Braver Angels Book Club: "Union"

Book Club Topic:
Union: A Democrat, a Republican, and a Search for Common Ground (2020) by Jordan Blashek & Christopher Haugh

• Note: Unlike the Free Library events, this is not a lecture by the author. This is an online group discussion about the book.

Registering for the Online Event:
This is a FREE event; however, you will need to register for it. Go to the following Zoom link & fill out the registration form, and when you hit "register" you'll receive an email with a link to the Zoom meeting room 24 hours before the event starts:
https://braverangels-org.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJApdO-qpzgsGdZFNPcOthOL5Gwyv7nau0rF

What is "Braver Angels"?
Formerly known as "Better Angels", Braver Angels is an organization founded in 2016 to depolarize American politics through grassroots organizing. They do this primarily by hosting events for cross-partisan dialogue & civil debate. To learn more, go to https://braverangels.org/

Who is the Organizer for this Event?
Jennifer Livingston - jen@shiftmybiz.com

Who are Jordan Blashek & Christopher Haugh?
Jordan holds a J.D. from Yale Law School, an M.B.A. from Stanford Graduate School of Business, and a B.A. from Princeton University. Jordan served five years as an infantry officer in the United States Marine Corps, reaching the rank of captain. He commanded units during two combat deployments to the Middle East and Afghanistan from 2011 to 2013. He's currently based in New York, where he works for Schmidt Futures, a new philanthropic initiative created by American businessman and software engineer Eric Schmidt.

Christopher Haugh graduated from UC-Berkeley in 2012 with a B.A. in history. While at Berkeley, Chris served as a senior writer at The Daily Californian and as a senior editor on the Berkeley Political Review. Afterwards, he completed post-graduate studies at Oxford before serving as the speechwriting intern at the White House in 2013. He then joined the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff where he served as a speechwriter to Secretary John F. Kerry. In 2018, he graduated from Yale Law School where he was a Yale Journalism Scholar. He's a currently works as a writer based in San Francisco and New York.

What Should We Know About the Book?
In the year before Donald Trump was elected, Jordan Blashek, a Republican Marine, and Chris Haugh, a Democrat and son of a single mom from Berkeley, formed an unlikely friendship. Over the months, Jordan and Chris’s friendship blossomed as they explored their political differences. So they decided to hit the road in search of reasons to strengthen their bond in an era of strife and partisanship.

Their new book - Union - tells the story of their three-year adventure across 44 states and along nearly 20,000 miles of road to discover where the American experiment stands today. Jordan and Chris go from a Trump rally in Phoenix and the tear-gas-soaked streets outside; to the decks of a lobster trawler off the coast of Portland, Maine; to jazz clubs near the French Quarter of New Orleans; to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where former addicts painstakingly put their lives back together; to a state prison near Detroit, where inmates grapple with their imminent return to society.

A road narrative, a civics lesson, and an unforgettable window into one powerful friendship, Union will give readers an answer to one of the most pressing questions of our time: How far apart are we, really?

NOTE: You don't have to read the book prior to attending the discussion, but if you're interested in ways to have more productive political discussions, it's certainly worth your time.

For a basic overview, I'd suggest doing 2 things:
(1) Read this short except from the book at The Daily Beast:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-a-cross-country-road-trip-in-search-of-common-ground-went-south

(2) Listen to this 27-minute interview where Jordan & Chris discuss their epic road trip:
https://paw.princeton.edu/podcast/pawcast-jordan-blashek-09-journeys-find-common-ground

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