What if the root cause of America’s polarization isn’t just anger or partisanship — but the loss of a skill we’ve stopped practicing? On this episode, Nic Dunn speaks with R Street Institute VP of Public Affairs Sabrina Schaeffer to explore how the lost arts of debate, discourse, and civic engagement are essential to a thriving constitutional republic. Drawing from history and recent research, this conversation examines why the institutions that once taught the “muscle memory” of respectful disagreement have eroded — and how we can rebuild them. It’s a call to see disagreement not as a threat, but as a civic virtue worth reclaiming.
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