struggle the most is that it's such a powerful. It's such a powerful thing with our human psyche that.

That worries me the most that, you know, and it's happened. This kind of division has occurred elsewhere. Like, we're like the. We're like the first country in the world of. The first.

First country in time, in all of history to suffer. Suffer this. So you know, we know that it can go sideways, and.

And that's one of the areas where people talk about maybe that's the way we get out of it. We hit some kind of a rock bottom. I don't know what rock bottom looks like for sure, but. But so. But that. That's where I have.

Have hope that people have looked at a lot of this, and we hopefully will be able to look at some of that history and realize, you know, I mean, one of the guests that I had on talked about, he's from Austria, and he talked about, you know, in Austria, interwar period in Austria, you know, they had division like this, and then people on both sides sat in jail together saying, maybe we should have been nicer to each other.

Jill will do that to you.

Yeah.

We both end up in the same place.

Exactly.

Well, Dave, thanks so much for what you do, and I appreciate the fact that you're in this space and that you're trying to be an encouraging voice in this space to give people a better perspective or a different perspective on. We.

We can find ways to find common ground and to talk with respect, because we don't want Thanksgiving to be a time where we can't be with each other because of our political views or our toxicities. So I appreciate anybody who's in this space trying their best to bring about healing and reconciliation.

Yeah. And I have some similar thoughts towards the work you're doing as well, Reverend.

Well, Dave, thank you so much. Have a great day.

You as well.