Consensus has driven and shaped cherished, enduring principles of democracies worldwide. As a nation, politics comes naturally to Americans, part of our heritage as independently minded people of all stripes. At the heart of this optimism is the acknowledgment that democracy, when functioning and adjusting where it should, has historically been the most powerful form of government because public deliberation and consultation provide all a stake in the nation's outcome.

Divisions over how to achieve economic equality, social justice, environmental responsibility, and law enforcement--among other critical issues--have undermined the consensus building that many citizens of democracies crave and should insist on with their elected officials. We must get beyond polarization in America because, simply put, polarization is isolation. The political strategy that seeks to divide, distract, and distort the truth in the hope that the ends of holding onto power justify the means of using fake outrage and critique without solutions only fosters eternal division and political nihilism.

This book is their guide to focused discussion of those key issues, and a process in which introducing historical precedents can help people understand how and why we must move past discord.

We can agree to disagree, but we can also agree to agree-to pressure our national legislatures to craft policies that allow America to thrive now and in the future, to harness the mandate provided by our consensus as it evolves, and to take communicative action together from it.

Carlos D. Torres, Ph.D., is a writer, seeker, and academic whose anthropological research is driven by big questions in the sweeping tale of human societal communication and transformation.