Two Friends – One Democrat & the Other Republican – Search for Common Ground
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In partisan times, what can a liberal writer and conservative veteran teach us about coming together?
We enjoyed this episode from 2020 and decided to share it again.
How far apart are we really? A liberal writer from Berkeley and a conservative military vet decided to explore that question together during a series of long road trips in an old Volvo. They drove through 44 states and on nearly twenty thousand miles of road and highways, meeting an extraordinary range of people along the way.
At a time of political gridlock and hyper-partisanship, Republican Jordan Blashek and Democrat Chris Haugh formed an unlikely friendship that blossomed, not in spite of, but because of their political differences.
The result of their road trips is the book Union: A Democrat, A Republican, and a Search for Common Ground. In this podcast episode, originally released in 2020, we discover what they learned about American politics, culture, civics, and our potential to find common ground.
Read the Original Episode Transcript
Ep. 10 – Two Friends – One Democrat & the Other Republican – Search for Common Ground
Jordan Blashek
Jordan Blashek is a businessman, military veteran, and attorney from Los Angeles, California. After college, Jordan spent five years in the US Marine Corps as an infantry officer, serving two combat tours overseas. He holds degrees from Yale Law School, Stanford Graduate School of Business, and Princeton University. Jordan is based in New York, where he invests in entrepreneurial efforts to grow the American middle class as a part of Schmidt Futures, a philanthropic initiative founded by Eric and Wendy Schmidt.
Christopher Haugh
Christopher Haugh is a writer from Kensington, California. After graduating with highest honors from the University of California, Berkeley, Chris attended Oxford University and started speechwriting as an intern in the Obama White House. He went on to join the U.S. Department of State’s Policy Planning Staff where he served as a speechwriter to the Secretary. In 2018, Chris graduated from Yale Law School where he was a Yale Journalism Scholar. Chris is based in the San Francisco Bay Area and New York.
